8 weeks of #VCAP – iSCSI Port Binding

My plan is to go over all the skills in Objective 1.3 but before we get into PSA commands and what not let's first configure iSCSI port bonding – this way we will have a datastore with multiple paths that we can fiddle around with 🙂

First off iSCSI port binding basically takes two separate paths to an iSCSI target (the paths are defined by vmkernel ports) and bonds them together.  So, we need two vmkernel ports.  They can be on the same switch or separate switches, but the key is that you can only have one network adapter assigned to it.  Meaning the vSwitch can contain multiple nics, but you need to ensure that the config is overridden on the vmkernel level to only have one NIC active.  Let's have a look at this.  Below you will see the current setup of my vmkernel ports (IPStore1 and IPStore2).

As you can see, my configuration here is actually wrong and needs to be adjusted – remember, one nic per vmkernel port.  So, with a little click magic we can turn it into what you see below.

Basically, for IPStore1 I have overridden the default switch config on the vmkernel port, setting vmnic0 as active and vmnic1 as unused.  For IPStore2 we will do the same except the opposite (hehe, nice, that makes no sense) – basically, override but this time set vmnic1 as active and vmnic0 as unused.  This way we are left with two vmkernel ports, each utilizing a different NIC.

Now that we have the requirements setup and configured we can go ahead and get started on bonding the vmkernel ports together.  This is not a hard thing to do!  What we are going to want to do is right-click on our software iSCSI initiator and select 'Properties'.  From there we can browse to the 'Network Configuration' tab and simply click 'Add'.  We should now see something similar to below.

As you can see above, our VMkernel adapters are listed.  If they weren't, that would indicate that they are not compatible to be bonded, meaning we haven't met the requirements outlined earlier.  By selecting IPStore1 and then going back in and selecting IPStore2 ( I know, you can't do it at the same time 🙂 ), then selecting OK, then performing the recommended rescan you will have completed the task.  We can now see that below inside of our 'Manage Paths' section for a datastore that has been mounted with our iSCSI initiator we have some nifty multipath options.  First, we have an additional channel and path listed, as well, we are able to switch our PSP to thinks like Round Robin!

And kapow!  That's it!  We are done!  In the next post we will look at how to perform some PSP/PSA related commands against this bad boy!