vSphere iSCSI initiator question

[76dragon]

Looking throught the San configuration guide and looking at the iSCSI section, it shows now how you can create a port group per single NIC and them add them both to the built in iscsi initiator for two paths to the storage array, unlike 3.5 which only ever showed 1 path.

My question is related to the guide which specifies that each port group must be connected to a seperate network segment e.g 10.1.1.x and the other on say 10.1.2.x, i remember there is a reason for this but im wondering if someone can remind me. Also If they are both on the same segment am I not going to get true load balancing ?

Help appreciated.

Thanks

[AndreTheGiant]

If you have 2 networks, and 4 targets (for example with AX4-i) you can use default multipath.

If you have 1 network (for example with Equallogic) you have to follow the ESX4 installation guide, create 2 vmkernel on the same vSwitch and bind (using command line) each vmkernel to a NIC. Then you can use round robin load balancing.

Andre