Setup Guide

3. Make sure that both VMkernel interfaces are attached to the same vSwitch.

4. Override the default Network Policy for iSCSI. For details refer to VMware vSphere documentation.

For example, with ESXi 6.5, refer to https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/

com.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc/GUID-9C90F3F6-6095-427A-B20C-D46531E39D32.html

5. Configure port binding for each VMkernel interface as described in the VMware vSphere documentation. For example, with

ESXi 6.5, refer to https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc/GUID-

D9B862DF-476A-4BCB-8CA5-DE6DB2A1A981.html

NOTE: Configuring port bindings will cause all traffic to flow from all bound interfaces. Without port binding, only a

single session will be used whereas with port binding, four sessions will be used (assuming two VMkernel ports and two

target iSCSI portals). For more information, refer to https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/

com.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc/GUID-4C19E34E-764C-4069-9D9F-D0F779F2A96C.html

Jumbo Frames

Configure end-to-end Jumbo Frames for optimal performance.

When using iSCSI with ESXi hosts and PowerStore, it is recommended to configure end-to-end Jumbo Frames (MTU=9000) for

optimal performance. With Jumbo Frames, Ethernet frames are set to be larger than 1500 bytes (up to 9000 bytes).

NOTE: When using Jumbo Frames, make sure that all ports (ESXi server, switch/es and storage) are configured with the

correct MTU value. With VMware ESXi, the correct MTU size must be set on the virtual switch as well.

For further details on configuring Jumbo Frames with iSCSI on ESXi, refer to VMware KB article 1007654 on the VMware

website (https://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007654).

Delayed ACK

For optimal traffic, it is recommended to disable Delayed ACK on ESXi.

For optimal iSCSI traffic between the ESXi hosts and PowerStore, especially during periods of network congestion, it is

recommended to disable Delayed ACK on ESXi. By disabling Delayed ACK, the ESXi host would send an ACK acknowledgment

segment for every received data segment (rather than delaying the sending of ACK acknowledgment segments, while receiving

a stream of TCP data segments).

For further details on the Delayed ACK parameter and how to disable it using the vSphere Client, refer to VMware KB article

1002598 on the VMware website (https://kb.vmware.com/kb/1002598).

NOTE:

The recommended method for configuring the Delayed ACK setting is per discovered iSCSI target. This allows to

disable Delayed ACK only for PowerStore iSCSI targets.

Follow these steps to set the iSCSI login timeout.

About this task

When establishing an iSCSI session between the initiator and target, the login timeout setting controls how long the ESXi host

attempts to log in to the iSCSI target before failing the login and retrying. The default setting for LoginTimeOut is 5. For

example, by default an iSCSI session ceases retries after 20 seconds (5 times the LoginRetryMax setting, which is set by

default to 4).

To optimize the iSCSI session behavior with PowerStore and to better handle periods of network disruptions, it is recommended

to adjust LoginTimeOut to 30.

The following steps describe how to adjust LoginTimeOut, using command-line.

Steps

1. Connect to the ESXi host as root.

2. Run the following command:

esxcli iscsi adapter param set -A adapter_name -k LoginTimeout -v value_in_sec

Host Configuration for VMware vSphere ESXi