MS Iscsi initiator within Windows OS

[ev89pimp]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of designing our backup and SAN access settings for our file server on an ESX 3.5 box.. So far, I'm opting to place the C drive of the Win2k3 Enterprise file server on a VMFS volume that resides on the SAN, but am still on the fence on how to set up the Data drive... I currently have the Data drive mapped as an RDM in the guest OS, but I would like to utilize the SAN snapshot ability of my Equallogic SAN, which as far as I can tell, requires the Microsoft ISCSI initiator to connect to the volume.

Does anyone know how I can tell Windows NOT to use the interface used by the ISCSI initiator for anything other than ISCSI initiator traffic? I always get weary of multihoming Windows boxes as I sometimes see traffic coming out of unexpected interfaces.

Does anyone have BTDTs regarding a backup process? We utilize Symantec Backup Exec 11d and am interesting in utilizing VCB and/or the backup proxy to make the backups more efficient. Currently, I perform backups using the Backup Exec agent installed on the Guest OS, but would expect the performance to be better if I was using a backup proxy and just mounting the file server snapshots on my Backup Exec server and backup directly from the SAN.

Any info would be great.

Thanks!

Elvis

[ctfoster]

Does anyone know how I can tell Windows NOT to use the interface used by the ISCSI initiator for anything other than ISCSI initiator traffic? I always get weary of multihoming Windows boxes as I sometimes see traffic coming out of unexpected interfaces.

Removing the "Client for Microsoft Networking" from that interface would go a long way!

[happyhammer]

On the nic card you are using for iSCSI traffic ensure MS Networking and MS file/print are unticked, also ensure register in DNS is unticked and disable netbios over tcp/ip. Highly recommended that iSCSI is on seperate VLAN

EQL comes with the toolkit which is installed into a windows 2003 guest and can then instruct the SAN to perform a snapshot and/or quiesc SQL and then snapshot This can be further enhanced using Backup Exec 11D which will

1. Create the SAN snapshot

2. Backup SAN snapshot to disk or tape

3. Delete SAN snapshot

There is a white paper on the EQL website showing how to configure this whole process

[happyhammer]

http://www.equallogic.com/resources/technicaldocumentsview.aspx?id=364

you will need to register/login

[ev89pimp]

Thanks. I'll ensure I disable those additional networking settings on the iscsi vlan... hopefully, I can prevent other apps from inadvertently trying to use the IP address for requests, but I think your answer and the previous member's answer are a good starting point.

Thanks!

E