iSCSI Binding Help
Lexluethar
Member Posts: 516
I had a question about iSCSI Port Binding in VMware 5.5.
In the past we have used port binding when creating iSCSI connections between our Host and SAN. Using a 1 to 1 ratio (1 vmnic per vSwitch) we could go through the iSCSI Storage Adapter once added and configure port bindings.
Without really thinking about it we started deploying a few more Hosts and by default they had a few more vmnics. Trying to make things as redundant as possible i added multiple vmnics to the vSwitch that can talk with storage. In doing so i didn't realize you cannot use port bindings when you do that.
So my question is which is the suggested configuration - multiple vmnic's per vSwitch in an Active - Active or Active - Passive failover providing redundancy or should you only use 1 vmnic per vSwitch and use the Port Binding under the iSCSI Adapter settings to 'bind' the vmnics to the storage. I really didn't realize that you could not do both until I went through on these new Hosts and tried, Binding is only supported in specific configurations, none of which are in an Active - Active vmnic configuration.
Either way you can see the storage, i don't have to bind the adapters and i can see storage fine but i'm not sure if this is the suggested configuration. Also i've read that in this state without binding, the default setup will be to only use one adapter (which is what i would be doing with port binding anyways).
Any insight would be appreciated - thanks!
In the past we have used port binding when creating iSCSI connections between our Host and SAN. Using a 1 to 1 ratio (1 vmnic per vSwitch) we could go through the iSCSI Storage Adapter once added and configure port bindings.
Without really thinking about it we started deploying a few more Hosts and by default they had a few more vmnics. Trying to make things as redundant as possible i added multiple vmnics to the vSwitch that can talk with storage. In doing so i didn't realize you cannot use port bindings when you do that.
So my question is which is the suggested configuration - multiple vmnic's per vSwitch in an Active - Active or Active - Passive failover providing redundancy or should you only use 1 vmnic per vSwitch and use the Port Binding under the iSCSI Adapter settings to 'bind' the vmnics to the storage. I really didn't realize that you could not do both until I went through on these new Hosts and tried, Binding is only supported in specific configurations, none of which are in an Active - Active vmnic configuration.
Either way you can see the storage, i don't have to bind the adapters and i can see storage fine but i'm not sure if this is the suggested configuration. Also i've read that in this state without binding, the default setup will be to only use one adapter (which is what i would be doing with port binding anyways).
Any insight would be appreciated - thanks!
Comments
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joelsfood
Member Posts: 1,027 ■■■■■■□□□□
Multiple vnics per vswitch, multiple vmkernels, override switch failover and bind each vmkernel to only one nic. Page 6 of this doc shows how to do it.
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-multipathing-configuration-software-iSCSI-port-binding.pdf -
Lexluethar
Member Posts: 516
That's what I thought - well at least that's what I started reading. Even though you set a failover policy on the vSwitch when adding multiple Nics the default action is to only use one. The only way around this is iscsi binding from what i'm understanding. That's the exact same document I found and was referencing.
Thank's Joel - thought it was just goofy that you can have multiple vnics on a vswitch - set a failover policy (active/active or active/passive) and it will still only default to using one. Opposed to going through the binding process in the software iscsi adapter.
Learned something new this week.