Basic ESXi and ISCSI Question

[RXWatcher]

I'm coming from the VMWare Workstation and VMWare Server world. I haven't installed ESXi yet so please forgive me.

I want to keep my existing VMs and run them on a ESXi host that is connected to a ISCSI SAN.In other worlds..I want the ESXi host to see the ISCSI target as a disk and use that for running the VMs and not have the guest itself using the iscsi target as a virtual disk. The reason being that the VM guests need to be portable. I need to be able to move them off and run them on VMWare Workstation after they're fully developed.

So, is this possible? I tried looking through the guides but maybe I skipped over it..they all seem to relate to using the target as a virtual disk inside of the guest.

Thank you!

-Jim

[RParker]

Yes it's possible, however, with ESX 3i you have HOT cloning (which means you can clone it live, while the VM is running) and you have VM Converter, to convert BACK to a VM Workstation/Server version.

So you really don't need to do that. You should convert it to a native format, it will run better and you will get the full benefit of performance from ESX.

Also what's wrong with using NFS? iSCSI needs to see a target that is a LUN, so you have to partition space and it's proprietary to whatever system is currently attached to it, in this case with ESX it has to be a VMFS volume. NFS all you need is space, and NFS service (which is native to Linux).

[nick_couchman]

I think the hot cloning in ESXi only works if you also own and use VirtualCenter.

Also, using NFS vs. iSCSI greatly depends on which NFS server stack you're using. The native Linux NFS server stack is terrible in terms of performance (and this is coming from someone who is a huge Linux fan/supporter/etc.). Some of the other NFS servers, like Solaris, perform quite a bit better. Also, many SANs come with redundant controllers, while setting up a failover NFS server can be quite a chore. Just things to think about in terms of iSCSI vs. NFS - they both certainly have their benefits and their downfalls.

[Haxim]

We just started virtualizing and this is exactly what we're doing. Once you have your disks created on your iSCSI, you can connect to your ESXi Server using the Infrastructure Client. Go to the configuration tab and click Storage Adapters, select the iSCSI Software Adapter and click properties. On the general tab click configure and check on enabled, then go to the Dynamic Discovery tab and add your iSCSI IP. Close out of the properties page. You should now be able to add the ESXi server's iSCSI initiator to your iSCSI. Once your host has access, you can go back to the Storage Adapters tab, select the iSCSI initiator and rescan. You should see the new LUN from your iSCSI. Now you can go into the Storage option under the Configuration tab and add storage.

That's the down and dirty version, there's a few whitepapers floating about that explain it in greater detail with some screenshots and whatnot.

[RXWatcher]

Thanks..ESXi is a totally different beast than the hosted solutions so it's a learning curve and before I cut off one of my VMWare Server Servers(running 2003R2)..I wanted to understand how it all works.

Thanks again,

-Jim

[Haxim]

Here's the VMWare documentation on configuring iSCSI. Also depending on your iSCSI hardware your vendor may have some documentation as well (we're running a Dell MD3000i for iSCSI and their configuration guide is quite helpful).

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_iscsi_san_cfg.pdf