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taylorb
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ISCSI use specific link - failover only

I am setting up iSCSI on ESXi 6.7 (upgrading to 7 later this year).

I only have 2x10Gb links.   I would like to have it set up so that all network traffic defaults to Link A and all storage traffic defaults to Link B.  Both still having the option to failover if a link goes down. 

Given that you have to make 2 iSCSI Vmkernel ports and each can only have access to one adapter, how can I manage the two in an Active/Standby type configuration?

I understand how to do active/passive links for the rest of networking using active/standby nics on the vswitch. 

My main goal for this is to make sure that storage and network traffic do not interfere with each other unless there is a link failure.  If there is a better way to do this, I would love to hear it.

Thanks. 

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IRIX201110141
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Use a path policy like fixed and not mru or roundrobin.

Question: What kind of iSCSI san you have(Vendor/Model)?

Regards
Joerg

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taylorb
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Thanks for your reply.  I did iSCSI 10 years ago over 1 gig with Lefthand, but have been on straight FC since then.   This will be for a Nimble HF series. 

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IRIX201110141
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Nimble storage can be setup as single target/subnet with swISCSI binding and as multi subnet without the binding. You should use the 2nd. one. to archive your goal.

https://infosight.hpe.com/InfoSight/media/cms/active/public/tmg_HPE_Nimble_Storage_Deployment_Consid...

BUT.. i highly suggest to buy a 2nd. dual port 10G nic for 400 bucks and do a best practice setup. You spend $$$$$ on a SAN and 10G networking so a few more bucks doesnt make a difference.

Regards,
Joerg

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taylorb
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BUT.. i highly suggest to buy a 2nd. dual port 10G nic for 400 bucks and do a best practice setup. You spend $$$$$ on a SAN and 10G networking so a few more bucks doesnt make a difference.

It's not a "few" bucks because I have to buy a second set of Datacenter class switches to have the ports, as well as the pile of NIC.   Would be more like $50K+   And you'd be surprised how cheap the Nimble was... Smiley Happy

For what I'm running on this, 2x10Gbe bandwidth for both storage and networking should be about double the peak usage. 

And, thanks for the valuable information.  I appreciate it. 

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