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June 2nd, 2006 15:00
PowerEdge 1855 Blade with iSCSI?
Do the PowerEdge 1855 Blade servers support iSCSI? or do they just support Fiberchannel? I have found no clear answer on this. I see no option for adding any iSCSI HBA cards when configuring nor is there any mention of iSCSI.
We are thinking of implementing 3 blades: 1 to run Exchange and 1 to run SQL and the 3rd for redundancy. If the 1855's do support iSCSI, would it even be wise to use it for this or would fiberchannel be the smarter solution.
thanks
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Mark_A_Smith
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June 2nd, 2006 18:00
mac1234
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June 5th, 2006 22:00
Techhcet
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June 6th, 2006 18:00
The PE1855 Blade server only supports either Ethernet or Fibre.
There are 2 types of Ethernet Modules - Pass Thru and Managed Switch (5316M)
There are 2 types of Fibre Modules - same again Passthru & Managed.
There is a 5th type from Cisco that has a mix of Fibre and Ethernet.
There is no ISCSI module or daughter card available.
Thats not to say they wont introduce it in the PE1955 when released.
mac1234
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June 7th, 2006 13:00
Techhcet, thank you for the reply. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, I was under the impression that you CAN run iSCSI without using special iSCSI HBA's, needing only 2 1gb adapters and an initiator(in our case MS Software Initiator 2.0) and of course a target. Now I understand this wouldn't be an ideal solution compared to an HBA but can't this be done?
That is where I am confused. If a blade is purchased with say a dual port daughter card with either a pass through or switch module couldn't the daughter card be used, or is there something particular to blades that prevents this? Or am I just completely missing the obvious?
Again thanks for the reply.
mac1234
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June 7th, 2006 21:00
Techhcet
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June 7th, 2006 21:00
What I meant was that the support given by Dell only covers hardware/software configuration of Ethernet & Fibre and not ISCSI.
If you were to have any issues with frames, protocols or cpu load, you would probably have to go to Microsoft first, about the initiator, and they would then refer you to the hardware vendor, Dell about the network / daughter cards or cpu.
Can you afford to have this weak point in your IP SAN setup?
But as you say, the basics are there to set it up.
Canada101
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July 6th, 2006 16:00
You can run over iscsi with no problems over a standard nic, however you need an iscsi hba to actually boot from san - just like fbc hba. Qlogic has iscsi hba's whether they are slim pci's for the blades i dont know though.
hope that clarifies.