Equallogic Load Balancing and Failover Question

Question

Is someone able to explain or point me to a document that clearly details the load balancing and failover expectations with an equallogic array and ESX?We have a number of hosts connected to a number of equallogic arrays (4) in a pool. Each server is configured identically with two physical nics mapped to a vmkernel port each and using equallogic mem with esx 4.1. Each nic connects to a seperate switch. The arrays are 6500xv's. And two active ports are connected to one switch, the other two active ports are connected to the second switch for each array member (same with the passive controllers).If i remove an active cable from one of the san ports I will lose access to whatever sessions were running over that path. I would have expected a second or two of interruption not a complete disconnection. I was under the impression that those sessions would failover to another available path (one of the remaining three nics).  That does not appear to be the case. We would like to reorganize our SAN connections without incurring downtime (~450 vm's, loads of iscsi targets many critical to production). If we want to move one cable at a time what is the best approach? If I were to disable the interface on the SAN through the management site instead of just pulling the cable and moving it, would that properly failover any sessions running on that path without killing the session completely?

Dev Mgr · Answer

You may want to check the VMware section under "Tech Reports" on the Equallogic site. There are several documents there that discuss setting up vSphere with Equallogic.

Without more info (esxcfg-vswitch -l, esxcfg-vmknic -l, esxcli swiscsi nic list -d vmhba##, and your switch/cabling layout) the only question that comes to mind is if your switches are linked together (stacking or 2 or more regular connections in a trunk/lag)?

canada-it · Answer

Thanks. We just upgraded to 5.02 last week. I will see how things go now.

iland · Answer

Hi Canada,

My company iLand specializes in data replication via SAN to SAN replication. Would you like to have a conversation with one of our engineers to see if he has any recommendations? We've been in existence since 1995 with over data centers across the country. Our company website along with addtional information is:

www.iland.com
Website

http://www.iland.com/products/data-replication
Data Replication

If you'd like to speak to one our engineers our toll free number is 1-800-697-7088

EqualLogic

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