0

I'm setting up a Fedora server to act as an iScsi storage target. The primary storage network will be 25gb Infiniband. Is it possible and/or safe to also allow the target to be accessed by 10gb ethernet concurrently ?

bumble_bee_tuna
  • 443
  • 10
  • 25

1 Answers1

3

Possible? Yes. Reasonable? Maybe. Safe? Depends.

Ethernet and Infiniband are not compatible - but they can both run TCP/IP, so iSCSI on top can work.

The easiest solution is a multi-protocol router with two NICs, one for Infiniband and one for Ethernet. Both are running IP and you've set up routing in between. Make sure the router is up to the required speed - using a software router will definitey hurt iSCSI latency and a 10G+ router requires serious tuning.

Whether that can be considered "safe" depends on your implementation. A storage network needs to be secured, so the router and the Ethernet segment (VLAN) require an adequate security concept. You will not want unsecured access from any your normal production network, for instance.

Zac67
  • 8,639
  • 2
  • 10
  • 28
  • the server would be accessed by VMWare hosts. The idea being that the 10gb network would be the standby secondary route if the infiniband network dropped. By safe I did no mean in the context of security I meant data being corrupted (should have specified). I wanted to use SRP for the infiniband network – bumble_bee_tuna Jul 07 '19 at 15:33
  • You mean to re-share the server's RDMA/Infiniband storage via iSCSI? If IB goes down, the server is offline, so is its iSCSI target. – Zac67 Jul 07 '19 at 15:42