ESXi

Greetings,

Just wonder anyone could shed me some lights on this?

Does esxi v4 supports multi-host access to a single lun? Reason behind this is I want to consolidate luns based on roles (exch,file,etc), ie, one lun(datastore) will host all exch servers that running on different hosts.

Thanks in advane. :smileyhappy:

Felix

Hi,

yes y not....multi host access to iscsi lun is possible....thats what san / shared storage isa ll about. Just ensure that thhe iscsi luun u plan on using is in the supported compatibilityy list so that u get support from vmware in the future if you need it. ESX / ESXi have a  clustered file system.

TM

Thanks TM for the prompt reply!

Also does it work out of the box or need special tuning? Just to clarify we are running the hypervisor(free) version at the moment. Not sure whether the performance will be compromised by doing that or in another word is it something VMware recommended to do?

Thanks a lot.:smileyhappy:

Felix

I don't think performance will be compromised. Only think, some feature may not be enable (due to license)

good blog to read:

http://www.kevinnoall.com/blog/2011/03/31/esxi-free-version-limitations/

hi,

the esxi takes care of all of it pretty much ,   and there is no need for any special tuning as such...and also u must understand that the free version includes most of the features only thing is that managing it with VC is not possible uunless u buy the license.....but just to give u a heads up do not share the disk with too many esxi servers.....u may want to read the vmware doc on sharing luns to esxi servers....less than 7 esxi servers should be okay....but if u have a complex environment just read the docs on storage to see the sharing metrics...but if are operating with just 5 to 6 esxi servers there is no need to break ur head....only thing is that too many esxi sharing could cause scsi reservations thats not desirable.....there will be no performance issues if the no. of esxi in sharing mode is not very high and even the storage vendor has some guidelines on the no. of esx servers to be shared. You can read vmware recommendations in this doc: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_iscsi_san_cfg.pdf

Its much appreciated Guys ! It really helps.

Felix