ESXi

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  • 1.  Newbee Q Boot image from SAN via ethernet?

    Posted Mar 07, 2011 10:10 PM

    Hi All,

    No experience with this hence the question:

    Not sure if this is possible - I'm told it is, but I'm sceptical...

    We have an IBM DS4400 (FastT700) FC SAN set up with fibre connections to two host controller boxes running windows 2008 with Emulex PL1000 cards.

    We want to try and boot VM images from a partition on the SAN. Can we have VSphere (ESXi 4.1) on x3650 servers connnect to LUNs via ethernet 'through' these FC connected host machines?

    I see documentation on how to setup a connection to a SAN where the host hardware contains FC installed cards. Is there some middleware software (iSCSI) that will let me do this from the hypervisor through to the Windows 2008 connected boxes? 

    I suspect this can only be done using FC HBA's in the 3650's connecting directly via FC switch (zoning?) to the FastT700 controller?

    let me know if this is not clearly explained. I'm trying to figure it out in my mind as I go along\learn.

    Thanks



  • 2.  RE: Newbee Q Boot image from SAN via ethernet?
    Best Answer

    Posted Mar 07, 2011 10:48 PM

    ESXi 4.1 can boot from SAN - iSCSI, FCoE, and Fibre Channel. If the Windows servers can be set up as iSCSI targets it should be possible. You would need to add the iSCSI target software. Starwind, iSCSIcake,  and others provide that capability. If the OS is Windows Storage Server then that ability is built in to the OS.



  • 3.  RE: Newbee Q Boot image from SAN via ethernet?

    Posted Mar 08, 2011 04:40 AM

    Light bulb! Thanks David that's the direction I needed - the server are running 2008 R2 so that's easy to create iSCSI targets on them.

    So I would assume that I'd set up LUNs on the SAN and populate these with bootable OS images of the VM's I want. Then in vSphere point to those targets.

    Nice. Thanks again.

    Barry