Multiple LUNs / MS iSCSI initiator within VM / Trunking ?

[JLaay]

Hi,

I 'm using a vSphere 4 free edition host and a W2003 server with Starwind free edition.
Setting up an environment for SMBs for proof of concept.

MS iSCSI initiator:
I want to seperate the OS and data of e.g file server (user/group shares), Exchange server, SQL server etc.
To my knowledge this can only be done by using an (MS) iSCSI initiator from within the server(s) ... ???
Is there any problem with that?

I am following the thread "One large iSCSI target or multiple small ones?".

LUNs:

From VSphere 4 edition of http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/ ... an_cfg.pdf

When you make your LUN decision, keep in mind the following considerations:

1 Each LUN should have the correct RAID level and storage characteristic for applications in virtual
machines that use it.
(ok)
2 One LUN must contain only one VMFS datastore.
I 've created several image files on the Starwind server which ESX sees as seperate storage.
As far as I can tell only one LUN is created/used or am I reading it wrong? (see attachment)
3 If multiple virtual machines access the same VMFS, use disk shares to prioritize virtual machines
Is this another way to deal with contention?
I 'm not seeing any possibility to set this up with ESXi free edition???

Answers greatly appreciated

Thanx Jaap

[Robert (staff)]

Hi,

I 'm using a vSphere 4 free edition host and a W2003 server with Starwind free edition.
Setting up an environment for SMBs for proof of concept.

MS iSCSI initiator:
I want to seperate the OS and data of e.g file server (user/group shares), Exchange server, SQL server etc.
To my knowledge this can only be done by using an (MS) iSCSI initiator from within the server(s) ... ???
Is there any problem with that?

I am following the thread "One large iSCSI target or multiple small ones?".

LUNs:

From VSphere 4 edition of http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/ ... an_cfg.pdf

When you make your LUN decision, keep in mind the following considerations:

1 Each LUN should have the correct RAID level and storage characteristic for applications in virtual
machines that use it.
(ok)
2 One LUN must contain only one VMFS datastore.
I 've created several image files on the Starwind server which ESX sees as seperate storage.
As far as I can tell only one LUN is created/used or am I reading it wrong? (see attachment)
3 If multiple virtual machines access the same VMFS, use disk shares to prioritize virtual machines
Is this another way to deal with contention?
I 'm not seeing any possibility to set this up with ESXi free edition???

Answers greatly appreciated

Thanx Jaap

What you are saying is correct. Use MS iSCSI Initiator for that. In regards to question 1, it is a general recomendation for all the iSCSI storage. Underlying storage should be RAID, but regular hard drive will also do the trick.

Question 2 deals with the formatting of ESX datastore. AFAIK you won't even be able to create more than one VMFS file system on an iSCSI LUIN.

Using shares to prioritize virtual machines is meant to provide queue rigts for requests to say the same data blocks on some separate share for multiple VMFS. In STarwind you will not actually be able to prioritize the virtual machines' requests.

Thanks.