MSA1510i iSCSI Configuration

[Alexander Straub]

Has anybody a iSCSI Sample Configuration for me because i am new in the MSA iSCSI field. I want to make a redundant SAN Configuation over iSCSI protocal for 4 Windows 2003 Servers (non Cluster). How can a IP configuration for this szenario can look?

[Allan D'Souza]

If you can launch the a IE browser to your Management port, it should bring up the Storage Management Utility (SMU). If you have not configured any targets or storage units, you should see the "Wizard" tab and it will guide you through a very basic configuration process. You can all 4 servers have access to different luns on the same target created through the Wizard. Once you get more familiar with iSCSI terminology you can create your own targets and bind luns to each.

[Kaj Laursen]

Hi Alexander

There are, in my opinion, primarily one thing that makes the IP configuration a bit difficult, and that's that there are no dedicated management interface.

I don't know the "perfect" configuration would be - the manual is a bit vague in my opinion. But I can describe how I did it.

I use 3 networks in the configuration, one for management, two for iSCSI traffic. VLAN 16 (10.1.16.0/24) for management, VLAN 64 (10.1.64.0/24)and VLAN 65 (10.1.65.0/24) for iSCSI traffic. The two VLANs 64 and 65 are not routed.

On the MSA, one controller gets IP in VLAN 64, the other in 65. The management port is defined with ip in VLAN 16, tagged with VLAN 16. The iSCSI ports are untagged.

On the network switch, the ports attached to the port on the MSA with management should be set to trunk (.1q), with default VLAN 64 and 65 respectively, and allowed VLAN 16 and 64/16 and 65 respectively. (reason for this below) The rest of the ports are set to static access in VLAN 64 or 65.

The servers gets two NICs with IP's in each VLAN, so they have paths to both controllers. When you have created the targets, add each target portal to the server, each time going to "advanced" and selecting the source IP. This is important, because even though there is only one path to each target portal, the MS initiator will not correctly create the redundant connections unless you specifically makes sure it uses each path.

In the network configuration it's important that you try to limit the traffic that hits the NICs on the MSA as much as possible. This is not only because of performance, but also because a broadcast storm that hits the MSA could cause it to crash. So make sure the all VLANs on the MSA is as quiet as possible. This is also the reason it's important to not only allow the right VLANs on the .1q interfaces, but specifically deny other VLANs.

I hope this helps you get further. Please ask if you have further questions. I think I have tried every possible error/problem with my MSA 1510i, so I have some experience :-)

Mvh.,

Kaj S. Laursen
AU-HIH

[Alexander Straub]

Thank you for your feedback. This helped me for the first installation. I have everything installed without vlan's. Now i have a problem with windows 2000 server on two msa installations. I have created a target and mapped a lun to this target. On the windows 2000 server i have installed ms iscis initiator and connected to the msa target. no problem so far. In the disk management i can see a new volume with the correct size. then i create a new partition and format it with ntfs. The problem now is, that when i look on the formated partition i can see 0 byte free. when i connect the same lun to a windows 2003 server everything works fine.

[Allan D'Souza]

Make sure you have Service Pack 4 installed with Windows Server 2000.

[Alexander Straub]

I have found the problem. You may not use rdp client to administrate the the server and create a disk in disk manager. there is an known error reported at microsoft. I have made the configuration at the windows 2000 server console at everything worked all right. I hope i can help someone with this comment.