Multiple VMware VMs booting from SAN thru one QLogic HBA?

Question

Starting to look at of consolidating three servers on one PowerEdge R720 using VMWare. I would like the three servers to boot directly from our existing EqualLogic SAN, I currently have one server that boots directly from the SAN using a QLogic QLA4050C iSCSI HBA adapter and it has worked flawlessly for many years and I would like to repeat that with the VMs.

Question is: Can I use say just one QLogic HBA and be able to boot all three VMs from the SAN is it recommended to have individual HBAs for each VM? I would also appreciate any recommendations for QLogic HBAs as the Dell Online Store lists only Fibre Channel HBAs as options for the R720.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Origin3k · Answer

A virtual maschine have a virtual NIC which dont support Boot from SAN. Question of the day may if its possible to use a pRDM as a boot disk. I think this could work.

But the normal way is to present a LUN/VMFS Datastore to the ESXi and creating vDisks in the VMDK format which are holding all GuestOS data. These vDisks are compact, compatible, separated from others and its possible to transfer them and snapshooting.

Regards,

Joerg

Origin3k · Answer

Sure, we have about 700 vDisks and they all life on our EQLs :)

1. Create Volume on EQL and set an ACL so that ESXi can see the LUN

2. Create a VMFS5 Datastore on that LUN

3. Create VMs with vDisks

Thats the normal way. There is VSM(Virtual Storage Manager) which comes as a Plugin integrated into VMware vCenter which let you do the steps 1+2 also from the vSphere Client rather than EQL Group Manager. The VSM also supports HW Snapshots of Virtual Maschines.

Note: We only have a few VMs which use iSCSI into Guest for accessing Volumes on the EQLs. 99% of all EQL Volume are presented to the VMware Hosts.

Regards,

Joerg

arkroyal · Answer

Thanks Joerg. So, can the VMDK format vDisks reside on the EqualLogic SAN?

EqualLogic

Multiple VMware VMs booting from SAN thru one QLogic HBA?

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