IBM DS3400 SAN and ESXi5.0

[Meierst]

HI all,

I apologise if this is not the correct forum to post.

I dont have a great deal of experience with IBM SANS , but have plenty with other vendors.

I am looking for , if it exists.

A best practise or guideline type manual (pdf etc) for connecting an IBM DS3400 dula controller SAN to esxi5.0.

Basically settings etc and any gotchas.

Again sorry if wrong forum.

Cheers in advance.

[dhabbetichandra]

I hope you know configurations at SAN side, Once you complete those configurations you need to configure ISCSI or FC adapaters at ESXi server.

Please go through following guide.

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-storage... 

[Meierst]

Thanks for the prompt reply.

As I said I am unfamilar with IBM SANS and I have been looking for info on the IBM DS3400 which is the SAN I need to connect and is an older active/passive SAN.

It is also a Fibre Channel dual controller model and I have the setup and layout info from IBM but no info on what should be done in VMware regarding this model of IBM SAN.

I am familar with other vendorts SANS but not IBM hence why I asked for info as there does not seem to a lot around on the DS3400.

I already have the article you provided but am unsure of its use in regards to the DS3400.

I am hoping someone with some DS3400 experience will reply and help fill in the blanks.

Cheers

Steve

[dhabbetichandra]

ok .. gotcha..then check this links

http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/operating-systems-and-server-administration/storage-systems/073...

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/systems/support/system_x_pdf/46m1394.pdf

above links may help you to configure your storage. 

[AndreTheGiant]

If you have a FC SAN you need to configure the switches and zoning (unless you use a DAS connection).

Plese look at IBM best practice for this kind of storage.

If you have previous experience with EMC AX or CX, is "quite similar".

[Meierst]

Thanks this had some good stuff and as a result found some more stuff from this

Cheers

Steve

[gparker]

According to the VMware HCL, the DS3400 is not compatible with ESXi 5.0 U1. Is this correct?

George.

[Gkeerthy]

DS3400 is supported in the esxi5 and it is not supported in the esxi5 U1

you can use at your risk, may be the advance features of the VMFS5 and VAAI features are not certified by vmware for esxi5u1.

first thing you need to check is, does the controller is active/active or active/passive and you can check in the ds3400 manual. Then see the below link to set the multipathing policy, for active/active it is round robin.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101134...

While zonig, With ESXi hosts, single-initiator-single-target zoning with FAN in and FAN out configuration. see the link for vsphere storage

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc_50%2FGUID-F602EB...

[gparker]

Great, thanks very much for confirming this so quickly

George.