How to use openfiler iscsi in vmware

[Saaz]

I am using VMware ESX Server. Can i use all the advance features of ESX without SAN? Or i will need to use SAN? How to use openfiler iscsi in vmware? Is it really possible? Or just as simple as a fairy tale? Help guys! I'm confused. I don't know what iSCSI is and how to use it... Please help!

[Zachary]

iSCSI stands for Internet Small Computer System Interface, an IP-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. By carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, iSCSI is used to facilitate data transfers over intranets and to manage storage over long distances. iSCSI can be used to transmit data over local area networks, wide area networks, or the Internet and can enable location-independent data storage and retrieval. The protocol allows clients called initiators to send SCSI commands CDBs to SCSI storage devices on remote servers. It is a popular storage area network protocol, allowing organizations to consolidate storage into data center storage arrays while providing hosts with the illusion of locally-attached disks. Unlike traditional Fibre Channel, which requires special-purpose cabling, iSCSI can be run over long distances using existing network infrastructure.

[Steve123]

Well its true that most of the advanced features cannot be used without implementing SAN. You will need to use it if you want to access all the features of ESX server like VMotion, VMware High Availability (VMHA), and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). Also you can use OpenFiler iSCSI with VMware ESX servers.

[Milton.J]

You can download a free open-source iSCSI server and use it as your SAN storage for VMware ESX and all its advanced features mentioned above. I would recommended you to use OpenFiler as you are familiar with it and its newer version has a lot of improvements too. What is OpenFiler : Openfiler is an operating system that provides file-based network-attached storage and block-based Storage area network. It was created by Xinit Systems, and is based on the rPath Linux distribution. It is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2. Its software stack interfaces with open source third-party software.
Download - 32-bit
Download - 64-bit
Complete list of downloads : http://www.openfiler.com/community/download/