iSCSI Network Design

[jeffoutwest]

Hello,

I have been reading the Best Practices guides and becoming familiar with VAAI vStorage API for Array Integration, but remained unclear on two designs I am currently working on. Can someone provide suggestions to the following configurations? Thanks, -Jeff

CONFIG A

ESX 3.5

Two nic ports available for iSCIS traffic on the physical servers

iSCSI server - NetApp 2040 - two controllers - each controller only sees the LUNS on that controller

Each controller has two nics configured in a VIF

Cisco 24 port switch in between configured for Jumbo Frames and native VLANS

Question-- should two seperate vSwitches be created on seperate networks for fail-over, or shold the nics be teamed?

If the nics are teamed are they active-active, active-standby?

CONFIG B

ESX 4.1

Up to six nic ports available for iSCIS traffic on the physical servers

iSCSI server - EMC 480, two controllers, flair level to support VAAI

Each controller can see all LUNS

Each contreller will have four nics configured in two VIFS

Cisco 48 port switch in between configured for Jumbo Frames and native VLANS

No idea what this config shoud be to support high availabilty and multi-pathing (is multi-pathing supported in this config?)

[Andy_Banta]

CONFIG A

Question-- should two seperate vSwitches be created on seperate networks for fail-over, or shold the nics be teamed?

If the nics are teamed are they active-active, active-standby?

NIC teaming would probably be a better bet, here, with active-active. You won't actually see a lot of load balancing across the two NICs, but a little doesn't hurt. If you configure your teaming policy based on destination IP address and have your storage ports numbered sequentially, you'll have the best case of using both the ports.

CONFIG B

ESX 4.1

Use iSCSI multipathing. Here's a good blog post on how to best use it with a Clariion. FLARE 30 is due out soon and takes care of this limitation, so you can use iSCSI multipathing as described in the iSCSI SAN Config Guide.

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/08/important-note-for-all-emc-clariion-customers-using-iscsi-and-vsphere.html

Andy

[jeffoutwest]

Thanks for the quick reply Andy,

One quick follow up quesiotns. Can you clarify what you mean by :

. . . and have your storage ports numbered sequentially

-Jeff

[Andy_Banta]

Can you clarify what you mean by :

. . . and have your storage ports numbered sequentially

Yeah. I meant have the IP addresses be sequential.

10.1.1.24

10.1.1.25

10.1.1.26

etc.

This way, using the destination IP address as the teaming algorithm gives you a better spread across the ports. If your storage ports were all even numbered addresses, using a two-NIC team would always end up using the same port.

That's all I meant.

Andy

[jeffoutwest]

thanks for the clarification Andy.