Hello Everyone,

I am interested in others experince with Open-e and vmware. We are looking to use this alone with volume replication as part of our DR enviornment. We have a lab setup and seem to have things working. It took a little growing pain to get this to work mainly because lack of detailed information about the Vmware ISCSI initiator. Anyways, here are the steps I took to get things going.

I am interested in comments by others. Most importantly does anyone have this in place in production? By the way, I am not a Vmware expert.

I took Todd's advice and downloaded the CD version of DSS.

With ISCSI DSS:

1. I created a volume group, and an ISCSI volume.

2. I then created an ISCSI target and made this new volume available.

3. I tested the target with windows initiator and works like a charm.

now on to VMware....

With VMware: ESX Server 3.0.1

1. After a standard install of Vmware server Using the Vmware Infrastructure Client I Enabled ISCSI Software client in the security profile section of configuration.

2. I then added a Virtual Switch connecting a service console, vmkernel to a nic that is on the same network as the DDS box.

3. I then added a connection to the IP of DDS in Dynamic Discovery of iSCSI software adapter.

4. Its scans (took a little while) and finds the target I created. (once I had to rescan after applying changes to have it see the target)

5. I then added the target to my vmware storage and I am able to assign a virtual disk to that storage volume

Everything seems to be working fine running for weeks now without a hiccup.

Note: Step 2 is important. You need to make sure both a Vmkernel and Service Console connection to the same network as your DSS box. I initially thought you only needed a vmkernel connection. However that did not work.

I hope this helps anyone in my situation.