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System Manager Classic

iSCSI configuration for ESXi using VSC overview

Contributors netapp-forry netapp-ahibbard netapp-thomi NetAppZacharyWambold
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Using the ONTAP System Manager classic interface (ONTAP 9.7 and earlier), you can quickly set up the iSCSI service on a storage virtual machine (SVM), provision a LUN, and make the LUN available using an iSCSI initiator on an ESXi host computer.

Use this procedure if:

  • You are using the native ESXi iSCSI software initiator on ESXi 5.x.

  • You are not using CHAP authentication for iSCSI.

  • You are using a supported version of Virtual Storage Console for VMware vSphere (VSC) to configure storage settings for your ESX host.

    • Beginning with VSC 7.0, VSC is part of the ONTAP Tools for VMware vSphere virtual appliance, which includes VSC, vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) Provider, and Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for VMware vSphere capabilities.

    • Be sure to check the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool to confirm compatibility between your current ONTAP and VSC releases.

  • Your network uses IPv4 addressing.

  • You want to assign addresses to logical interfaces using any of the following methods:

    • Automatically from a subnet you define

    • Manually, using an address selected from an existing subnet

    • Manually, using an address that will be added to an existing subnet

  • You have at least two high-speed Ethernet ports (1 GbE minimum, 10 GbE recommended) available on each node in the cluster.

    Onboard UTA2 (also called CNA) ports are configurable. You configure those ports in the ONTAP CLI; that process is not covered in his procedure.

    See Network Management for using the CLI to configure Ethernet port flow control.

  • You are not configuring iSCSI SAN boot.

  • You are providing storage to VMs through the ESXi hypervisor and not running an iSCSI initiator within the VM.

For more information, see TR-4597: VMware vSphere for ONTAP and the documentation for your VSC release.