Vsphere 5.x configuration with MSA2040 - Multipathing

[PhillipPalmer]

I have posted this hoping someone can sanity check my configuration and offer me some assistance.

The problem i am finding or have misinterpreted is that all my traffic appears to only ever utilise one port on the MSA and never load balances.

All the Datastores added only ever have one path that references the same IP address.

Have i configured something incorrectly?

The following configuration is based on the following, which is a subset of our IT infrastructure

Dev81 - HP DL380 G5, Intel E5440 @ 2.83GHz, 64GB RAM, HP NC522SFP Dual Port 10GbE Adapter

2 x MSA2040 iSCSI arrays = Both management ports configured on Admin Vlan ID 1000, Controller A 10GBbE Ports 1 + 2 connected and Controller B 10 GbE Ports 1 + 2 connected. (These are all on the same Storage Vlan, cross connected on 2 Core switches.

I have posted some pictures showing my configuration that hopefully will explain the detail;

Vswitch Config

iSCSI Kernel Configs

Port Bindings

Dynamic Discovery of MSA Targets

iSCSI Software Adapter Path Details

iSCSI Software Adapter Device Details

Example of Managed Path for a Datastore presented from MSA

MSA2040 - Only using one port

[gallycool]

Hello Palmer,

Please check the compatibility of storage with the current version of host and also check the supported PSP model from the below link.

VMware Compatibility Guide: Storage/SAN Search

Please let me know if you need any information on this.

Thanks

Sam

[DanielOprea]

Hi,

Please check this manuals: http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4aa4-7060enw.pdf  and  http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4AA4-6892ENW.pdf?ver=1.0

And a question, because in the ISCSI1 and ISCSI2 you have only one active network card? Why not put the 2 active go to that level balancing ESXi ??

Regards

Daniel

[PhillipPalmer]

Hi

Thanks for the reply.

The reason there is one active nic per Iscsi kernel is to take advantage of port binding which i believe is best practice when SAN traffic is one subnet only.

VMware KB: Considerations for using software iSCSI port binding in ESX/ESXi

[gallycool]

Hello Pamer,

Yes, it is best practice to keep one NIC as unused for each port group to do port binding.

Thanks

Sam

[gallycool]

Hello Palmer,

Please provide me the details of make and model of storage.

Thanks

Sam

[PhillipPalmer]

HP MSA 2040 SAN DC SFF Storage 10GBe iSCSI - C8R15A

Dual Controller - 2x 10GBe ports per controller connected

[PhillipPalmer · Accepted solution]

Problem resolved and a massive forehead slap.

The network switch ports for the non-working ports on the MSA were not configured with the correct vlan id.

Once this was corrected and the adapters rescanned, the paths were visible and traffic could be seen on all ports.