Correct setup for P4500 multipathing

[dlawrence]

Hello, hoping someone can point me in the right direction, I have inherited a Storevirtual P4500 SAN which consists of 4 systems in a cluster.  The cluster is set up with a VIP for ISCSI access.  By my logic, this means that all ISCSI access takes place over a single subnet and to a single target (The VIP) and all traffic hits the system with the active VIP and not the other three?  With other multipath designs I have looked at we have used two diverse multipath networks and used multiple IP targets on the arrays to provide multiple diverse paths.  Is the setup I have inherited correct HP best practice?  It seems that all traffic is being forced to one of four systems which surely cant be efficient?

 I've checked the HP best practice guides and they dont seem to clarify.

Thanks

[Juragui]

You are correct.  The VIP is the only target, but the VIP will then balance the load between all the nodes.

The first communication will be to the VIP, then the VIP will assign the session/volume access to one of the four nodes.  After that, all the communication for that volume will be to the assigned node.  The assigned node is called the Gateway Connection.  As long as you have 'load balance' enabled when you set up your Servers in CMC, you will balance the sessions between all the nodes in the cluster.

Please see page 219 of the user guide:

http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=4118659&docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-c05049834