As a result I should have 2 host ports x 4 array ports = 8 paths. In my scenario I have one iSCSI subnet, which means that each of the two host NICs can talk to all four array iSCSI ports. This is where it is easy to make a mistake. Next step is to connect initiators to the targets. On the list of discovered targets you should see four Compellent iSCSI ports. To connect hosts to the storage array, open iSCSI Initiator Properties and add your Control Port to iSCSI targets. If you don’t do that, then when you map a Compellent disk to the hosts, instead of one disk you will see multiple copies of the same disk device in Device Manager (one per path). After a reboot you will see MSFT2005iSCSIBusType_0x9 in the list of supported devices. Then go to MPIO Control Panel and add support for iSCSI devices.
On the Windows Server start by installing Multipath I/O feature. On IP Settings tab you will find iSCSI Control Port IP address settings. From there select your fault domain and click Edit Fault Domain. To create and assign Fault Domains go to Storage Management > System > Setup > Configure Local Ports > Edit Fault Domains. IP settings for iSCSI ports can be configured at Storage Management > System > Setup > Configure iSCSI IO Cards. This translates into one Fault Domain and one Control Port on the Compellent. In my case I had two stacked switches, so I chose to use one iSCSI subnet. In other words, instead of using IPs configured on the Compellent iSCSI ports, you’ll need to use Control Port IP for iSCSI target discovery. When server targets iSCSI port IP address, it automatically discovers all ports in the fault domain. Control Port has its own IP address and one Control Port is configured per Fault Domain. Which means that you will have one fault domain in the one subnet scenario and two fault domains in the two subnets scenario.įor iSCSI target ports discovery from the hosts, you need to configure a Control Port on the Compellent. Worth mentioning that Compellent uses a concept of Fault Domains to group front-end ports that are connected to the same Ethernet network. I could not find a specific recommendation from Dell on whether it should be one or two subnets, so I assume that both scenarios are supported. And it all typically boils down to two most common scenarios: two stacked switches and one subnet or two standalone switches and two subnets. And two questions you need to ask yourself are, what your switch topology is going to look like and how you are going to configure your subnets. I used Windows Server 2012 R2, but the process is similar for other Windows Server versions.Īll iSCSI design considerations revolve around networking configuration. In this post I want to talk specifically about the Windows scenario, such as when you want to use it for Hyper-V. And there seem to be some confusion on what the best practices for iSCSI are. I hope I can shed some light on it by sharing my experience.
I haven’t seen too many blog posts on how to configure Compellent for iSCSI.