topic Redundant iSCSI Traffic with Multiple Switch in ExtremeSwitching (EXOS/Switch Engine)

Redundant iSCSI Traffic with Multiple Switch

kinton — Mon, 20 May 2019 14:45:05 GMT

Hi All,

I want to deploy an new iSCSI Storage (Nimble) and use 2 Extreme X670V-48t for the uplink. As I far know, the storage array only support active/passive path. So if the active link goes down, the second link will handle all the iSCSI traffic. I am confused how to configure them. I don't have the stacking cable. Here is the topology:

Maybe there is a best practise for it. Thank you for your help.

Re: Redundant iSCSI Traffic with Multiple Switch

Tomasz — Sat, 25 May 2019 23:38:05 GMT

Hi Kinton,

Did you thought of using MLAG in that scenario? Is it necessary for Nimble to have TG1 and TG2 in two different VLANs instead of using the same VLANs?
If you want to aggregate TG1 and TG2 I'd expect them to pass the same VLANs (and route somewhere else if needed). Otherwise you should treat TG1s and TG2s as connections to separate network segments. Active TG1 in VLAN 1 works, if it goes down the passive TG1 in VLAN 1 goes up, right?

Kind regards,
Tomasz

Re: Redundant iSCSI Traffic with Multiple Switch

Naoman_Ghani — Tue, 28 May 2019 05:45:13 GMT

Hi Kinton,

Nimble supports iSCSI multipath. Their particular implementation (using Nimble's Connection Manager) is full mesh, i.e. there will be four iSCSI connections...
IP of TG1 to IP of Port1
IP of TG1 to IP of Port2
IP of TG2 to IP of Port1
IP of TG2 to IP of Port2

So I don't think you want to use separate vlans/subnets.

This is how we have things deployed; Nimble customer since their first release.

My $0.02