Should I use ISCSI Port Binding or NO Port Binding

[Felipe_Conde]

Hello,

I will soon set up an ISCI SAN and have to decide whether to use port binding or not. In the latter case, my setup would look just like the following I copied from the Vmware manual.

In this scenario, since there are 2 subnets, port binding should not be used.

IP addressing is not an issue for me; I can use the two subnets for my configuration, or I could place the SAN ports and vmkernel ports on the same subnet and apply port binding.

The question is: Is there any advantage in using port binding, in terms of availability, load balancing, throughput or anything else? or are the 2 scenarios basically the same in availability / performance?

It is noted that the hardware provider for the SAN (Dell) states that for best practices the storage processors should be placed on 2 subnets. On the other hand, I have read Internet articles that state that port binding is better for load balancing and throughput, but I haven't seen any details to support it.

Thanks in advance to whoever can answer this !

Felipe

[rcporto]

Since you storage array vendor says that for best performance, place the storage processors across two subnets, I believe you should follow the storage array vendor. But, we that configuration, you should not use port binding according with the following VMware KB article: Considerations for using software iSCSI port binding in ESX/ESXi (2038869) | VMware KB

[Felipe_Conde]

Hi Richardson,

If i go by the SAN manufacture's recommendations, I understand that I should not use port binding because of the 2 subnets.

But since I have flexibility with the IP addressing, I wanted to know if there are any benefits (performance, load balancing etc) in putting everything in one subnet and use port binding.

[martinriley · Accepted solution]

Hi Felipe,

I've never heard of any benefit to using a single subnet for all interfaces, I've had conversations with Dell in the past about this and as far as I'm aware this recommendation is only to protect against issues that might affect the entire broadcast domain, storms etc. from completing knocking out access to your storage platform. 

Splitting interfaces across multiple subnets gives some protection against this, and also lets you be a little bit more creative when it comes to routing the traffic should the need arise or the fancy take you!

Hope this helps

vM

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