Install Guide

30 Best Practices for Sharing an iSCSI SAN Infrastructure with Dell PS Series and SC Series Storage using VMware vSphere
Hosts | 2015-A-BP-INF
7 Best practice recommendations
Always check the Dell Storage Compatibility Matrix to ensure that SAN components (such as switches and
host NICs) are supported for both PS and SC Series deployments. For full support, the switches used for
array connectivity must be validated for use with each solution individually.
7.1 Switch fabric
Place all storage interfaces (including storage controller ports and host ports) in the default (native) VLAN
when the iSCSI SAN infrastructure is shared. If a non-default VLAN is assigned, set the ports as untagged or
put them in access mode.
Use the Dell switch configuration guides for PS Series SANs to configure the switch fabric. These guides
contain optimal settings for jumbo frames, flow control, and other common settings recommended for Dell
storage.
A switch interconnect (such as LAG, stack, VLT, or VPC) must be configured to maintain a single Layer 2
fabric topology so that PS Series arrays can share the same infrastructure.
7.2 Host connectivity
Hosts must be configured for IPv4 connectivity. IPv6 is not supported at this time for shared connectivity.
Enable Jumbo frames (MTU of 9000 or greater) on host NICs used for storage connectivity to allow for
greater throughput with large I/O request (block) sizes.
7.3 Storage
PS Series storage will auto-negotiate jumbo frame size. For SC Series storage, enable jumbo frames on each
iSCSI SAN port through Dell Storage Manager. Refer to the SC Series administration guide on the
Knowledge Center at the Customer Portal (login required) for the configuration steps.