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03-11-2008 Chat Log
| DELL-ToddM | We are waiting a few minutes for others to join before starting |
| DELL-ScottH | Hello jingle2, what part of the world are you in ? |
| DELL-KentS joined. | |
| DELL-ScottH | no worries, we encourage lurking, please stay and hang out in the conversation |
| DELL-ScottH | Hey Kent, are you Camtasia King yet ? |
| Dr_Ick joined. | |
| DELL-KentS | Trying... |
| DELL-ToddM | Hello Dr. Ick |
| Dr_Ick | Howdy! |
| Dr_Ick | Is this the iscsi + Vmware Chat? |
| DELL-ScottH | yes it is |
| DELL-ScottH | starting in a few minutes |
| Dr_Ick | okay, brb |
| jingle2 | jingle2=john Ingle - Training Coordinator for the Ose/tiger Team Group under Scott Black and David Gantt. |
| DELL-ToddM | Glad you could make it John |
| DELL-TravisV joined. | |
| DELL-ScottH | Hey Travis |
| DELL-ToddM | Now that Travis is here we can get started! |
| DELL-ToddM | Welcome Travis |
| DELL-TravisV | Hello All! |
| thaner joined. | |
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| DELL-ToddM | The format for Tech Tues chats is informal |
| DELL-ScottH | welcome Jeff and thaner ! |
| DELL-ToddM | We have a set topic - which today is Vmware and iscsi - but we can entertain other topics if they come up |
| Jeff_Glenn | Should I log in as Dell-jeff_glenn? |
| DELL-TravisV | Is anyone using Vmware with iscsi today? |
| DELL-ToddM | The format that we are using for Dell is Dell-name , but you don't have to |
| thaner | forgive me as I eat my lunch and participate. Are questions just thrown out there.. |
| DELL-TravisV | I'll take that as a no. :) |
| jingle2 | My interest is in the blade deploment of Esx and how best to run iscsi traffic if the Vms are Windows. |
| DELL-ToddM | The way that we usually start is by giving people a chance to put out any questions that they have up front |
| thaner | are you able to speak to whether Toe and jumbo frames can be used with the Pe2950 when using Esx 3.5 and the Md3000i |
| DELL-TravisV | Great that's a good start |
| DELL-TravisV | General questions on iscsi connectivity for Esx |
| DELL-TravisV | There are three ways that you can connect to an iscsi array using Esx. |
| jingle2 | For example, if Esx is limited to 2 initiators, and they are failover only, then it looks like the best thing is to use the M/s init s/w and have a bunch of Esx Nics. Do we have numbers? |
| DELL-TravisV | 1) Esx has a Sw iscsi initiator that you can use. We don't have hard numbers but have heard complaints about the performance of this initiator. |
| DELL-TravisV | Dell recommmends using that initiator for connectivity to your boot Lun |
| DELL-TravisV | 2) For Data traffic you can run iscsi connectivity in the guest Os using the Microsoft (or Linux) Sw initiators. |
| DELL-TravisV | The difference here is that instead of Esx being responsible for arbitrating access to the the Scsi Hba, it is only responsible for arbitrating access to the Nic. |
| DELL-TravisV | We've done some performance comparisons of this method versus a Fc Hba and those results are available on dell.com/iscsi |
| DELL-TravisV | The performance we've seen from this method is quite good. Pros are that you can use the array-vendor's Mpio or the Windows Mpio. |
| DELL-TravisV | Another Pro is that if your application uses Vds or Vss, this functionality is avialble seamlessly. |
| DELL-TravisV | Con is that you don't have access to the Vmware storage functionality like Vmware Consolidated Backup. (vcb) |
| DELL-TravisV | that should be V.c.b. |
| DELL-TravisV | The last method is using an iscsi Hba like the Qlogic iscsi Hba. |
| DELL-ToddM | The advantage of using Esx sw Iscsi initiator is that all of the details of the storage are hidden from the Vm - it is simiplier from the Vms point of view |
| DELL-TravisV | Some customers use this to get better performance and still have Vmware arbitrate access to the storage (allowin you to use Vmware storage functionality). |
| DELL-TravisV | Good point, Todd. |
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| DELL-TravisV | I should note that in general, the iscsi Hba from Qlogic is supported on the Equallogic and Dell/emc products and not on the Md3000i products. |
| DELL-ToddM | Is the support for Md3000i a testing issue - in that it hasn't been tested so it isn't supported? |
| DELL-TravisV | To Thaner's question: Esx does not support Toe, but the performance we've seen from running the initiators in the guest Os is quite good. Jumbo frame support depends on what your Nics, switches and array supports. |
| DELL-TravisV | That's right. |
| DELL-TravisV | Being primarily an entry-array with limited scalability, most of the market uses Sw initiators. (most of the market uses Sw initiators for all iscsi connectivity overall). |
| DELL-ToddM | Is the Qlogic iscsi Hba planned to be tested? |
| DELL-ToddM | for Md300i |
| DELL-ToddM | Md3000i |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Thats been our experience at Eqlc too. (SE initiators work very well) |
