Can I use 8gb Fiber Channel for storage traffic and 1gb iscsi for standby

[jrush1]

Environment

-Vmware Version:    ESXi 4.1

-Host:                      DL 360 G7, 2 x 1gb quad port nics, 1 dual FC 8gb HBA

-Storage:                 EMC VNX 5300, Host FC HBAs are directly connected to the SAN

Background

We currently have a 1gb LAN(Cisco 3750 stack)\storage(san is LeftHand 4500) network that won't supply the IO we need for our SQL server due to a limitation with the esxi NMP so a company is proposing a new storage solution for us.

Storage design overview:

2, 1gb quad nics per host to support our necessary networks(VM\MGMT, vMotion, DMZ, iSCSI).  Add one dual port 8gb FC HBA to each host for storage.  I'll then have path redundancy but not HBA card redundancy.  Can I use the existing 2, 1gb iscsi nics as standby for the FC HBA just to limp along until I vMotion the sql server vm to a host that has a FC HBA?  Obviously the IO performance would take a hit but I would rather it perform poorly than totally cut off IO.

Maybe this isn't even remotley possible but I look forward to getting some feedback.  Thanks!

[prasadsv]

Are you trying to share same Lun between FC and iSCSI protocols?

If yes,this is not a supported/recommanded configuration.

[jrush1]

Thanks for your reply prasadsv.  IMy question is this.  Can have both a fiber channel connection to a san volume and an iscsi connection to the same volume and then use the iscsi nic as a standby in case the fiber card fails(only have room for one FC hba in the host).  Thanks!

[prasadsv]

No.That is not supported by VMware.

[mcowger · Accepted solution]

While I've seen this work, its *explicitly* not supported by EMC.

[jrush1]

Thanks for both replies!  I was thinking in theory it should work but wasn't sure if anyone had seen it done before or if it was supported.  Take care!