is the HP Insight software Accelerated iSCSI suitable for production?

[sugar_2]

Hi, I just noticed that I received from my hardware vendor a couple of DL380G6 servers with these non-iSCSI network cards:
- HP NC382iDP
- HP NC360T

Well, that is really bad, since I need to setup a cluster for production using the MSA 2012i as a shared storage and none of my server's network cards are iSCSI compatibles, can please give me and advice what will be more recommended to do?

* Option A - Purchase a iSCSI enabled network cards like HP NC380T, or HP NC382T.

* Option B - Buy the "HP Insight software Accelerated iSCSI Pack for Embedded Multifunction server adapters" that claims to make the HP NC382iDP compatible with iSCSI...

Is that software really reliable and good performance for production? or should I go and purchase the proper cards anyway?

thanks again !! =)

Aldo

[Uwe Zessin]

The NC360T is supported with the MSA2012i - it just can't do hardware iSCSI, but should work with the software iSCSI initiator.

[sugar_2]

The manual "HP ProLiant Accelerated iSCSI for Windows c00577553.pdf" says: -The iSCSI Devices tab lists all HP NC-Series Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapters that are iSCSI enabled.


Mi problem is that in my servers, the HP NCU don't shows any of those cards as iSCSI enabled, please take a look at my HP NCU screenshots... does that means that I just can't use my cards as iSCSI?

[Emil Velez]

There are two types of GIGE lan cards

One that also has ISCSI firmware and a additional MAC address to support ISCSI in hardware.

A regular GIGE lan card that does not support ISCSI will do ISCSI in software using the windows (or whatever your OS is) ISCSI initiator. The ISCSI traffic and Lan traffic will share the same mac id.

Thats the difference. I have done ISCSI with the DL380 built in lan cards with ISCSI fine.