How to configure iSCSI interfaces on CX480

Hi JohnLC,

I want to connect the storage to 2 exclusive switches used for the iSCSI traffic.

In the Celerra part of the NS480 I have found out how to bundle the LAN interfaces for redundancy.

Is this possible for the Clariion ports, too?

kind regards

Mike

Since you have multiple systems you might want to think about getting an Upgrade to Flare 30 / DART 6.0 - this way you could manage all from one GUI with single sign-on.

Rainer

Hi Rainer,

thanks for that hint.

I already had read about Unisphere and it sounded very nice - and much more intuitive.

Reason why I didn't upgrade already is that I am a bloody beginner (not with storage but with EMC) and didn't want to risk messing up the systems.

Furthermore some colleagues are depending on the iSCSI connection for their tests (systems are not productional yet) so I need to focus on making iSCSI working first and then of course will follow your suggestion.

Kind regards

Mike

Hi John LC,

thank you very much!

I take it that there, I have to add a virtual port which will be my iSCSI interface.

Thanks again and kind regards

Mike

Since you are using Hyper-V take a look at the documents on Powerlink for Hyper-V and Clariion

links can also be found here  http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2010/02/my-evil-doppleganger.html

Rainer

http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/White_Paper/h6182-using-clariion-microsoft-hyper-v-wp.pdf

Makes sense – how upgrades are done depends on your service contract – often you have the choice that an EMC engineer does the upgrade

Hi Mike,

while I am not a Clariion expert I think here you solve it like you would with Fibre Channel - connect the two ISCSI ports per SP to different Ethernet switches and let the clients multi-pathing software do the work for using the other connection in case a switch fails.

Rainer

In addition, please see KnowledgeBase (Primus) article on PowerLink - emc245445 - this gives an overview on using iSCSI on the CLARiiON - links to different articles for configuring the array and the hosts.

In Navisphere R29, you can right-click on the array icon and select Port Management - from there you can select the iSCSI port and click on Properties - from there you can set up the port.

glen

Hello everybody,

I want to thank you all for your great support and helpful input.

Today the FC-HBA we waited so desperately for the last 3 weeks came in and I connected the host in question via FC (that was the initial plan and the iSCSI connection was plan-B (for this server) due to desperate need to enable the server to become productional.

As it is fine with it's redundant FC connections now, the pressure on making iSCSI working is lowered a lot and at the same time a new priority-1 job has been assigned to me.

As I still would like to know whether my iSCSI setup/config works, I will try to find some time to test it with a spare server but can't tell for sure when I will be able to do this. (I'ts still sure that we will use iSCSI for some server in the near future)

I will connect a old spare server when I find time to do so to find out whether the (nearly finished) setup/config of iSCSI works.

If anyone is interested in the result, let me know and I will post it here.

BTW: MyManager just asked me whether I can enable data-deduplicaton on the CX240 used as backup 2 disk device...next new thing to learn (if there is something like this on Clariion, I don't know. Hope the knowledge base will enlighten me ;-)

Thanks again to all who helped so kindly!

Mike

BTW: MyManager just asked me whether I can enable data-deduplicaton on the CX240 used as backup 2 disk device...next new thing to learn (if there is something like this on Clariion, I don't know. Hope the knowledge base will enlighten me ;-)

no dedupe on Clariion (yet) but there is block level compression.  For dedupe of primary storage you can look into Celerra or Data Domain/Avamar for target dedupe.

Just a caution - you can not connect both iSCSI and FC to the same array from a single host.

Also, there are Host Connectivity Guides available on PowerLink for each operating system:

Home > Support > Technical Documentation and Advisories > Host Connectivity/HBAs > Installation/Configuration

glen

for LUN compression you need a license (enabler) though - it's not free

Rainer_EMC wrote: for LUN compression you need a license (enabler) though - it's not free

you should have seen a surprised look on my face .  EMC is turning into NetApp ..nickel and dime for every little feature.

Hi everybody,

just an update:

got iSCSI working, supplier's tekkie updated our system to FLARE 30 Unisphere.

That's the good news...our SP-A left us and support is working since 3 days to find out why.

Thanks for all your hints and tipps.

Kind regards

Mike