Is it supported to use software and hardware iscsi initiators both from single esxi host

[samkitshah]

I am in process to build a best practice reference configuration for my datacenter and wanted to leverage multiple iscsi initiators(Software and hardware) to access single target array. I would like to know if this is a supported configuration or not.

Also, is using multiple hardware initiators to access same target a supported configuration?

[kermic]

Using different vendor's (for sake of simplicity let's refer VMware as a vendor for SW iSCSI initiator) initiators to access the same LUN is not supported. You'll have problems with path failover.

AFAIK it is supported to have different initiators (i.e. qlogic and emulex iSCSI HBAs) on the same host as long as they're not used to access the same LUN(s).

Different HBA models from the same manufacturer should be OK since they normally talk to each other in "same language" however this should be checked with the vendor.

WBR

Imants

[vmroyale]

Hello and welcome to the communities.

This is not supported - see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1012279