Question about iSCSI, MD3000i, and ESXi host

[Protoform-X]

My company has a collocated ESXi host that's connected directly to an MD3000i via iSCSI. It seems a little strange to me that its setup this way since there are two iSCSI connectors on the SAN. Ideally I'd like to have some redundancy and be able to add several more host machines in the future.

I'm curious if there's a way to team/load balance the iSCSI host ports on the MD3000i. My vision would be to have both of the iSCSI host ports plugged directly into my gigabit switch running over their own VLAN. I could then connect any number of ports to my ESXi host(s) as long as they were on the same VLAN as my iSCSI traffic? If one connection was severed, there would be little to no down time. Is this possible, and if so what do I need to do to make it happen?

 

[geiger]

ESXi can have redundant paths(active/passive) to the iSCSI target. How many network interfaces are on the ESXi server?

 

[Protoform-X]

Unfortunately only two. Would I be able to split the iSCSI traffic from the other traffic by using a VLAN?

 

[cymon]

If the server's OS supports VLAN tagging, and the NIC drivers support dot1q encapsulation then you could configure two ethernet interfaces running over the NIC, one would be tagged as your VLAN with internet access, the other would be tagged as your iSCSI VLAN. Not sure how ESXi supports VLAN tagging, it should be set up as a vSwitch feature, however, you know what happens when you assume. Put the switch into vlan trunk mode (dot1q encap).

I hope I've learned a little since the good old TAUniverse days.

 

[Protoform-X]

Yes, ESXi supports VLAN tagging on its virtual switches. I'm more interested in knowing if my idea is possible, best practice, and maybe some documentation on implementing it. I'm also worried about the configuration on the MD3000i and if its even possible to team the iSCSI host ports. I know that the MD3000i isn't the best SAN out there, but I'd really like to make the most of it.

 

[vertices]

Funny. I just performed a whack and reload last night for a client moving them from ESX 3.5 to ESXi 4.0. This was on 2 hosts connected to an MD3000i with dual controllers setup exactly as Dell recommends.

The recommendation for redundancy is to have dual controllers on the MD3000i. Sounds like you only have 1 as each controller has 3 ports (1 mgmt port and 2 iSCSI ports).

the MD3000i does run those 2 ports in Active/Active but it really only passes traffic across one of them at a time so you're only going to get 1Gbps from each controller, and only 1 controller is active at a time.

So you should have 2 controllers with 2 iSCSI ports each. Then you take 2 dedictated iSCSI switches. Take 1 of the 2 ports from each controller and take it to each switch. Then do the same thing from ESX host, going to both switches.

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/pvault_esx_storage_deployment_guide_v1.pdf
Page 5


No VLANS required at all. Not needed for such a small deployment with a dedicated iSCSI network. You will have a dedicated iSCSI network as highly recommended right?

Or you could just stick with 1 controller, but still take it to 2 switches and send each host to each switch.

 

[vertices]

I just realized you are the same guy I was talking to in the MSP thread. We seem to have a lot in common lol!

 

[Protoform-X]

Thanks for the document. I'd love to have a separate HA network for the iSCSI traffic, but there's no way I'll be given a budget to make changes. I'll have to work with what's already there. It looks like there's no reason I can't just use a VLAN like I was hoping for.

It looks like we both have similar work lives.. Poor us.