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Sep 13 2007, 11:58 PM EDT (current) dave_jaffe 64 words added
Sep 13 2007, 11:55 PM EDT dave_jaffe 50 words added, 1 photo added

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The following set of screen shots document creating multipath connections to PowerVault NX1950 iSCSI LUNs using the multipath IO (MPIO) feature of the Microsoft software iSCSI initiator. A PowerEdge 2950 server running 64-bit Windows Server 2003 R2, r3win2950b, was connected to a PowerVault NX1950 using network subnets 10.10.20 and 10.10.22. The other two NICs on the PowerVault NX1950 can be teamed for Networked Attached Storage access.

Network

Using the PowerVault NX1950 Console, the iSCSI target R1NXISCSI was added with Virtual Disk 0 created on a 5-disk RAID 5 LUN on the PowerVault NX1950's integrated MD3000:


PowerVault NX1950 Console


It is recommended to restrict the networks available to iSCSI discovery to just those that have iSCSI targets attached; otherwise all networks associated with the PowerVault NX1950 will be visible to the iSCSI initiator. To do this, right click on Microsoft iSCSI Software Target (R1NXISCSI) and select the appropriate network.
PowerVault NX1950 Console - 2

On the r3win2950b the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator 2.04 was installed from Initiator-2.04-build3273-amd64fre.exe and started:

MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 1

The r3win2950b’s Initiator Node Name (also known as the iSCSI Qualified Name or IQN), iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:r3win2950b.setc.com, was added to the R1NXISCSI target using the PowerVault NX1950 console.

On the MS iSCSI Initiator Discovery tab the first IP address of the PowerVault NX1950 (10.10.20.38) was added:

MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 2



The PowerVault NX1950 LUN showed up in the Targets tab. The LUN was selected and then Log On was selected:

MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 3

Note: an alternate approach to entering the IQN into the iSCSI target is to enter the IP address of the target in the Discovery screen first, then Browse for iSCSI initiators in the iSCSI target using the PowerVault NX1950 Console. The IQN of the server should be listed.
On the Log On to Target screen "Automatically restore this connection when the system boots" and "Enable multi-path" were selected, then the Advanced features were selected:


MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 4


On the Advanced Setting screen the following selections were made: Local Adapter: Microsoft iSCSI Initiator, Source IP: 10.10.20.104, Target Portal: 10.10.20.38. (CHAP logon and IPSec, which provide authentication and encryption were not used in this test):

MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 5


After selecting “OK” twice the LUN showed as Connected:

MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 6

The Log On was repeated, this time with Source IP and Target Portal from 2nd subnet:

MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 7


On the Target tab Details shows the Target Properties:


MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 8

On the Target Properties Devices tab two devices appeared, one for each path:

MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 9


The Advanced feature of the first device was selected. On the MPIO tab, Fail Over Only, Round Robin and other load balance policies were available. With Fail Over Only one path is active, one is standby (shown below). In Round Robin both paths are active. Note that MPIO policies are per device so they can be set differently on different LUNs.
MS iSCSI Initiator Screen 10


The LUN was now present in Disk Management where it was initialized, assigned a disk letter and had partitions created on it:


Disk Management Screen