Hi Evan,

MPIO is required for load balancing and failover if you are using the Intel iSCSI HBA (TOE card). Intel do not provide their own teaming driver for this card.

If you are using the MS software iSCSI initiator with regular 1000BaseT Ethernet NIC's, you can use the regular teaming drivers that come with your NIC's.

i.e. for Intel Pro1000 NIC's use the "Adaptive Load Balancing" driver to create a virtual NIC from the two physical NIC's, then bind the Microsoft software iSCSI initiator to the virtual NIC.

Using MPIO and the iSCSI HBA's is a more expensive solution (due to the cost of the HBA's), but worth considering if you feel you need to minimise CPU overhead on your application host.

regards,

Alan McLachlan
___________________________________
Solution Architect - Data Centre Solutions
Dimension Data Australia
Alan.McLachlan@didata.com.au
Tel. +61 (0)2 61225123
Fax +61 (0)2 62486346
Mobile 0428 655644

----- Forwarded by Alan McLachlan on 28/10/2004 09:52 AM -----

"Evan Battle" <ebattle@Intellimark-IT.com>
Sent by: owner-toasters@mathworks.com

27/10/2004 11:49 PM

To: <toasters@mathworks.com>
cc:
Subject: iSCSI MPIO Support/Experiences

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />I have seen conflicting information on the site regarding MPIO support. The SnapDrive/Ontap Compatibility Matrix shows iSCSI is not supported for MPIO, however a press release dated August 23, 2004 indicated that NetApp does have an MPIO solution for the MS implementation of iSCSI.

Does the SnapDrive MPIO driver now work w/ iSCSI? Is this dependent upon using the MS iSCSI initiator and not an iSCSI HBA?

Also, do any of you have any experience implementing a MPIO iSCSI solution? If so, what have been your experiences.

Thanks,
Evan

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