vSphere Storage Appliance

Originally when we setup our VSphere environment we were unable to have our network engineers configure a seperate subnet for iSCSI traffic.  Now I have that ability and am planning the configuration.  I will utilize our maintenance window to make this change over instead of rolling through the swap.

My questions are about what communication is necessary between the two subnets, if any.  I will bind the ESXi iSCSI vmk's to the new subnet and they will be on seperate vSwitches but I'm not clear if the two networks require any communication in the VCenter server.  The management network and LAN traffic will remain where it is in my plan and so will one of the NICs on each ESXi host. Our network engineers want the two subnets to be completely seperate because this new iSCSI subnet will also talk to our DR site for SAN replication, which brings me to another question; in order to utilize the EqualLogic Auto-SnapShot Manager\VMWare Edition software it wants to be able to talk to the iSCSI network and the VCenter.  Has anyone here used this feature without SRM?  I do not plan to license the SRM software currently because in production only half of my servers are VMs where as in DR all of them are and slightly different configs, so until I can duplicate the two locations and fully utilize SRM I am going to wait.

I am also having another subnet created for only management devices and applications such as EqualLogic SAN HQ, Group Manager, updates and patching servers, monitoring devices, etc.  Would this be a more ideal location to move the VCenter to?

FYI, VSphere 4.1, ESXi 4.1, EquaLogic PS6000

Also, I do use FT and VMotion on different VLANs internal to the production LAN and those will not change.

Any insight or clarification is appreciated, I would like some feedback before I proceed :smileyhappy:.

Welcome to the Community - There is no need for vCenter to communicate to your iSCSI subnet - all the communication is handled by the ESX/ESXi hosts If ther EqualLogic I can not answer to and its needs to communicate to vCenter-

Hello.

which brings me to another question; in order to utilize the EqualLogic  Auto-SnapShot Manager\VMWare Edition software it wants to be able to  talk to the iSCSI network and the VCenter.

Do you have the EQ's management interface on the same network as your vCenter server, or will it be there?  That should be all you need for communication.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the response and answers!

vmroyale,

Currently the VCenter is on the same LAN as the VMs.  So it would be best if the VCenter was moved to the new management subnet where the EQ software is installed so the AutoSnapshot software requirements are satisfied, which is also where SAN HQ and Group Manager are installed.  This management subnet will be able to talk to the VM LAN as well so VCenter's management NIC will have unrestricted access to the hosts whcih should stay on the current LAN.

I like that configuration! I totally missed moving VCenter out of the VMs LAN! :smileyhappy:

Thanks!!