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TimTool
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VMware iSCSI VMNics

Hi All,

We recently purchased a IBM DS3524 which has 8 host interfaces x4 Controller A and x4 Controller B. Our current ESX environment has been setup to use 2 VMKernals with x2 nics - both kernels on different subnets. We have also binded the ports as VMWare recommendations

VKernel.JPGVKernelBinding.JPG

We would like to preemp the need to add extra nics to help with the load - x2 VMKernel 01 and x2 VMKernel 02.

Is this possible and what is the best way to do this? I have read through a few forums which talk about it but struggling to find an example

Thanks in advance

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kjb007
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The separate subnets are not really needed anymore, now that you can bind interfaces to vmnics.  In this scenario, you bind vmkernel interfaces to vmnics, on the same subnet as your storage.  Once that's done, you can choose to round-robin your paths to your iSCSI LUNs and use each interface.

The same process to add additoinal NICs to the vSwitch and configure IP and bind vmnic is used for 2 as it is for more than that.

See here if you need guidance:  http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-storage...

-KjB

vExpert/VCP/VCAP vmwise.com / @vmwise -KjB

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proden20
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What do you think of this VMWare blog post?

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2011/12/nic-teaming-iscsi-binding.html

I found this comment to be enlightening:


"There are  two reasons why binding is preferable over NIC teaming. The first is  failover - additional SCSI sense codes/errors will initiate a failover  to an alternate path when you use binding.
The second reason is to do with load balancing. Using IP hashing, I/O  will be balanced on a per target basis for sure. But what if you have  one extremely busy target and another lightly used target. IP hashing  won't help you too much there. With binding, you can set up a Round  Robin path policy (assuming your array supports it), and benefit from a  more granular load balancing mechanism."

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kjb007
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The separate subnets are not really needed anymore, now that you can bind interfaces to vmnics.  In this scenario, you bind vmkernel interfaces to vmnics, on the same subnet as your storage.  Once that's done, you can choose to round-robin your paths to your iSCSI LUNs and use each interface.

The same process to add additoinal NICs to the vSwitch and configure IP and bind vmnic is used for 2 as it is for more than that.

See here if you need guidance:  http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-storage...

-KjB

vExpert/VCP/VCAP vmwise.com / @vmwise -KjB
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