ESXI w/ OmniOS & Napp-it using 40 gbe adapters

[gmoore]

We are looking at building a high performance environment that would include 2 ESXi v5.5 servers and 2 OmniOS ZFS servers with Napp-it. We would like to use 40 Gigabit Ethernet Adapters such as the Mellanox ConnectX-3 adapter.
http://www.mellanox.com/related-docs/prod_adapter_cards/ConnectX3_EN_Card.pdf

The issue at this current time with the ConnectX-3 adapters is the driver does not show supported in HCL for Illumos.
illumos HCL - WIP

However the ConnectX-3 drivers are supported in the latest ESXi v5.5. Would anyone have any information on getting these adapters to work in this environment?

And/or would anyone have any recommendations for other 40gbe adapters that work in an ESXi v5.5 + OmniOS environment?

Thanks in advance!

 

[gea]

We are looking at building a high performance environment that would include 2 ESXi v5.5 servers and 2 OmniOS ZFS servers with Napp-it. We would like to use 40 Gigabit Ethernet Adapters such as the Mellanox ConnectX-3 adapter.
http://www.mellanox.com/related-docs/prod_adapter_cards/ConnectX3_EN_Card.pdf

The issue at this current time with the ConnectX-3 adapters is the driver does not show supported in HCL for Illumos.
illumos HCL - WIP

However the ConnectX-3 drivers are supported in the latest ESXi v5.5. Would anyone have any information on getting these adapters to work in this environment?

And/or would anyone have any recommendations for other 40gbe adapters that work in an ESXi v5.5 + OmniOS environment?

Thanks in advance!

I use 10 GbE Ethernet everywhere so I cannot comment 40 Gb on Solaris.
But have you considered two independent All-In-One's where transfer VM -> storage is in software with max performance
and transfer storage -> external is done via ESXi?

Storage performance is mostly RAM limited and with enough RAM you can virtualize the storage part es well.

 

[gmoore]

I use 10 GbE Ethernet everywhere so I cannot comment 40 Gb on Solaris.
But have you considered two independent All-In-One's where transfer VM -> storage is in software with max performance
and transfer storage -> external is done via ESXi?

Storage performance is mostly RAM limited and with enough RAM you can virtualize the storage part es well.

Thank you for your feedback Gea, it is always appreciated. We currently use the All-In-One recommended setup in multiple remote locations with ESXi/Omnios/Napp-it using 10 gbe Intel’s.

However for this environment we are looking for a 40 gbe adapter to work in the ESXi/OmniOS setup. We would prefer to separate our datastores for this application.

 

[OBasel]

Can you just use a 40GbE ConnectX-3 for ESXi then use Illimios or anohter distro in an ESXi VM?