ESXI SAN configuration

[dgardner]

Hi Guys,

I have a few questions that I hope you can help me with.

Does anybody know of a decent guide to configure VMWare ESXi (5.0) with a physical SAN? Ideally I'd like a condensed version, as the one on the vmware website is massive! We just need the basic connection to configure the SAN as a datastore.

Do you need to purchase additional license features to enable iSCSI support? Our current license is Vsphere 5 essentials pro.

Is there much to configure on the SAN end to prepare it to be used as a datastore? We have an IBM SAN 16B-2.

We have had the SAN for a few years, and only recently installed the VMware virtualised estate. I now need to organise getting the data off it and storing the VM's on the SAN. I haven't got a great deal of experience with SAN configuration.

Many thanks in advance for any comments and advise.

[gshaw]

What type of SAN (iSCSI, FC etc?)

How much performance and failover do you have \ want? How many hosts do you need to hook up to it?

[dgardner]

What type of SAN (iSCSI, FC etc?)

ISCSI

How much performance and failover do you have \ want? How many hosts do you need to hook up to it?

We have one host with 6 vms, but soon to be 3 hosts. We ideally want an improvement in performance, as the current VMs are being stored on a QNAP NAS. I'd like to use the SAN to store the VMs and backup to the NAS using Veeam. The only reason I didn't go this way when we put the VMware server in was because the SAN was already in production.

Many thanks,

[j17sparky]

Is there much to configure on the SAN end to prepare it to be used as a datastore? We have an IBM SAN 16B-2.

There should be a web interface/CLI which you will need to enter and set up raid, LUNs (volumes), authentication, and all the various iSCSI options.

[apaton]

Hi dgardner,

I think there a slight confusion with SAN terminology.
The IBM 16B-2 is re-badged Brocade 4Gb Fibre Channel SAN Switch and doesn't support iSCSI.

What new storage device unit are you trying to attach your vSphere 5 hosts to ?

Regards

Andy

[dgardner]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your reply. I got my model numbers mixed up on my notes, it is in fact an IBM DS3400 SAN we're trying to connect to.

Regards,

[apaton]

> IBM DS3400 SAN

The IBM DS3400 come in iSCSI, SAS & FC options, could you confirm which model you have?

Also find attached link for an IBM Redbook on the DS3400, may help.

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247065.pdf

Regards

Andy

[dgardner]

The drive interface is SAS.

Thanks for the implementation guide. I was kind of hoping that there may be a more condensed version out there.