IBM DS3400 direct attach

[jpmfresno]

Will i be able to do vmotion if I'm fiber direct attached (no fabric) to ESX 3.01 server? The san guide says you can't share LUNs with this setup? Is there any type of work-around?

Thanks

[mreferre]

Technically it will work... it's just a matter of official support.

Apparently there are border-line situations where a full switched environment is a must but I have seen customers using DS4xxx equipment with direct connections and they did not have any problem.

Massimo.

[davidbarclay]

I've seen DS4xxx work direct attached too, but I've also seen it fail.

Also, in other F_Port to F_Port setups I have seen ESX boots take 20 minutes (the log gets full with port negotiations).

There must be a reason VMware don't support it, so I don't recommend it for anything but testing environments.

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

This IBM redbook makes a reference on page 122/123 as to why it is not supported; http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246434.pdf .

The paper is for ESX 2.1, but it's still the case that it is not supported for 3.0.

http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/tac9567.pdf