ESX Storage Journey Takes I

Working with iSCSI on ESXi

Awhile ago I was working on ESX Network Performance tuning and at the same time I was also looking at possibilities of improving iSCSI transfer rates using the same way.

Sadly on my test lab over here, we have a Clarion 3-20 box which does neither have support for iSCSI port binding nor any features that helps in loadbalancing.  I’m not so sure about other SAN boxes out there but I really hope the Dell MD3000i, which is due to arrive to our lab 2 weeks from now, has this feature available.

Not giving up, I proceed to explorer for other available options and bingo!  There is a new feature in ESX3.5, iSCSI Round Robin path loadbalancing, which is labeled (Experimental) below.  Smart of them to label Experimental; that also means non-production environment only, use at own risk. 

All glory to google, I found someone who has tested this feature and has posted in VMware community. http://communities.vmware.com/thread/131295

iSCSI CHAP Authentication in ESXi & 3.5
The setup for the system mentioned in the communities page above, posted by Damin mentioned that he is using a ISCSI box from WASABI Systems.  I wondered if he has encountered any CHAP authentication issues while connecting to ESX?

I’ve spent endless hours trying to get ESX to connect to a CHAP authentication enabled iSCSI target in the Clarion box only to find that it won’t work 😦  The target will disappear from ESX the moment authentication is enabled.

Sometime ago I’ve setup a linux based iSCSI box for ESX running on iET, iSCSI Enterprise Target with similar issues.  This has lead me to believe there is something really wrong somewhere in ESX’s iSCSI authentication.

It is worth to note that there are no issues while connecting from Microsoft initiators in both cases.  I’ll be doing more research on the issue and will update.