VMware 6 and iSCSI with LACP

[jalbou]

hello,

I'm currently trying to setup an LACP (LAG) for my iSCSI Storage under VMware 6

On the Network side I have sucessfully setup my LACP (trunk) from my HP switch as described :

On vCenter side I created a LAG group and assign my 2 vmnic uplink in this LAG as described and I attach a VMkernel iSCSI porgroup  :

There is my actual Network teaming and failover options to my ISCSI portgroup :

I still have this non compliance check for my portgroup during adding it to my software ISCSI Adapter , it say that my physical network adapter selected is no associated to a VMkernel adapter with a valid network teaming and failover rule. The VMkernel adapter mus have the an active uplink and any standby uplink

How can I specify the LAG group on my iSCSI adapter ?

Any hint ?

Thank you

[Marmotte94]

Hi,

Did you setup your VMHBA ?

Configure > Storage Adapters

Thank you

[jalbou]

Hello,

Yes it it, when I setup my iSCSI HBA with 1 uplink ( no LAG) it work a charm and I have any compliant vmkernel issue. When I setup with the lag (last picture) I have this issue.

Do I have to setup something specific for LAG and iSCSI Software adapter ?

[Marmotte94]

Hi,

Can you verify with LLDP or CDP protocol if your uplink are up on the good port as you want.

Thank you,

[Marmotte94]

Hi,

I found this video Creating a Link Aggregation Group with vSphere 5.5 and LACP - YouTube

Thank you,

Olivier.

[jalbou]

LLDP is fully activated on needed vmnic, please see below :

The problem seems to be that the iSCSI Software storage doesnt handle LAG group as un object, that I know in VDS 5.5 LACP was handled differently in the web GUI.

[Marmotte94]

Please verify on your dVswitch too and verify your configuration (Physical and virtual) with the video posted earlier.

All screens seems to be okay, but maybe you forgot something.

Thank you,

[SteveGalbincea]

May I ask why you are trying to use LACP for iSCSI? Generally, this is not how you set up networking for iSCSI, and most likely why you are having so much difficulty. You need to skip LACP and simply bind each physical NIC to the corresponding iSCSI vmk in a 'one to one' manner and let the software initiator handle the balancing.

Chris Wahl wrote a good article on the subject here: Avoid LACP with iSCSI Port Binding or Multi-NIC vMotion - Wahl Network

[galbitz_cv]

I just wanted to re-iterate what steve said. You should not use LACP when working with ISCSI. You should bind multiple adapters to the iscsi storage adapter and then adjust your policy to use round robin between each adapter. Generally speaking for fast storage you want to further adjust your round robin policy to 1 iops per adapter so that it actively switches between adapters. This can vary between storage vendors though.