Oracle VM 3.1.1: Using iSCSI LUN's as Device-Backed Virtual Machine Disks?

Question

Will Oracle VM Manager 3.1.1 support the use of iSCSI LUN's as device-backed virtual machine disks? i.e., Can iSCSI LUN's be treated like directly-attached storage (DAS) and used as virtual machine disks?
Eric Pretorious
Truckee, CA

Answer 1

user12273962 wrote:
I don't personally use ISCSI. BUT, I don't see why you can't create physical pass through attachments to virtual guests using ISCSI LUNS. It is no different than FC or direct attach storage. Worst case scenerio... you can create a repo on the ISCSI LUN and then create virtual disks.
Oracle VM Getting Started Guide for Release 3.1.1Chapter 7. Create a Storage Repository
A storage repository is where Oracle VM resources may reside... Resources include virtual machines, templates for virtual machine creation, virtual machine assemblies, ISO files (DVD image files), shared virtual disks, and so on. This would have the effect of using file-backed virtual machine disks but at least they'd be centrally-located on shared storage (and, therefore, the virtual machine could run as an HA guest)
budachst wrote:
I have kicked this idea around as well, but I decided do it slightly different, by providing the storage repo via multipathed iSCSI and use iSCSI within my guests if needed for better speed or lower disk latency.
If you want to use iSCSI as the virtual devices for your guests in a clustered server pool, you'd have to grant access to all of your iSCSI targets to any VM server and I was not feeling comfortable with that. I rather grant only the guest directly access to "its" iSCSI target. So I will keep all of my guests system images on the clustered server pool - and additionally also the virtual disks that don't need a high performance and have the really heavy-duty vdisks as separate iSCSI targets.That seems logical, Budy:
<ul>
<li>Use a multipathed iSCSI repository for hosting the virtual machine's disk image, and then;
<li>Utilize iSCSI LUN's for "more performant" parts of the guest's file system (e.g., /var).
</ul>
I'm still puzzled about that image, though. +i.e., the fourth image from the bottom of Chapter 7.7, "Creating a Virtual Machine" ("To add a physical disk:...") where it's clear that the exising "physical" disks are actually iSCSI LUN's that are attached to the OVM server.+
I suppose that I'll have to configure some iSCSI LUN's and try it out to be certain. Just another tool that I don't have +but will need to add to my toolbox+.