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jkgraham
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Simultanious iSCSI (Software Initiator) and QLogic HBAs

We are migrating from an iSCSI SAN to a fiber channel SAN. Plan is to configure the fiber channel SAN. Present the storage to ESX and migrate the VMs from iSCSI to fiber channel. The VMs will be shutdown before they are moved. Our SAN vendor thinks this will not be possible because ESX does not support datastores from iSCSI and Fiber Channel simultaneously. Is this true?

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virtualdud3
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Yes, you can have iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage running simultaneously in the same ESX server.

However, you can't have them both pointing to the same LUN.

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virtualdud3
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Yes, you can have iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage running simultaneously in the same ESX server.

However, you can't have them both pointing to the same LUN.

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jkgraham
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This is what I thought. We have been using iSCSI with NFS together for at least a year with no problems. Thanks for the reassurance.

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jkgraham
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Further info on this. Some of the virtual machines will have connections to the fiber channel LUNS (VMFS or RDM) and iSCSI LUNS (VMFS or RDM) at the same time. I don't see this as an issue but just want to throw it out there before I get started. Anyone doing this?

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virtualdud3
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Shouldn't be a problem.

Of course, you'll have to run an iSCSI initiator from within the VM.

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jkgraham
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Currently some of the VMs have RDMs to iSCSI LUNs that are presented to the ESX hosts. No software initiators are being used in the VMs themeseleves. The only software initiator is at ESX. This should not cause a problem correct?

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virtualdud3
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You are correct - if the VMs are accessing an iSCSI RDM, they won't need to run an initiator.

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