Install Guide

13 Best Practices for Sharing an iSCSI SAN Infrastructure with Dell PS Series and SC Series Storage using VMware vSphere
Hosts | 2015-A-BP-INF
4 Enabling vSphere 6.5 host access to PS Series and SC
Series iSCSI storage – shared
This section assumes the environment is historically a PS Series storage environment and SC Series storage
is being implemented into the existing environment, as shown in section 3.1
4.1 Configure access to PS Series storage
This section covers configuring access to PS Series storage through the installation and assumes VMware
licensing is Enterprise or Enterprise Plus and supports the use of MEM.
4.1.1 PS Series Multipathing Extension Module (MEM) for VMware
The VMware vSphere host servers were configured using the best practices defined in the Dell PS Series
Configuration Guide, including the installation of MEM on the vSphere host servers.
For more information on MEM, see Configuring and Installing the PS Series Multipathing Extension Module
for VMware vSphere and PS Series SANs.
Note: MEM is only supported when using VMware vSphere Standard or above licensing. If MEM is not
supported, manual configuration steps can be found in Configuring iSCSI Connectivity with VMware
vSphere 6 and Dell PS Series Storage.
After preparing the vSphere host, map volumes using Dell Storage manager or Group Manager.
Note: See the Dell Storage PS Series Group Administration Guide for information on creating volumes and
mapping volumes to hosts (for existing customers; requires a valid portal account).
4.2 Configure access to SC Series storage
Configuring vSphere hosts to access SC Series storage when those hosts are already configured to access
PS Series storage requires fewer steps as compared to when the host is not configured to access PS Series
storage.
4.2.1 Configuring the VMware iSCSI software initiator
The first step to configure the vSphere hosts for SC Series arrays using a single subnet and iSCSI port
binding is to create VMkernel (vmk) ports. For port binding to work correctly, the initiator must be able to
reach the target. With the release of vSphere 6.5, routing is supported when using port binding. However,
prior to vSphere 6.5, iSCSI port binding did not support routing: requiring the initiator and target be in the
same subnet. VMware recommends associating each VMkernel port to a single vmnic uplink.
In this case, the NICs, vSwitches, and iSCSI software initiator have already been configured to access the
PS Series storage and do not need additional configuration.