for 5.1 i decided to do everything with distributed vswitches where as previously we only had LAN traffic on dvswitches.

design:
LAN dvswitch (trunk ports, 2 uplinks, one 10Gbs + one 1Gbs)
vmk0 – management

vMotion dvswitch (1 uplink, one 10Gbs)
vmk1 – vmotion

iSCSI dvswitch (9000 MTU, 2 uplinks, both 10Gbs)
vmk2 – iscsi1 (9000 MTU)
vmk3 – iscsi2 (9000 MTU)

note: the iSCSI and vMotion port groups should be set to “VLAN = None” and the physical switch ports should be set up as ordinary access ports in the appropriate VLAN(s).

initial install of the host involves setting the VLAN ID on the host (same VLAN used for the management network) and then migrating vmk0 (used for management only) to the appropriate dvswitch & port group. the management network port group will have a VLAN ID associated with it in the vcenter networking configuration.

i’ve decided to go with the software iscsi initiator again because it was all i saw referenced in the equallogic documentation. speaking of documentation…two useful pdfs “ESXi Version 5.1 Host Rapid EqualLogic Configuration Series Implementation Guide” and TR1075 – “Configuring iSCSI Connectivity with VMware vSphere 5 and Dell EqualLogic PS Series Storage”. Note that the TR1075 document is for ESXi 5.0, everything in it is still accurate for 5.1 except the need for a Storage Heartbeat port group (no longer necessary).

iSCSI configuration steps summarized:
add host uplinks to iSCSI dvswitch
add virtual adapters (vmk2 and vmk3)
change vmk2 and vmk3 MTU settings to 9000
enable software iscsi initiator
bind vmk ports to iscsi software adapter
in iscsi software adapter settings add equallogic group ip address under dynamic discovery

equallogic MEM installation from VMA summarized (this procedure doesn’t appear to have changed):
maintenance mode host
./setup.pl –install –server=<esxi server> –username=root –password=<password> –bundle=<zip filename>
./setup.pl –query –server=<esxi server>
this info is in the MEM user guide that comes with the installation package and TR1074 – “Configuring and Installing the EqualLogic Multipathing Extension Module for VMware vSphere and PS Series SANs”

some best practices for equallogic storage include:
on the iSCSI SW Adapter->Configure
LoginTimeout 60
Delayed ACK Disabled

update 2/21/2014:
quick addendum…in an updated dell pdf (covers esxi 5.5), it’s recommended to enable flow control on vmnics that are used for iSCSI traffic.
check to see if RX and TX are set to on by using ethtool -a vmnic<#> e.g. vmnic11
enable flow control by editing /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh with vi, like so: vi /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh
add “ethtool –pause vmnic<#> tx on rx on”
to an open line before exit 0
this needs to be done for each iSCSI vmnic.

update 8/31/2016:
an easy way to check the version of the installed MEM on esxi is to run: esxcli software vib list | grep dell-eql
source: https://www.null-byte.org/miscellaneous/how-to-verify-dell-mem-driver-usage-and-version/

also it looks like MEM version 1.3 is required for esxi 6.x.

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