| DELL-TravisV | We haven't seen much demand for it. |
| DELL-ToddM | We have seen the Md3000i as a popular option for customers that are just starting out with Esx |
| thaner | So what then is the best practice on a 4 nic system using the Md3000i and esx3.5 to enable the san with failover on the Iscsi traffic |
| DELL-ToddM | Usually a couple of 2950s and an Md3000i is the configuration for these environments |
| thaner | i was under the impression that Vm only supported one initiator |
| DELL-TravisV | Vmware has support for fail-over, not load-balancing |
| DELL-TravisV | Runnign the initiator in the guest Os, you get access to both. |
| DELL-ToddM | Esx 3.5 has experiemental support for Round Robin load-balancing |
| DELL-ToddM | This is Vmware's way of saying beta |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Travis, do you see many people using Sw initiators in the guest Os - as opposed to using Vmfs? |
| DELL-TravisV | Vmfs is by far the most common deployment. For test and dev, the Vmware initiator is perfect. |
| DELL-ScottH | @thaner - more details for jumbo frames -- they are supported on the Md3000i, the 2950 Nics, and 3.5 with the latest updates, so as long as the switches connecting all those items support jumbo frames, you should be able to enable it through the whole path. |
| DELL-TravisV | For higher I/o applications (and applications that need more advanced storage functionaltiy - Vds/vss, loadbalancing), we would recommend running in the guest Os. |
| thaner | Back to the 2nd last comment, you do not recommend the vm initiator for production? |
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| DELL-TravisV | There is nothing wrong with it. It's perfectly fundtional. We've just had some complaints of performance. |
| DELL-ToddM | The performance of the initiator has improved some with Esx 3.5 |
| thaner | Hmmm, for me it is a major concern as I am about to let my existing platform live |
| DELL-TravisV | Which backend storage are you attaching to? |
| thaner | Md3000i |
| DELL-TravisV | I don't think you should have too much of an issue. |
| thaner | i read nothing cautioning me on this practice |
| DELL-ToddM | Most customers that I have talked to are using the Esx initiator |
| DELL-TravisV | You really see it as you get into higher spindle counts. |
| DELL-TravisV | I agree |
| DELL-ToddM | What is the app that you are going to running against it |
| thaner | Sql and some middleware |
| DELL-TravisV | How many spindles? |
| DELL-ToddM | What the I/o requirements for the Sql Server? |
| thaner | Sql has 4 spindles and would be a small installation, Erp for a 50 user company |
| DELL-TravisV | I think you'll be fine with the Esx initiator. |
| DELL-ToddM | No problems with that size |
| thaner | sspecifically what counters am I going to look out for? |
| DELL-ToddM | When I measure disk performance I look at reads and writes per second and seconds per reads and writes |
| DELL-ToddM | And queue length |
| thaner | And you are getting that from the guest or host os? |
| DELL-ToddM | From the guest |
| DELL-ToddM | Each guest should have dedicated spindles for anything that is very disk intensive |
| DELL-ToddM | This allows you to zero in on performance for that app |
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| thaner | saw to that |
| DELL-ToddM | It is fine to share disks for things that are not performance sensitve |
| DELL-ScottH | still the standard rule of thumb of < 2 per physical spindle in the array ? |
| DELL-ScottH | for disk queue length |
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| DELL-ToddM | That's the guide that I use - I assume that this is valid for iscsi |
| DELL-ScottH | welcome Darre, use "action" .. "recent Room History" to catch up |
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| thaner | What are the options for a successful reconfiguration to guest based initiators after the fact? none probably right? |
| DELL-ToddM | The big difference between the two is Vmfs vs Ntfs |
| DELL-ToddM | You can't just remap - you have to copy or convert somehow |
| thaner | i follow |
| DELL-ToddM | Not sure what tools are available that would convert for you |
| DELL-ToddM | Maybe platespin? |
| DELL-ToddM | I don't think that you are going to need to do this however. |
| thaner | i hope not at this point |
| thaner | where would i have read about this practice? |
| thaner | i had no idea this might be a concern and there were other ways |
| DELL-ToddM | I thought that Travis was involved in a whitepaper that discussed it |
| DELL-TravisV | I'm sorry. I'm not quite understanding why you would want to reconfigure after the fact. Please help me understand. |
| thaner | well merely concerned about running up against Io problems |
| thaner | just wondering |
| DELL-ToddM | If you are using Esx sw Initiator to connect to iscsi - Then you are most likely using Vmfs as the filesystem |
| DELL-TravisV | Oh. I see. if you wanted to move from Esx to guest based or vice versa. |
