Setup VMWARE 5.5 for iSCSI HBA (Qlogic CNA) to Equallogic PS6XXX

Looking for best performance on M1000e to EQL ISCSI PS6010E SAN. Switches used: M8024-k (10Gb) direct to EQL controllers

We have (8) M620 blades each with Qlogic 10Gb QME8262-k DP CNA. These adapters are (NPAR/SIP) partitioned with 8 ports total (4 virtual cards per port) as:
4 NIC ports
2 FCoE ports
2 ISCSI Ports

In VMWARE 5.5 (U3) we see the 4 NIC's under Networking Adapters and the two FCoE (as vmhba3 and vmhba4) and two iSCSI adapters (as vmhba1 and vmhba2) under the Storage Adapters selection.

Dell Equallogic has it's MEM 1.3 kit for VMWARE that we run and it only allows us to select NIc's, not HBA's. I am assuming this is due to the nature of the VMWARE Software iSCSI adapter created uses vmnic only, not HBA.

So the question is, shouldn't we be using the ISCSI partitioned HBA directly in our MPIO setup in VMWARE for use of the SCOE and better performance? How is this done specifically. I cannot figure out how to use the MPIO setup

Note: if we go into properties of each ISCSI HBA, we can set an IP address, CHAP, and a Dyn Discovery Target and see all LUN's. Maybe this is all we need but I feel like there is a lot more in order to offload the processing and setup MPIO on this Host.

Thanks in advance to anyone with advice!

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Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert / EE MVE^2)VMware and Virtualization ConsultantCommented: 2016-09-06

you need to create multipath as per my EE Article

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

banquo321Author Commented: 2016-09-06

Thanks for the quick Reply Andrew!

So Are you recommending that I use the VMWARE ISCSI software adapter rather than the HW dependent HBA for performance? That is my first stepping stone.

It's not a recommendation, it's how you setup hardware HBAs...but....

hardware iSCSI HBA versus Software iSCSI very much depends, on if you can enable Jumbo Frames on the HW HBAs!

because, tests have confirmed jumbo frames and software iSCSI outperforms, Hardware HBA, because most do not support jumbo frames.

so something for you to check or compare performance!

see here

https://www.vmadmin.co.uk/resources/35-esxserver/252-esxihwswiscsijumbo

Yes sir, so this HW does support Jumbo Frames. We enable it in HW at the BIOS level on the QME8286-k (once NPAR is set and ISCSI enabled). So then to use the HBA's instead of the software iSCSI apater is the next question? Is that possible and still recommended?

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert / EE MVE^2)VMware and Virtualization ConsultantCommented: 2016-09-07

TEST and compare performance!

see which works best.

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banquo321Author Commented: 2016-09-07

Makes sense. Thanks Andrew

Setup VMWARE 5.5 for iSCSI HBA (Qlogic CNA) to Equallogic PS6XXX

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