[CentOS] CentOS5 with Dell Broadcom iSCSI Offload, does it work ?

Steve Walsh steve at nerdvana.net.au
Fri Sep 9 12:17:50 UTC 2011


On 09/09/2011 10:05 PM, Drew Weaver wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I could be wrong here but don't you go into the Broadcom NIC configuration while the server is booting and add the iSCSI target in there and then it should appear as "Just Another Volume (TM)" to the operating system?
>
> I've never tried it but I assume thats how the 'offloading' works.

close, but not. TCP Offloading (obviously) offloads the TCP protocol 
processing from the server CPU onto the server adapter. This preserves 
valuable CPU cycles for applications processing and improves overall 
server performance and network efficiency, as the heavy lifting for 
iSCSI is done on the card, by the card.

<snip>
>     After finding multiples answers to this question via google, but without
> making it work on my servers. Has anybody iSCSI Offload working on a Dell
> Server with Broadcom NICs ?

Depending on how the Broadcom is in the server (ie - Physical Card vs 
onboard mezzanine card) depends on if you enable it in BIOS, or switch 
into the firmware when prompted at boot time to enable it.



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