Compellent Best Practises with VMware vSphere 6.x

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In this post I just want to summarize the best practises need for configuring correctly vSphere 6.x with DELL Compellent..

The original article is located here:

 

FC HBAs

For each of these adapters, the method to set the driver queue depth and timeouts uses the following general steps: 1. Locate the appropriate driver name for the module that is loaded:

  • For QLogic, enter: esxcli system module list | grep ql
  • For Emulex, enter: esxcli system module list | grep lpfc
    Depending on the HBA model, the output could be similar to the following:
    QLogic: qla2xxx or qlnativefc o Emulex: lpfc820
  1. Set the driver queue depth and timeouts using the esxcli command:
    – For QLogic, enter:
    esxcli system module parameters set -m qlnativefc -p “ql2xmaxqdepth=255 ql2xloginretrycount=60 qlport_down_retry=60”
    – For Emulex, enter:
    esxcli system module parameters set -m lpfc820 -p “lpfc_devloss_tmo=60 lpfc_hba_queue_depth=255”
  2. Reboot Esxi Hosts
  3. Verify the settings using:
    esxcli system module parameters list -m=module (i.e. -m=qla2xxx)

iSCSI HBA

  1.  Set the queue depth to 255 (example shown):
    esxcli system module parameters set -m iscsi_vmk -p iscsivmk_LunQDepth=255
  2. Increase the login timeout to 60 seconds (example shown):
    1. Determine the iSCSI adapter name:
      esxcli iscsi adapter list
    2. Set the login timeout parameter:
      esxcli iscsi adapter param set –A vmhba37 –k LoginTimeout –v 60
  3. Reboot the ESXi host for the change to take effect.
  4. To verify the settings, use the following commands:
    esxcli system module parameters list -m iscsi_vmk esxcli iscsi adapter param get –A vmhba37

PDL ADJUSTMENT

When using vSphere High Availability (HA), it is a best practice to modify the following host settings in dealing with permanent device loss (PDL) conditions.

  1. From within the host advanced system settings, make the following modifications:
    VMkernel.Boot.terminateVMOnPDL = Yes/True (Default = No/False, Reboot required)
    Disk.AutoremoveOnPDL = 0 (Default = 1) 
  2. From within the HA cluster advanced options, add the following configuration parameter:
    das.maskCleanShutdownEnabled = True (Default setting = True)

CONFIGURING VSPHERE NETWORKING FOR ISCSI

Reccomandations are:

  1. Create just one vSwitch
  2. Create a vmkernel port every nic connected
    1. If you need to configure multiple subnets do not configure port binding in vmware
    2. If you configure just one subnet for iSCSI port you need to configure even port binding and failover order.

 

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