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We recently purchased an MD3000i and vSphere Essentials Plus. However, in working with Dell's prof. svcs to setup the MD3000i, I was told it is NOT compatible with ESXi 4.1. Thus, some of the new features (eg. vMotion) are unavailable. I'm getting mixed messages from both VMware and Dell on this, and wondering if anyone has successfully deployed this solution?
Thanks!
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You should have no problems using the MD3000i as an iSCSI target for your VMware cluster. We're using an MD3000i in one of our smaller sites for this very purpose.
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However, in working with Dell's prof. svcs to setup the MD3000i, I was told it is NOT compatible with ESXi 4.1.
Interesting, at least in the VMware HCL it is listed to be compatible with ESX(i) 4.1 with firmware version 07.35.22.61.
However there's a note "1. Contact Dell for additional information including supported array firmware versions."
see http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?device_cat=san&device_id=3586
André
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Interesting.. so you were able to connect to your MD3000i using ESXi 4.1? Dell swears up and down, that the luns won't attach when using that version of ESXi. Starting to wonder if their prof. svcs may be wrong.
Thanks for the feedback!
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Interesting, at least in the VMware HCL it is listed to be compatible with ESX(i) 4.1 with firmware version 07.35.22.61.
Thanks for the link... I had found a similar matrix on Dell's website which had 4.1 listed as supported (tech said it was incorrect and would be removed). I checked the firmware version on the device and based on the VMware matrix, it does look to be compatible.
Anyone else have these two products working in a production environment?
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VMotion, High Availability & Fault Tolerance work fine for me.
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1628894#1628894
Have they provided more info on exactly what the issue is? I'm not using the software iSCSI initiator (the Broadcom NICs on my R810s are hardware iSCSI) so it's possible there's an issue with that.
Jason Litka
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I just upgraded my production vSphere cluster to 4.1. It is connected to a MD3000i (firmware version 07.35.31.60) via the software iSCSI initiator. It is working just fine. It's not ESXi so I don't know if that makes a difference but, it does work with ESX 4.1.
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I have been able to get further confirmation from Dell that this configuration IS supported. Although, the issue as reported in the link above sounds awfully similar to what we were told when first deploying the solution.
Thanks everyone for the feedback.
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I call BS. It's in the HCL and I've gotten it to work a couple of times. It sounds like whomever you're getting your support from needs to go back to VCP class.
Mike P
MCSE, VCP3/4
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I am having an issue with our MD3000i and VMware ESXi 4.1. After speaking to a Dell tech I got this email last night:
......
I have discussed the issue with one of our senior analysts; he agrees
that a compatibility issue between the ESX or VMFS versions might cause
these symptoms. He also indicated that as yet ESX 4.1 has not been
validated with the MD3000i, and that communication issues are possible.
For this reason I would not recommend updating any more servers to that
version at this time. A future update to the array firmware is expected
to resolve any incompatibility between ESX 4.1 and the storage array.
.......
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I am having an issue with our MD3000i and VMware ESXi 4.1. After speaking to a Dell tech I got this email last night:
......
I have discussed the issue with one of our senior analysts; he agrees
that a compatibility issue between the ESX or VMFS versions might cause
these symptoms. He also indicated that as yet ESX 4.1 has not been
validated with the MD3000i, and that communication issues are possible.
For this reason I would not recommend updating any more servers to that
version at this time. A future update to the array firmware is expected
to resolve any incompatibility between ESX 4.1 and the storage array.
.......
Uh, yeah, anything is possible (note: communications issues), but in this case dell isn't giving you the support you deserve.
We have Two MD3000i's with MD1000 shelf's attached to them (1 each). We are running dual controllers in each MD3000i and dual uplinks to each MD1000 and have Jumbo, plus etherchannel (cisco Cat)and distributed vswitches with two nics (teamed to one vmk with ip hashing/failover). We are using the software iSCSI driver w/Round Robin enabled. Our Datacenter uses a 10-blade chassis from Dell using 1955 blades with 4 NIC uplinks.
We upgraded to Esxi 4.1 the day it hit the streets and this past week to the first set of patches for 4.1. We have encountered no issues and no performance degradation. It is quite possible to run the 3000i with 4.1.
J
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Excellent writing - I was fascinated by the insight . Does someone know where my company might be able to get a sample DA 31 copy to edit ?