VMware vSphere

 View Only
  • 1.  Multipath problems with Dell MD3200i / T710

    Posted Oct 28, 2010 04:47 PM

    I'm having a problem with a Dell MD3200i and our new Dell T710 virtual server -

    it works, but performance is absolutely abysmal. Here's the

    details....

    Server is a T710, 4 onboard nics + a 4 port Intel Server NIC. Its

    running the latest update of ESXi 4.1 - right now it has 6 hosts on it,

    going to be 10 total (most are lightly loaded special purpose servers).

    Server is connected to the SAN by 4 cables direct from the 4 port Intel

    Server NIC to the 4 ports on the management controller

    We have 4

    drives (2TB SAS) in the SAN - not my first choice - but what the

    customer wanted. Array is set up as a RAID-10. We have 3 logical

    volumes - 2 TB, 1 TB, and 750 GB. Each is formatted as a VMFS

    datastore.

    I followed the instructions in the Dell whitepaper for

    setting up the MD3200 with ESX 4.1 and it doesn't appear we have

    multpathing working correctly. The VCenter Client is only showing 6

    paths usable - should be 12 total (3x volumes * 4 network cards).

    I've

    gone through the docs a handful of times, can't find anything that

    strikes me as an obvious problem. Below is the output of some of the

    commands in the documentation - if anything else would be helpful let me

    know. I feel like i'm running in to a brick wall here, any advice

    would be great!

    Thanks in advance....

    1. # esxcfg-nics -l
    ~ Name PCI Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address MTU Description vmnic0 0000:01:00.00 bnx2 Up 1000Mbps Full 00:25:64:fe:51:c1 1500 Broadcom Corporation Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T vmnic1 0000:01:00.01 bnx2 Down 0Mbps Half 00:25:64:fe:51:c3 1500 Broadcom Corporation Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T vmnic2 0000:02:00.00 bnx2 Down 0Mbps Half 00:25:64:fe:51:c5 1500 Broadcom Corporation Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T vmnic3 0000:02:00.01 bnx2 Down 0Mbps Half 00:25:64:fe:51:c7 1500 Broadcom Corporation Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5709 1000Base-T vmnic4 0000:83:00.00 igb Up 1000Mbps Full 00:1b:21:77:3b:08 9000 Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection vmnic5 0000:83:00.01 igb Up 1000Mbps Full 00:1b:21:77:3b:09 9000 Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection vmnic6 0000:84:00.00 igb Up 1000Mbps Full 00:1b:21:77:3b:0c 9000 Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection vmnic7 0000:84:00.01 igb Up 1000Mbps Full 00:1b:21:77:3b:0d 9000 Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection

    1. # esxcfg-swiscsi -q
    ~ Software iSCSI is enabled

    ~ # esxcfg-scsidevs -a vmhba0 ata_piix link-n/a sata.vmhba0 (0:0:31.2) Intel Corporation 2 port SATA IDE Controller (ICH9) vmhba1 mptsas link-n/a sas.5842b2b04cd6af00 (0:3:0.0) LSI Logic / Symbios Logic Dell SAS 6/iR Integrated vmhba32 ata_piix link-n/a sata.vmhba32 (0:0:31.2) Intel Corporation 2 port SATA IDE Controller (ICH9) vmhba33 iscsi_vmk online iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:spag-261d8287 iSCSI Software Adapter

    ~ # esxcfg-vmknic -l Interface Port Group/DVPort IP Family IP Address Netmask Broadcast MAC Address MTU TSO MSS Enabled Type vmk0 Management Network IPv4 10.100.101.251 255.255.255.0 10.100.101.255 00:25:64:fe:51:c1 1500 65535 true STATIC vmk1 iSCSI Network IPv4 10.100.102.20 255.255.255.0 10.100.102.255 00:50:56:74:38:cc 9000 65535 true STATIC vmk2 iSCSI Network 2 IPv4 10.100.102.21 255.255.255.0 10.100.102.255 00:50:56:7b:ce:6a 9000 65535 true STATIC vmk3 iSCSI Network 3 IPv4 10.100.102.22 255.255.255.0 10.100.102.255 00:50:56:75:19:70 9000 65535 true STATIC vmk4 iSCSI Network 4 IPv4 10.100.102.23 255.255.255.0 10.100.102.255 00:50:56:78:e8:66 9000 65535 true STATIC ~ # esxcfg-vswitch -l Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks vSwitch0 128 13 128 1500 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3 PortGroup Name VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks VM Network 0 7 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3 Management Network 0 1 vmnic0,vmnic3 Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks vSwitch2 128 9 128 9000 vmnic4,vmnic5,vmnic6,vmnic7 PortGroup Name VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks iSCSI Network 4 0 1 vmnic4 iSCSI Network 3 0 1 vmnic5 iSCSI Network 2 0 1 vmnic6 iSCSI Network 0 1 vmnic7



  • 2.  RE: Multipath problems with Dell MD3200i / T710

    Posted Oct 28, 2010 08:48 PM

    Are you positive that you have all of the iSCSI vmkernels associated with the iSCSI Software Initiator? To check:

    esxcli swiscsi nic list –d vmhba33

    Make sure that all 4 IP addresses of the MD3200i controller (I'm assuming a single controller?) are in the Dynamic Discovery tab for your software initiator. If those check out, can you post a screenshot of the paths that it shows in the GUI?