VM_Cluster_Networkv2.docxI am trying to understand how VMWare connects to a SAN and Two NAS storage devices and would like some help on the configuration of connections to those devices. We had a consultant come in and connect a new EMC Unity 300 with 10K drives to a VMWare cluster of three hosts. We have our Exchange and SQL servers virtualized but since we have done this our SQL server is dog slow. I have been looking on Vsphere at the VM network configurations and they don't seem right. I have attached screen shots of the configurations and hope you can lead me down the right path of understanding.
I have been reading on the net that the VMKernal is an iSCSI connection to the storage devices but is there supposed to be multiple connections? Also on two of the hosts the VMKernal has the same IP, is that right? Now when It comes to the EMC unit I probably need help with that as well but lets first start with the VMKernal question and the Management network connection. I assume those are supposed to be tow separate IP's and connections.
If I had to guess right now, your consultant connected the SAN to your environment, but he failed to or didn't understand how to setup load balancing and Multipath. This would explain why your connection is so slow.
Please post the configuration pictures when you get a moment so I can review them.
I would recommend that you reconfigure this following one of the MultiPathing documents that have been presented. I would love to say the one I presented was the best, but you have the master @Hanccocka here so I will bow out to his documents as they are superior.
This is quite a bit of information for me to take in. I will need to review and get back with more questions. I will be on vacation tomorrow but will get back on Monday and try to start tackling what has been suggested and probably more questions. Thank you for all the direction you have provided.
Honestly, if it were me, I would contact the company that sent me this individual and tell them they need to rectify this situation. This person did not set this up properly and if you have already paid for this setup, then they really need to send someone to make it right. This should not fall on you to resolve if you are not comfortable with doing so.
I tend to agree with you however the person that performed this setup was a friend of the owner and quite frankly I don't think he knows what he is doing so I really don't want to have him back. Also, I need to get my arms wrapped around this issue and learn the hard way, by fire.
If I make a snapshot of the configuration and things go haywire I should be able to restore the snapshot and be back where I started, correct?
I assume I need to shut down all connected VM's to the host before I start re-configuring the host network, correct?
I am going to work with one of the three host in the VM cluster that is connected to a QNAP NAS with 18TB of storage. It currently only has one VMkernal and will be adding another so I can do NIC Teaming as described in Andrews article. The current VMkernal has an IP that was given by our DHCP server and I want to make it Static. Can I make this change on the Fly or do I need to shut down all the VM's on the host first to make these changes? I assume yes but have also seen that the VM machines are pretty flexible.
I am concerned about losing my machine images if I delete the iSCSI connections in order to fix this issue. What can I do to make sure that will not happen?
I also have a host that is stand alone that does not connect to a NAS or a SAN but instead connects to the local array that is on the host. Do I need to create a second vmkernal on that machine to use NIC Teaming. Does it use iSCSI to connect to the local storage? When I look at the properties of the VMkernal on that machine it has a yellow exclamation point on it that says
"The VMkernel network adapter vmk1 is associated with more than one physical network adapter. To use a VMkernel network adapter for iSCSI port binding, the VMkernel network adapter must be associated with only one physical network adapter."
I do have two physical adapters connected to that HOST yet it only looks like it is using one adapter and I would like to use both. I am running two RDP servers on this one host.
Since the VMkernel is only used for connecting to external devices such as a NAS or SAN can I delete that connection or is it needed for some reason on the stand alone VM? Also can I use both NICs on that machine and point one to one VM and the other to the other VM? If so how can that be done? I see both NICs and one is on standby so I would like to use it for either another connection or load balancing
Exchange is the server side of a collaborative application product that is part of the Microsoft Server infrastructure. Exchange's major features include email, calendaring, contacts and tasks, support for mobile and web-based access to information, and support for data storage.