EMC iscsi LUN with vsphere

Hi

There is configuration for NFS and iSCSI, the configuration is not the same.

And for iSCSI they use one vmkernel one vSwitch. So they use the portbinding but with different vSwitch.

If used only one vSwitch which contain multiple vmnic uplinks, each VMkernel (vmk) port used for iSCSI bindings must be associated with a single vmnic uplink. The other uplink(s) on the vSwitch must be placed into an unused state.

That is the proper way to configure the iSCSI and use multipathing

Jail

It only applies to iSCSI, and is the correct Best practice method of Multi pathing.

see my EE Article

HOW TO: Add an iSCSI Software Adaptor and Create an iSCSI Multipath Network in VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.0

Some Admins do use NIC Teaming, but it's often not supported.

I would suggest you obtain the latest documentation, and discuss with what the vendor recommends.

Your documentation states:-

Note: VNX is a multitarget architecture. While technically possible, port binding is not
supported on VNX.

So there you have it, nic teaming it is!

Andrew that is new for me.

We have some EMC and always use port binding.

When back to a PC need to double check the latest documentation from EMC.

Jail

It's on Page 45

Note: VNX is a multitarget architecture. While technically possible, port binding is not
supported on VNX.

Source
https://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/technical-documentation/h8229-vnx-vmware-tb.pdf

So yes it can do it, but not supported, so I would recommend the supported approach, and no binding. But I would recommend discussing with EMC, because documentation and whitepapers, come and go, and people change their mind.

Also depends on EXACTLY what hardware you have purchased. You just state VNX which, is like me saying I've purchased a NetApp or VMware.

Yes i notice after you added that.

In my first reading did not notice.

We know that EMC is very FC, but i did not know that port binding was not supported by EMC.

But honestly is very rare for to use iSCSI(with Software initiator) with EMC

If we use NFS and iscsi then port binding is not recommended on page 45 (following conditions).
If we use vnx 5400 block device ,Do we still should not be  using port binding?

It does say you can use port binding, but it's not supported. iSCSI is the protocol which uses port binding, not NFS.

we would recommend, not to use, as it states in the documentation, if you want a supported environment, but if you want a thumbs up clarify with EMC support.

Spoke to EMC partner who suggested the nic teaming since it is multi target as Andrew suggested.