vSphere NIC binding and MPIO

[imrevo]

Good morning,

in http://www.starwindsoftware.com/forums/ ... t2296.html you write:

Configuration of ESX host

* ESX iSCSI initiator fully supports NIC binding and MPIO (multipath) but VmWare doesn`t support using them at the same time.

Is that still true? I can't find such a statement in

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpap ... inding.pdf

Btw.: it works perfectly

bye
Volker

[Max (staff)]

Hi Volker,
I guess the article doesn't mention one thing - binding 2 nics active is not supported.
The way you do it is ok, however it can lead to failover issues if not configured correctly.
The correct distribution should look the following -
vSwitch1
Active - path to SAN1
Passive - path to SAN2
vSwitch2
Active - path to SAN2
Passive - Path to SAN1

This way in case of a SAN failure the failover will be quick.
If both active and passive point to one SAN it will first wait for 2 Disk.PathEvalTime periods before switching to SAN2.
I will add this information to the ESXi best practices.

[imrevo]

Hi Max,

I guess the article doesn't mention one thing - binding 2 nics active is not supported.

For sure it does

The way you do it is ok, however it can lead to failover issues if not configured correctly.
The correct distribution should look the following -
vSwitch1
Active - path to SAN1
Passive - path to SAN2
vSwitch2
Active - path to SAN2
Passive - Path to SAN1

You'll have to set the second adapter to "Unused", not to "Standby", either for the whole vSwitch or by overriding the switch failover order for the iscsi-vmkernel . vSphere doesn't accept a vmkernel port for iSCSI-binding that has more than one NIC attached unless NICs 2 - x are set to "Unused".

This way in case of a SAN failure the failover will be quick.
If both active and passive point to one SAN it will first wait for 2 Disk.PathEvalTime periods before switching to SAN2.
I will add this information to the ESXi best practices.

Well, there's no need to as you cannot have more than one active NIC per iSCSI-vmkernel even if you want to

My question was if it still true that VMware doesn't support using NIC binding and MPIO at the same time as stated in your best practices guide.

As I said, the linked white paper from VMware describes in detail how to configure MPIO for software iSCSI using port binding, so why shall they not support it?

bye
Volker

[imrevo]

Hi Max,

I guess the article doesn't mention one thing - binding 2 nics active is not supported.
The way you do it is ok, however it can lead to failover issues if not configured correctly.
The correct distribution should look the following -
vSwitch1
Active - path to SAN1
Passive - path to SAN2
vSwitch2
Active - path to SAN2
Passive - Path to SAN1

This way in case of a SAN failure the failover will be quick.
If both active and passive point to one SAN it will first wait for 2 Disk.PathEvalTime periods before switching to SAN2.
I will add this information to the ESXi best practices.

Could you show some screenshots for this configuration? How do you avoid this message when configuring the binding at the swSCSI-Adapter?

"The selected physical network adapter is not associated with VMkernel with compliant teaming and failover policy. VMkernel network adapter must have exactly one active uplink and no standby uplinks to be eligible for binding to the iSCSI HBA."

bye
Volker

[Max (staff)]

Post the pics as soon as I get back to our lab

[imrevo]

Hi Max,

Post the pics as soon as I get back to our lab

Any updates on this one? Still waiting for the pics

bye
Volker

[Anatoly (staff)]

Just doublechecked with Max - the pics are in progress. It will take some time.

thank you for your patience.