HP MSA iSCSI direct connection

[lcfc2]

Does anybody have experience of connecting an HP MSA 2000i directly to there ESX host. I'm building a system with a dual port controller and two ESXi 4 hosts. The MSA docs state this is possible, if so his must be better than routing through our switches? I haven't configured an MSA previously using iSCSI so interested to hear peoples thoughts.

Cheers

[lcfc2]

I should add, the two ESX hosts are blade servers in a C3000 chasis with passthru ports.

[AndreTheGiant]

You can follow storage configuration guide and http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_iscsi_san_cfg.pdf

Just be sure that each host have a NIC connected to one SP and the other connected to the second one.

You may see some dead paths, but this is normal in this kind of configuration.

IMHO, I do not like a "DAS" configuration: it's not scalable and you have some paths that are unreacheable.

Andre

[lcfc2]

Thanks for the confirmation, I'll have a read of the doc. Got to agree

with you about the DAS but this is or a branch office and the hardware

should see them though for 3 years at least. Can look at switches later

down the track.

Cheers