Dell PowerVault MD3800i - Manual (Page 58)

selection policy is used to route I/O requests between the paths with the same weight value. The least
path weight load balance policy is not supported on Linux operating systems.
Changing Load Balance Policies On The Windows Server Operating System
Load balancing with the PowerVault MD series storage array can be done from the default round robin
with subset by using either the:
• Device manager
• Disk management
Changing Load Balance Policies Using Windows Server Device Manager
Follow the steps to change the load balance policy using Windows Server device manager:
1. Right-click My Computer and select Manage to open the Computer Management dialog box.
2. Click Device Manager to show the list of devices attached to the host.
3. Right-click the multipath disk device for which you want to set the load balance policies, then select
Properties.
4. From the MPIO tab, select the load balance policy that you want to set for this disk device.
Changing Load Balance Policies Using Windows Server Disk Management
Follow the steps to change the load balance policy using disk management:
1. Right-click My Computer and click Manage to open the Computer Management dialog box.
2. Click Disk Management to show the list of virtual disks attached to the host.
3. Right-click the virtual disk for which you want to set the load balance policy, then click Properties.
4. From the MPIO tab, select the load balance policy that you want to set for this virtual disk.
Increasing Bandwidth With Multiple iSCSI Sessions
The PowerVault MD series storage array in a duplex configuration supports two active/active asymmetric
redundant controllers. Each controller has two 10G Ethernet ports that support iSCSI. The bandwidth of
the two ports on the same controller can be aggregated to provide optimal performance. A host can be
configured to simultaneously use the bandwidth of both the ports on a controller to access virtual disks
owned by the controller. The multi-path failover driver that Dell provides for the PowerVault MD series
storage array can be used to configure the storage array so that all ports are used for simultaneous I/O
access. If the multi-path driver detects multiple paths to the same virtual disk through the ports on the
same controller, it load-balances I/O access from the host across all ports on the controller.
Two sessions with one TCP connection are configured from the host to each controller (one session per
port), for a total of two sessions. The multi-path failover driver balances I/O access across the sessions to
the ports on the same controller. In a duplex configuration, with virtual disks on each controller, creating
sessions using each of the iSCSI data ports of both controllers increases bandwidth and provides load
balancing.
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