Uploading files to a datastore on a different subnet

[admin]

All,
I just got access to a new ESX network and am trying to find the smartest way to upload files to a data store. I am trying to do this in the smartest, least disruptive way possible.

• ESX 4.0.0, 2 hosts (BL460c)
  
• vCenter Setup and working
  
• 8Gb FC SAN, with VMFS datastores setup on the LUNS
  
• I have access to Windows blades in the same enclosure as the ESX servers
  

Here is the problem:

The ESX hosts, and the vCenter VM, all exist on a subnet called "VMware Management."  This subnet is segmented from the production network by a router that has 100Mb interfaces.  vCenter is not currently dual homed on both segments.

If I connect to vCenter using vSphere Client, or connect to the ESX host using vSphere, my uploads to the datastore are capped at 100Mb because I am going through TCP/IP, which is limited by the 100Mb router interface.

I know that I could create a new VM, and dual home it on both the "VMware Management" VLAN, and the production network.  That would give me 1Gbps, but still I would rather find a way to leverage the 8Gbps FC.

I would like to present the ESX LUN's to the Windows blade, and upload directly into the datastore.  I can't do that though because I need to use the vSphere Client to upload the files, and vSphere in turn connects through TCP/IP to vCenter.

Any ideas would be appreciated!

Drew

[GaneshNetworks]

Welcome to VMware community.

If the uploadable files are located in SAN box, then assign those LUNs (where the files are located) to make visible by ESX server. And assign the same LUN to any VM as a RDM disk.

Do migrate the files from newly added disk from existing disk. By doing this you can get the leverage of 8 Gbps transfer rate. Make your things easy. One more thing, if you are following this way subnet that doesn't matter.

Does it make sense to you. If it does, happy copying . . .

Thanks,

Ganesh

[idle-jam]

the 8Gbps is between the SAN Storage and the Host. Even if you have copied to your virtual machine the file then it is still limited to the virtual network adapter of 1GBps.

you can not present the VMFS datastore to windows and windows will recognise it as raw and worse case trying to format it. instead of the hassle of going thru so many steps and transit, i would advise creating another management network of 1GBps and upload the file to your datastore.

btw, how often do you need to upload file to datastore? the only think i could think off would be ISO files only. VMDK would be off faster using vmware converter as it will remove the unused or whitespace.

[GaneshNetworks]

If the file size is huge, contact your storage team to do copy those things by doing block level access. I mean LUN to LUN copy. I hope we can meet the requirement of what you are expecting.

Idle - Jam: Is it possible? ( I hope we can )

Thanks,

Ganesh

[idle-jam]

Ganesh: LUN to LUN copy would be possible if both the source and destination is a VMFS format. If the source is already VMFS, we could utilize the 8Gbps by doing a vCenter Virtual Machine Clone.

if it's not the same format, i would suspect it's NFTS source, then it has to be file level copy.

[GaneshNetworks]

Things understand !

We need to wait until the clear words from Drew.

Thanks,

Ganesh

[admin]

Ganesh & Idle-Jam,

Thank you very much for the replies!

I think the RDM disk may be the solution (or at least part of it).  I was worried that Windows would not be able to read VMFS, and that the ESX servers could not easily write to an NTFS volume on a LUN.

I will try presenting the LUN to a Windows blade in the SAN, and then also to the VM as a Raw Disk Mapping.  That could work!

These files are a mix of ISO's and full DVD's of patches (VUM patches actually).

We tried uploading the .VMDK's to the datastore using converter, but it projected 18 hours to complete (our networking needs revamped badly, we are working on buying a newer switch).

Andrew

[admin]

Hey Guys,

I wanted to post a follow-up.  I worked around the issue by creating a dual-homed VM, with one NIC on the management network and one NIC on the production network.  Because I am new to the environment I didn't want to make any serious changes to the infrastructure, so this was an easy way out.  The 1Gbps allowed for "reasonable" transfer times for our DVD's.

I'd like to experiment more with the RAW LUN's, but I guess not for now.

Thanks !!!

Andrew

[idle-jam]

If you can physical insert the dvd to the dvd drive, then you can use the dd command to save it as ISO to the datastore. then it would be using the 8Gbps.

http://blog.netnerds.net/2009/01/vmware-esxi-35-creating-an-iso-image-from-a-cddvd-rom/