vSphere: iSCSI Multipath

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Once again, I have just learned about iSCSI Multipathing and tested it out in my home lab using a openfiler as my iSCSI virtual SAN and with nested ESX 4.1 and ESXi 5.0.

Reason why I taken such a combination of different Hypervisor is to show how this can be done.  In vSphere 5, where ESXi 5.0, there is a GUI to perform the MPIO binding unlike in vSphere 4.x, this has to be done via the command line.  Even changing the MTU value has been made easy in vSphere 5.

You can also do a load balance by changing the path selection to round robin.

vSphere 5


vSphere 4

Update: After setting up the mutipath, reboot the esx host and the path would be shown correct.

iSCSI binding Commands
Changing a vSwitch with MTU 9000 (Optional)
>esxcfg-vswitch -m 9000 vSwitch0

Add a vmknic to a port group with MTU 9000
>esxcfg-vmknic -a -i 172.16.200.91 -n 255.255.255.0 -m 9000 "Port Group"
Where port group is the name of the port group.

To view your vmknics for iSCSI 
>esxcfg-vmknics -l

My iSCSI adapter is vmhba33.  My vmknic are 1 and 2.
To bind the respective vmknic to adaptor 
>esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmk1 -d vmhba33

>esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmk2 -d vmhba33

 
To remove the vmknics, make sure the iSCSI is disabled and not datastore are connected.
To ensure a reboot is recommended.
>esxcli swiscsi nic remove -n vmk1 -d vmhba33
>esxcli swiscsi nic remove -n vmk2 -d vmhba33 


To see the vmknics associated with your adapter 


>esxcli swiscsi nic list -d vmhba35







References:

Changing MTU for vSwitch and vmk 

http://www.gavinadams.org/blog/2010/07/19/esxi-41-and-the-9000-byte-mtu-on-vmk0/

vSphere 4.x

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/09/a-multivendor-post-on-using-iscsi-with-vmware-vsphere.html

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/03/18/iscsi-multipathing-with-esxcliexploring-the-next-version-of-esx/

http://yourmacguy.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/vsphere-iscsi-multipathing/



vSphere 5

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2011/08/vsphere-50-storage-features-part-12-iscsi-multipathing-enhancements.html














































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