Configure traffic for ISCSI

[danielmitu0409]

Hello everyone,

I have the following configuration in my environment:

- 4 ESXI that have 3 vmks (1 for management, 1 for Vmotion and one for VSAN)

- one ISCSI datastore

- in this moment the traffic to ISCSI is going through the vmk management that is going through a gateway and somehow there is a bottleneck.

I want to add a new VLAN that will be used for ISCSI traffic, a direct connection from ESXI to ISCSI datastore ( I don't want that the traffic go through the gateway) and leave the management vmk only for management.

I search on the web and found that:

- I need to have a new VLAN with new IPs.

- need to add a static route on the ESXI to the datastore IP. I saw that the datastore has 2 IPs.

Is there anything that I need to do ?

Can someone point me to any documentation on how I need to implement the new setup ?

Thanks

[wsasaramago]

Hello there!

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.html.hostclient.doc/GUID-4D0E250E-4F8C-4F86-81C1-EC9D317CE02E.html

 

Try this.

 

Good Luck.

[Tibmeister]

I'm assuming you want to use the vmkernel that you are using for vSAN to also transport iSCSI traffic from the backend storage to the host.  vSAN should already be on it's own non-routed subnet, but since you have iSCSI traffic going out the gateway, I'm thinking that you have the vmkernel interfaces all in the same subnet/VLAN, which is the crux of the issue.

Create a new subnet/VLAN and do not route it at all.  Then, assign an interface on the iSCSI storage to that subnet, and also the vmkernel you want to use for storage.  Since it's not routed, it won't be in the route table for vMotion or Management, and since it's in the same subnet as the vmkernel you are using for storage, ESXi will use that interface to move the traffic.

[danielmitu0409]

Hello Tibmeister,

I don;t want to use the vmkernel used for VSAN. I want to use a new VMkernel adapter. In this moment I am using a software adapter for ISCSI and I think after creating the new VMkernel with the new VLAN I need to reconfigure the ISCSI Software adapter.

THe new route for ESXI hosts should be added:

esxcli network ip route ipv4 add -gateway THE_GATEWAY_FOR_THE_NEW_VLAN -network NETWORK_OF_DATASTORE

Am I right ?

Thanks,

Daniel

[Tibmeister]

Adding a new vmkernel works very nicely, I would still provision a new subnet that’s non-routed for iSCSI and avoid messing with routes on the ESXi hosts.