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How To Use HP DSM For More Than 1 Server NIC

 
ChristmasGT
Occasional Contributor

How To Use HP DSM For More Than 1 Server NIC

Hey Guys,

 

Over the course of my working with this SAN, I've found a way to get the HP DSM to work with multiple NIC's in a Round Robin Fashion as well as propigate the contacts for each node that people may or may not find useful.  

 

It's actually a fairly simple process that I've been doing on Server 2008 R2 (works on Standard 2008 as well).  

 

1) After installing the HP DSM, create the multiple connections to your target with the Initiator IP and check the "Enable Multi-Path" box for each one in the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator.

 

Normally, the HP DSM will only find the nodes for 1 NIC and not use the other's that you've provided, to bypass this follow up to step 2.

 

2) Click start, then right click "Computer" and click manage & Navigate to disk management.

 

3) Browse to the newely added iSCSI drive and then right click the area where the disk number is (example: Disk 1 or so on) and select properties.

 

4) Select the "MPIO" tab

 

5) Click the "Select the MPIO Policy" box and choose "Round Robin", then click "Apply" and "OK".  It'll throw up an "unknown error has occured." prompt for each selection, but just click ok.

 

Give the HP DSM a few minutes and then navigate back to the initator where your target is and you should now have the appropriate number of Connections to each node from each NIC instead of it using just 1.  If you want to go back to the HP Only DSM, just navigate back to Step 5 and select "Vendor Specific" MPIO Policy.

 

Doing multiple tests seems to drastically improve my througput and the network monitor shows that each NIC that I've assigned is being used evenly, so this could be useful for someones test environment.  If there's enough interest I would be glad to make a tutorial document this week.