ESXi and Windows Access to SAN

[icmccart]

Is it possible to have a physical Window servers and a ESXi server have access to a SAN at the same time? The reason I ask is before I setup ESXi all of my Windows servers were able to see the SAN in Disk Manager. After I setup a ESXi server to have access to that same SAN my Windows machines can't see it anymore but my ESXi server can. Will I need to setup iSCSI or is there some setting I have not configured?

All servers are hooked to an MSA1000 using fiber channel.

Thank.

[RParker]

Is it possible to have a physical Window servers and a ESXi server have access to a SAN at the same time

Yes, Fiber is agnostic about what HBA's are connected, it doesn't know 'Windows' or "ESX".

You can't connect to the SAME volume / LUN at the same time with different systems however.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. Are you trying to setup a cluster or something similar. If so you could use an RDP in physical compatability mode. See page 25 and following - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_mscs.pdf.

[icmccart]

I'm new to SAN technology so bare with me. What I was wanting to do was move my file shares to a LUN separate from the ESXi LUN on the SAN and give everyone access those shares so I could eliminate my file server but from the looks of things I can't do that??? So looks like I will have to migrate my physical file server to a VM on the SAN.

Currently I have 2 LUNs setup and they are both part of ESXi's datastore.

FYI - I'm using the free version of ESXi 4 and vSphere client.

Thanks

[RParker]

I have 2 LUNs setup and they are both part of ESXi's datastore.

Ah you have to create a NEW LUN, and point your VM Windows file server to that.

[icmccart]

Ok, but if I create a new LUN will my physical Windows servers see it or is my SAN now dedicated to ESXi? (The physical servers are connected to the SAN via fiber channel.)

It looks to me like my SAN is now dedicated to ESXi and I will have to created VM's to access the LUNs on it. If that's the case that's fine. I am just a little confused about how this works.

[RParker]

Ok, but if I create a new LUN will my physical Windows servers see it or is my SAN now dedicated to ESXi?

OK SAN is a device. That device has multiple purposes. The way you designate purpose is by setting up zones or masking (which is a type of security) and you divide up space and ASSIGN them to HBA by their WWN/WWP. so if you physical machine is attached via fiber than you need to configure A LUN that you give THAT HBA on that device access. So only that device (or many devices if you want to share it) can access that data.

By default most devices can ONLY have access to 1 LUN at a time, but ESX can share data, which is how you can have many ESX servers assigned to the same LUN by ID.

So you can still point your physical device to a LUN separate from LUNs assigned to ESX.

[icmccart]

That helps. I've run into the zones and masking terms before. Let me do some reading on the subject and see what I can find out.

Thanks for the help, things are a lot clearer now.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

When you create a datastore on a LUN with ESXi, it will format the LUN and you'll just be able to use it with VMs. But you can take a LUN and setup a Raw Device Mapping (RDM). In that case, the VM will have direct access to VM. With an RDM you could take a LUN that was used for data storage for a Windows server (and formatted with NTFS) and then assign that LUN to a VM. With an RDM the LUN would not be formatted, but the VM would see the raw storage and thus the existing NTFS data.

[icmccart]

I think what I'm going to do for now until I get more familar (or maybe even some training) with the SAN is keep the 2 LUNs along with the 2 datastores I created in ESXi and migrate my physical servers to VMs and store them on the SAN. Sounds like it's less complicated that way.