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Re: P4300 G2 with iscsi setup

 
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Navaneeda
Regular Advisor

P4300 G2 with iscsi setup

I have a server with 6 network cards. i want to connect this to iscsi storage p4300 G2.
What is the best recommendations for configuring the vsphere ?? Can i use the below config ??

2 Nic - VM network / Service Console
3 Nic - Vmkernel Iscsi traffic
1 Nic - Vmotion

Do i need to assign a ip address for the VMkernel iscsi network card ??

From the switch side netowrk connectivity .... can i connect server network cable port+storage network cable port in a separate vlan ???

or is there any best recommendations for creating VLAN in switch for iscsi traffic ??
2 REPLIES 2
teledata
Respected Contributor

Re: P4300 G2 with iscsi setup

You need an IP address for every VM kernel (1 for vmotion, and one for each iSCSI path). As vSphere 4 supports Multipath You will probably want 4 vmkernels (1 for vmo, and 1 for each nic in your vmkernel vSwitch). This would use 3 active iSCSI vmkernels for storage traffic, and 1 dedicated vMotion kernel

Here's a highly simplified recommendation for iSCSI switching:

1) Best - Separate dedicated iSCSI physical switch infrastructure

2) Good - Dedicated VLAN just for iSCSI traffic

3) Poor - Jam all networks into 1 logical switch and hope for the best
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Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: P4300 G2 with iscsi setup

Just to add to this a little...

VMware best practice would be to separate out all of your different services (Service Console, VM Networks, vKernels, etc). Obviously you need to make some acceptions based on the available hardware.

6 nic's will work, but 8 would be "Best Practice"

I would configure...

2 nics: Service Console / VM networks
2 nics: vKernel for iSCSI
2 nics: vKernal for vMotion

This configuration would only require 4 IP Addresses. 1 for the Service Console, 1 for vMotion and 2 for iSCSI.

"Do i need to assign a ip address for the VMkernel iscsi network card ??"

Yes.

"From the switch side netowrk connectivity .... can i connect server network cable port+storage network cable port in a separate vlan ???"

Yes.

"or is there any best recommendations for creating VLAN in switch for iscsi traffic ??
"

Yes. Typically, whay I have seen anyway, is you would set up the vlan for jumbo frames.

Performance is going to be effected by the switches you are using. Some switches have features others don't and are better suited for iSCSI traffic.


Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
MCSE (NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3)
VCP (ESX2, Vi3, vSphere4, vSphere5, vSphere 6.x)
RHCE
NPP3 (Nutanix Platform Professional)