| DELL-ToddM | If you are using iscsi initiator in guest, then the filesystem is Ntfs |
| thaner | i might have chose a different implementation had i been knowledgeable about the Vm initiator preformance issues |
| DELL-TravisV | To Todd's point they are different file systems. I don't know of a tool that helps you transition. |
| thaner | right i got that |
| DELL-TravisV | But. Based on what you've told me I don't think you'll run into Io issues. |
| DELL-TravisV | The performance issue we've heard about come from much larger spindle counts. |
| thaner | i will go looking and watch for any indications |
| thaner | thats good news |
| DELL-ToddM | This is a question for Marc and Travis - |
| DELL-ToddM | When is it a good idea to think about moving up from Md3000i to Equallogic Ds5000 Series? |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Ok or Darrenm, who joined |
| DELL-TravisV | Ps5000? |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Good question. One answer is when you get tired of thinking about spindle counts for I/o. |
| DELL-ToddM | Opps - Ps5000 |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Its not an issue with the Eqlc arrays because they stripe accross all active disks |
| DELL-TravisV | Md3000i supports 16 hosts and 45 drives. It's a great value, but some larger It shops require better host and capacity scalability. |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | There will be some customers that may want to upgrade. Others will prefer to start with Eqlc technology for its simplicity. |
| DELL-TravisV | Ps50000 also has very robust snapshot capability, cloning, mirroring and asynchronous replication built into the pruchase price of the system. |
| DELL-TravisV | In general, it's a innovative product, with extremely good scalability and excellent features and functionality - you can tell who is the product manager for Ps :) |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Actually, I'm just a shucker and jiver. |
| DELL-TravisV | But it is a premium product, so the cost will be considerably more than a Md. You get a lot more, but lots of environments can't justify the expense. |
| DELL-ToddM | I think that the storage upgrade story is really becoming great with new Storage Vmotion feature in Esx 3.5 |
| DELL-ToddM | You will be able to move your Vms over to new storage without interruption to the Vm |
| DELL-ToddM | Check out my Storage Vmotion demo video - http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/virtualization+demos - to see it in action |
| DELL-ToddM | I configured an Esx 3i (embedded) system today to connect to Md3000i |
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| Dell-Marc_Farley | That is a cool demo, I agree |
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| DELL-ToddM | and noticed that there isn't a firewall for 3i like there is for 3.5 |
| DELL-ToddM | With Esx 3.5 you have to enable the iscsi port through the firewall |
| DELL-ToddM | But with Esx 3i, there is no need for a firewall becuse the only thing running is the hypervisor |
| DELL-ToddM | (At least I couldn't find a place to configure a firewall anywhere) |
| DELL-ToddM | So this is an advantage for Esx 3i - easier configuration |
| DELL-ToddM | We are working on putting together an Equallogic chat session for next week |
| thaner | Thank you for the insights guys |
| DELL-ToddM | So we can go into more detail on the coolness of Equallogic next week |
| DELL-ScottH | we can talk about the ds500 the ps5000000, and maybe the ps5000 ? |
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| DELL-ToddM | Any suggestions for specific topics? |
| Dell-DarrenM | Hi folks, I think we should talk about some of the host data protection capabilities available with ps series. |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Darren R U around next week -same time same station? |
| Dell-DarrenM | I should be. |
| DELL-ScottH | Darren, Marc, can you update the wiki page with your chat topic ? I've just got a placeholder for "equallogic" |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Then maybe we should plan to start with a discussion of host data protection with Ps5000 products. |
| DELL-ScottH | you guys (darren, marc) set to host the chat next week ? |
| Dell-Marc_Farley | Scott, this is happening in real time. Darren is being surprised, I would guess. |
| DELL-ScottH | ohhh, nothing better than realtime, and getting it all done instead of meetings |
| DELL-ToddM | Ok - well I think that about does it for this week's Tech Tues Chat - Vmware and iscsi - and next week we will cover host data protection of Ps5000 series (And maybe an intro to Equallogic as well?) |
todd_muirhead |
Latest page update: made by todd_muirhead
, Mar 12 2008, 11:01 AM EDT
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Keyword tags:
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iSCSI
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vmware
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