Celeros and Open-e iSCSI w/VMware

[Flicka]

We recently returned from VMworld 2007, where I talked to the folks at Celeros about their iSCSI SAN products. In the process, I noted that their web management portal is very similar to the Open-e one I am using. Questions:

1. Can we get the same functionality on Open-e and our own (similar) hardware as one would get with the Celeros iSCSI products?
2. According to this link:

http://www.celeros.com/pdf/VMWare&CelerosSANs.pdf

Syracuse University is successfully using Celeros with VMware ESX, although this article doesn't mention Vmotion, HA, DRS, etc. Do you know if they have the same stability problems that Open-e has (according to this link):

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=581350&#581350

In other words, are they using a different version of the IET than you are?
3. According to Celeros, they will be certified on ESX3 in a few months. Would this help Open-e, or are your products different enough so that it won't?

Thanks!
Ted T.

[To-M]

Old links...... any way, yes we are a few months away for certification. Next several weeks new version will be even better. You can contact us at 770-881-7680 to gain more information concerning hardware and software functionality.

[Flicka]

Apparently there are some Open-e installations in production with VMware ESX, but no sign of certification by VMware yet. We will need that before being able to recommend this product to clients.

Any guess on a time frame?

Thanks!

[To-M]

Yes we where approved on first phase - now phase 2 is sending equipment to labs.
This should take about 3-5 weeks if all goes well.

[fivefive1978]

Has version 1.37 worked out all the overlapping LUN issues?

To those above I'm running ESX 3.0.2 in production. You just have to make sure none of your iSCSI LUN's overlap numerically.

This is true at least with qLogic HBA's I haven't tried the software iSCSI initator bundled in VMWare ESX.

[To-M]

Our approval with VMware is for version 1.32 so 1.37 will not be certified as this will cost additional funds. 1.37 will not have the LUN fix we had to place this on a latter schedule. We have not decided as which way to approach this, being that we will make a special update to 1.32 (for VMware only) to force the LUNs never to overlap or engineers need additional time to work on this.

[SjRieks]

Flicka,

My name is Stephen Rieks and I am the SysAdmin at Syracuse University that is using the Celeros XL23 san and Vmware ESX 3.01/3.02.

Yes, we are using Vmotion, HA, DRS, etc without issues. The only vmotion issue we are having is with IBM servers and different CPU types; but that is not a SAM issue, its a vmware issue. With identical IBM 3650's, we vmotion with no issues.

We do not have any LUNS using overlapping numbers and truthfully, I didn't even know this was an issue. I have a couple of LUNS 1TB and a 1.5 TB attached to 3 ESX boxes. All appears well. I'm running 20-25 VM's and my san load is generally low.