Connect VMware ESX Server to a Free iSCSI SAN

The free VMware ESXi server is a type 1 hypervisor and requires no host operating system. VMware Server supports multiprocessor systems with AMD64 or Intel64. It is recommended to ESXi Server VMware certified hardware just to run the VMware . The main application field of the VMware ESXi server is the server consolidation. VMware ESXi Server is the first software layer on the hardware. The control takes a specially adapted Linux, which runs as a virtual machine with specific rights to the hypervisor. On a separate partition with a specific file system, the VMFS, the virtual machine are stored. In a further partition (vmcore) in case of error core dump information is stored.

The VMware ESXi has, in contrast to the VMware ESX server, no service console. By eliminating the service console has, although the memory requirements of the VMware ESXi hypervisor reduced to below 32 MByte, many console-based management (monitoring, backup, update is not) are possible. These management tasks can be taken over by the free Remote Command Line Interface (RCLI) (see below). Convenient to management tasks via GUI with the free VMware Infrastructure Client handles the. The best management tool is the VMware Virtual Center Server.

Complete Steps to Connect the Same:

1. Here we will connect a host to connect to shared volumes. First of all open ports for connect to the iSCSI target, and then go to the Settings tab and under that look for security profile.
2. Here you can see the ports that you have open under the firewall for both inbound and outbound ports, and then click on Properties to enable iSCSI connections.
3. Select Software iSCSI Client and give OK
4. Well, now you must configure the iSCSI adapter to connect to the iSCSI target, then the Configuration tab in the column select Storage Adapters and then you can see if you have volumes and iSCSI adapters our. Click on the properties of our iSCSI software adapter iSCSI Software Adapter in Properties.
5. On the General tab for this go to Settings
6. Mark the button Enabled and click OK
7. Go to the tab of dynamic discovery and from here you have to add your iSCSI target. So click on Add
8. And then introduce the iSCSI server’s IP address. Also check that the port is correct, by default: 3260 os set then give OK. Click Close.
9. And at top of the card with the right button Rescan if at first you do not find something and check that how it detects an iSCSI target.
10. Also note you have your iSCSI target now that create storage for virtual machines that can save her, if I click on Storage
11. Click on Add Storage and search for the iSCSI shared storage.
12. Select the Disk / LUN to be a type of data store iSCSI and give Next
13. There you can see the shared storage, the device tells us and we realized that what we want to see the size of the total capacity and SAN Openfiles will identify the next.
14. It indicates that the disk is empty, Next
15. There you can see the same and something can be discuss later and know where to store virtual machines Next
16. Select the type of format, we leave the default and select Maximize the ability to create a volume with all the space, or sell what we want. Next
17. Then check that everything is correct and click Finish to create this issue datastore with the formatting of VMFS-3 ideal for storing virtual machine files.
18. And there we have the data store that you just created and stored on iSCSI Openfiles, we must now do the same thing in other hosts and we have a common storage system using HA or DRS.

VMware ESX and VMware ESXi installed directly into the hardware of the server and create a robust virtualization layer between the hardware and operating system. VMware ESX and ESXi share a physical server into multiple secure mobile virtual machines that can run simultaneously. Each virtual machine represents a complete system with a processor, RAM, network devices, storage and BIOS, that allows you to run in a virtual environment operating system, Windows, Linux, Solaris and NetWare without any modifications. In addition, the virtual machine is fully isolated from each other, so the failure or incorrect configuration of one of the machines does not affect the others.

Resource allocation of physical server into multiple virtual machines increases hardware utilization and significantly reduces capital costs. The ability to embed hardware provides VMware ESX and ESXi full control over the server resources allocated to each virtual machine, and provides a virtual machine almost at the level of physical analogy, as well as enterprise-class scalability. VMware ESX and ESXi VMs provide built-in high availability, security and resource management, which provide higher levels of service applications than static physical environments.

VMware ESX Server supports 4 types of storage systems:

• Local Storage - Local SCSI or SATA drives or server DAS (Direct Attached Storage). These devices are volumes that are formatted in a clustered file system, VMFS (Virtual Machine File System). IDE-drives are available only for the installation of the ESX Server, while virtual machines are stored and can not create VMFS-volumes.
• iSCSI Storage - devices that connect to the iSCSI interface through software or hardware initiator. To store the virtual machines are also used VMFS-volumes. To use the software iSCSI-based storage on Windows 2003 Server, read this article here .
• Fibre Channel - optical or copper connection to high-speed storage system through a SAN (Storage Area Network) via HBA-adapter. At the logical volumes are created as LUN VMFS-volume storage of virtual machines.
• NAS-storage (Network Attached Storage). Only supported file system NFS. Since this file system already has a built-in features such as multiple access hosts and distributed blocking access to files, VMFS volumes on the NFS-storage is not created.