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Use Case Study: Using Active System For VMware Cluster Environment Configuration

Where <bundle file name> is the zip file, such as dell-eql-mem-esx5-1.1.2.292203.zip.

When prompted, login as “root” with the correct ESXi host setup password. This process could take

several minutes. Successful setup will present the “Clean install was successful” message.

Next configure the host using the MEM. At the same vCLI prompt, execute the following command.

Note that some of the parameters below are optional, so refer to the MEM documentation to determine

the specific needs for your environment.

setup.pl –-configure –-server=<ESXi host IP address> --vswitch=vSwitchISCSI –

-mtu=9000 –-nics=vmnic0,vmnic1 --ips=172.16.53.38,172.16.53.39 --

heartbeat=172.16.53.40 --netmask=255.255.0.0 --vmkernel=iSCSI –

groupip=172.16.0.20

You will be prompted for the host username and password. Once configuration has completed, the

iSCSI networking and storage HBAs should be configured on the host. At the end of configuration the

storage HBAs are scanned for new volumes. You can view the discovered volumes from the

“Configuration > Storage Adapters” menu. Select the configured iSCSI HBAs and confirm that the shared

volumes were discovered. If the shared volumes were not discovered, verify the access credentials and

rescan the adapters.

Configure iSCSI Network When Using Other (Non-EqualLogic) iSCSI Storage

If you are using EqualLogic storage and MEM, you can skip this section. If you are not using EqualLogic

storage, then you will be required to manually set up your storage networking on the ESXi host. A

vSphere switch must be created and associated with each of your two storage adapters. On the host

“Configuration” tab go to the “Networking” section. Select the link to “Add Networking”. The iSCSI

Network requires the connection type to be vmkernel. Select the two adapters which have been

configured for iSCSI by Active System Manager, in this case vmnic0 and vmnic1.

Provide a label for your network, for convenience this network will be called “iSCSI” and there will not

be a VLAN ID set for this network. Even though the VLAN for storage is 16, because the I/O Module

port has been configured for VLAN 16 as the Native VLAN, the host should be configured not to tag

traffic. Select the option to use the port for management traffic. Next, provide the IP information for

this network. Be sure to select a valid IP address on the storage network. In this case the addresses

have the first two octets set for 172.16.x.x and use a subnet of 255.255.0.0 or /16 (class B network).

Continue through the wizard and complete the configuration. Next there are a few configuration

settings which need to change on the iSCSI network. Select the “Properties” option for the iSCSI

vSwitch that was just created. On the general tab, change the MTU setting to 9000. For the storage

network the MTU was configured to be as large as possible to support storage traffic. The MTU on the

I/O Module and the top of rack distribution switch was set to 12000 in this environment, but ESXi will

not let you configure an MTU higher than 9000 so this path will operate with an MTU of 9000.

Next go to the NIC Teaming tab. For iSCSI, you may only use one active adapter at a time for the

vmkernel you will associate with your adapter, so one of the adapters must be configured as“unused”.

Configure Storage Adapters When Using Other (Non-EqualLogic) iSCSI Storage

If you are using EqualLogic storage and MEM, you can skip this section. To view the iSCSI hardware

adapters available on your host go to the “Configuration” tab for that host and select the link to

“Storage Adapters”. Based on your Active System Manager deployment template you should see two

Broadcom iSCSI adapters listed. Right click on the first Broadcom iSCSI adapter and select properties.

Under the “General” tab, click the “Configure” button to configure the iSCSI IQN and/or alias for this