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iSCSI multipath question

D

danswartz

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Messages
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For various reasons, I'm moving away from the all in one setup I have. I have a dual-core 3.2ghz desktop system with 8GB ram and one PCIE-8x slot. My current m1015 will go in that slot. It also has two intel gig-e on the motherboard. I was going to go with the software iSCSI initiator, but I scored a qlogic qle6040c on eBay for $50, so that will be going in the ESXi box, and will have a dedicated link to one of the two gig-e nics on the SAN box. Here's the question: does it make sense to try to set up multipathing with the iSCSI HBA and the software iSCSI initiator (if it's even possible of course?) I've been googling and reading and everything seems to indicate I can spread traffic over both gig-e paths (unlike NFS?) Any helpful comments appreciated :)
 
Dan,

You basically have 2 choices that will increase bandwidth over multiple connections (MPIO & MCS). Which you use can depend on several factors ... server to SAN connection? workstation to SAN? etc. MPIO only exists on MS Server OS & MCS on all that can run iSCSI initiator. Since I have been running Win7 clients to my ZFS SAN then I chose MCS. MS has a good deal of info on this as well as other info scattered around the web. I tried up to & including 4 - GBIC connections. Bandwidth increase somewhat linearly (but not a doubling each time). Does indeed work with COMSTAR.

I too have moved back to a seperate SAN from the all in one. Still use GEA's napp-it ... great product IMHO.
 
Not sure about your response. I'm not really interested in other clients than the ESXi box (various win7 clients will be backing up to LUNs, but my main interest was trying to increase the ESXi<=>SAN thruput.
 
So there is nothing weird as far as having using the software initiator and an HBA?
 
AFAIK you just

NFS boxen
2 x lan ports sharing iSCSI via comstar
1 on say 192.168.0.x
1 on say 192.168.1.x

ESXi
1 x iSCSI on 192.168.0.x
1 x iSCSI on 192.168.1.x

Hook em up and enable round robin multipathing
Maybe change the round robin to trip every 5 instead of every 30 or so packets

away you go

.
 
Child of Wonder said:
You can assign the iSCSI HBA to the software initiator and use it just like a regular NIC.
Click to expand...

Sorry, can you clarify this? In the vsphere client, I can set an IP address for the HBA. Are you saying to do that, but NOT set any initiator/target info in the HBA itself? So then, the subnet I gave the HBA would be visible via the software initiator as well as the subnet on the vmkernel port on the main NIC?
 
danswartz said:
Sorry, can you clarify this? In the vsphere client, I can set an IP address for the HBA. Are you saying to do that, but NOT set any initiator/target info in the HBA itself? So then, the subnet I gave the HBA would be visible via the software initiator as well as the subnet on the vmkernel port on the main NIC?
Click to expand...

Yes, doest the QLogic appear as a Storage Adapter and Network Adapter to the host?

With Broadcom it appears there as a Storage Adapter (vmhba##) and as a Network Adapter (vmnic#). You would then create a vmkernel port, etc. just as you would for Software iSCSI but bind it to the Broadcom Storage Adapter instead. Because Broadcom is junk, I assign it to the Software iSCSI initiator.

Is the QLogic different? I've not used their iSCSI HBAs, only Broadcom's.
 
danswartz said:
For various reasons, I'm moving away from the all in one setup I have. I have a dual-core 3.2ghz desktop system with 8GB ram and one PCIE-8x slot. My current m1015 will go in that slot. It also has two intel gig-e on the motherboard. I was going to go with the software iSCSI initiator, but I scored a qlogic qle6040c on eBay for $50, so that will be going in the ESXi box, and will have a dedicated link to one of the two gig-e nics on the SAN box. Here's the question: does it make sense to try to set up multipathing with the iSCSI HBA and the software iSCSI initiator (if it's even possible of course?) I've been googling and reading and everything seems to indicate I can spread traffic over both gig-e paths (unlike NFS?) Any helpful comments appreciated :)
Click to expand...

Don't bother. Interconnect is never the limitation. Set up redundancy for failover, round robin to avoid port queue overload, and stride briskly onwards. Your disks will always be the limitation.
 
danswartz said:
Sorry, can you clarify this? In the vsphere client, I can set an IP address for the HBA. Are you saying to do that, but NOT set any initiator/target info in the HBA itself? So then, the subnet I gave the HBA would be visible via the software initiator as well as the subnet on the vmkernel port on the main NIC?
Click to expand...

If you're talking about a broadcom iSCSI adapter (the funky offload ones they have), I'd just use it as a network card - ignore the offload part.

If you're talkign about a qlogic 4XXX series HBA, you set it up on the hba itself.
Child of Wonder said:
Yes, doest the QLogic appear as a Storage Adapter and Network Adapter to the host?

With Broadcom it appears there as a Storage Adapter (vmhba##) and as a Network Adapter (vmnic#). You would then create a vmkernel port, etc. just as you would for Software iSCSI but bind it to the Broadcom Storage Adapter instead. Because Broadcom is junk, I assign it to the Software iSCSI initiator.

Is the QLogic different? I've not used their iSCSI HBAs, only Broadcom's.
Click to expand...

Yes. The QLogic cards are true HBAs - bios, etc. They're closer to FC than iscsi from a config standpoint (do it all in bios - it's better). Last I used one at least. They're not common.
 
Yes, it is an HBA. Does NOT show up as a NIC. Anyway, I think I have it now. Both the HBA and the software initiator each have a LUN showing up. The view for the datastore shows two paths. I have tried RR and Active (with the HBA the preferred path), and both seem to work...
 
lopoetve said:
Yes. The QLogic cards are true HBAs - bios, etc. They're closer to FC than iscsi from a config standpoint (do it all in bios - it's better). Last I used one at least. They're not common.
Click to expand...

Good to know.

tmyk.gif
 
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