Vmkernel for Fiberchannel Solutions

Vmkernel for Fiberchannel

jskfan asked

7d ago

Vmkernel for Fiberchannel

when creating Storage Vmkernel for Fiberchannel , what do we select as option on the screenshot below:

I alos would like to know if we can configure Multipathing for Fiberchannel the same way we do it for iSCSI

Thank you

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Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert / EE Fellow)VMware and Virtualization Consultant

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Expert of the Year 2017

Commented: 7d

None, because it does not use TCP/IP. VMKernel only for NFS and iSCSI.

Multipath for Fibre Channel is created in your design an fabric (e.g. your switches), but you still need to have two FC HBAs.

jskfan

Author

Commented: 7d

you mean ESX Host needs to have 2 FC HBAs connected to FC Switch
in Vmware configuration side , you just create 1 VM kernel and you associate it with both vmnics (which are FC HBAs) ?

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert / EE Fellow)VMware and Virtualization Consultant

Renowned Expert

Fellow 2018

Expert of the Year 2017

Commented: 7d

if you go by the rules of single point of failures, and multipath, more than a single path to your storage, you would have two physical FC HBA in your ESXi hosts, two paths to reach the storage, via at least two fibre channel switches, there you create FC zoning, and configurations for multipath. Fibre Channel is a storage protocol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel

Sorry you misunderstand Fibre Channel is a protocol, fibre channel, which does not use TCP/IP so it does not require any VMKernel, which is a special interface bound to network interfaces to provide NFS and iSCSI transports.