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lchuakc
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Ex VCP 5.5 needs help. It has been a long time since I setup a vSphere infrastructure. Need help in setting up HP DL380G9 using iscsi connections.

Hi Guys,

I am an ex VCP 5.0 and 5.5 but did not renew the certification after renewing once on the delta exam.

The last time I setup the entire vSphere infrastructure was back in my ex company in June 2012. I've used dell equallogic PS4110XV 10GB and dell poweredge servers with 10GB sfp+ adapters. I remember that the original esxi installer cd download from vmware does not have the 10GB sfp+ adapters. And I have to download the dell customized vsphere 5.1 installer to make it work.

I will be joining a new company next time and they have 3 brand new HP DL380G9 but not configured for virtualization. Meaning that I will need to purchase extra processor and upgrade the ram to 64GB plus adding the HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560FLR-SFP+ Adapter into each of the 3 servers. Will be using the essential plus license for these hosts.

My question is whether do I also need to download and use the HP customized vsphere 6.5 installer to get these HP servers work? Does anyone have experience using the DL380G9 with HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560FLR-SFP+ Adapter on vSphere 6.5? I am particular worried about the HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560FLR-SFP+ Adapter driver on the vsphere 6.5 installer.

As a new joiner I do not want to propose something which does not work causing the new company to lose confidence in my abilities. As I've said, my ex company uses only dell poweredge servers and not HP servers.

Plus I do not have much experience with the HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560FLR-SFP+ Adapter running on iscsi.

I will also be proposing using 2 x dell networking x4012 for the 10gb sfp+ connections. I understand that the x4012 does not have stacking features compared to the 8024F which I've used previously in stacking mode. But the budget does not allow so we have to make do with the x4012. If i do not stack the x4012 switches, will it work? Does any knows of the x4012 have jumbo packet MTU 9000?

Thanks and I hope that someone can help me on these questions.

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bayupw
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Hi

On the vSphere/ESXi side yes you should use the HPE custom images that can be downloaded from the HPE vibsdepot here: HPE Software Delivery Repository vibsdepot (aka HPE Online Depot)

On the firmware side, follow the recipe document: http://vibsdepot.hpe.com/hpq/recipes/HPE-VMware-Recipe.pdf

On the physical switch side stack is not mandatory, you can use route based on physical NIC load (Load based teaming) or route based on originating port ID so that ESXi utilise multiple uplinks/vmnic.

In IP storage such as iSCSI setup, you would use multiple VMKernels and iSCSI multipath/portbinding which does not require the physical switch to be stacked anyway.

Based on this link, x4012 supports Jumbo Frame up to 9,000 bytes: Dell Networking X-Series Smart Managed 1GbE and 10GbE Switches | Dell United States

Bayu Wibowo | VCIX6-DCV/NV
Author of VMware NSX Cookbook http://bit.ly/NSXCookbook
https://github.com/bayupw/PowerNSX-Scripts
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/bayupw | twitter @bayupw
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