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Best VMWare/ Dell SAN network design?
Hey all, we currently have a Dell Equalogic 6000 SAN and a couple of Dell R710 VMWare hosts...
The way I understand it is in that the SAN has two modules, and each module has one CPU and 4 NICs (3 for iSCSI and one for management)
Each of the VM hosts has 4 NICs, 2 for LAN and 2 for iSCSi into the SAN
We are implementing a new Cisco network and have purchased 3750x switches for the SAN + VM hosts
What we are trying to figure out is how to get the best NETWORK performance going forward for the SAN and VM hosts, we were thinking of getting 10Gb cards for the switches for the SAN but realized that the iSCSI ports are 1GB NICs, as are the VM hosts
We were considering upgrading the LAN NICs on the VM hosts to 10GB NICs and teaming them, at least for some improved performance...but since the volumes and LUNs are on the SAN not sure if we will see a big difference?
I saw the below article but don't fully understand it....
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1004048
Anything we can do with TCP windows or Jumbo frames on the switches, SAN, or hosts?
Anything else we should look at or consider?
Thanks
The way I understand it is in that the SAN has two modules, and each module has one CPU and 4 NICs (3 for iSCSI and one for management)
Each of the VM hosts has 4 NICs, 2 for LAN and 2 for iSCSi into the SAN
We are implementing a new Cisco network and have purchased 3750x switches for the SAN + VM hosts
What we are trying to figure out is how to get the best NETWORK performance going forward for the SAN and VM hosts, we were thinking of getting 10Gb cards for the switches for the SAN but realized that the iSCSI ports are 1GB NICs, as are the VM hosts
We were considering upgrading the LAN NICs on the VM hosts to 10GB NICs and teaming them, at least for some improved performance...but since the volumes and LUNs are on the SAN not sure if we will see a big difference?
I saw the below article but don't fully understand it....
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1004048
Anything we can do with TCP windows or Jumbo frames on the switches, SAN, or hosts?
Anything else we should look at or consider?
Thanks
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Both jumbo_frames and flow_control will greatly help your performance.