Equal Logic PS100 Hyper V 2008 R2 Hyper V 2012

Also to operate PS Series arrays with W2K8/12 and SCVMM you need the host integration toolkit / Microsoft Edition.  (HIT/ME) also provides enhanced MPIO.   Unfortunately it too requires an array under warranty or service contract.  

Don

Hello Jared, 

 I've been thinking how best to reply to this.  I've worked at EqualLogic (now Dell) for over 12 years.  It's an amazing product that I enjoy working with everyday..  The original PS series arrays were incredible work horses.  Salesman used to lug/ship them around for customer demos.  That chassis is designed to take serious abuse!   However, that model, is about seven generations from current gen.

 That's nearly equivalent to trying to run your business on Windows NT 3.5.  You "could" do it, but would that be best option?  The controllers, power supplies, etc are only available used and getting harder to find. 

  I will say that the only RAID level option you should consider is R10 or R6.  

 Do you know what firmware is on that array?  In order to be compatible with Hyper-V is really needs to be 5.2.x or greater.   Version prior to 4.3.6-H2 are NOT compatible.   Firmware is only available to customers with a valid support contract  

 What model Procurve?  The 28xx/29xx series lacked the ProVision HP chipset, so you couldn't use both Jumbo Frames and flowcontrol.   Flowocontrol is more important so only use standard MTU frames. (1500 bytes)    If it is a 28xx series, make sure you get the latest FW version.  By default that switch breaks up the already small buffer cache into 4x smaller queues.  Since you're doing iSCSI alone, you only have access to 1/4 of the buffer cache.   I wasn't able to find the old article that explained how to set it all to one queue.  

 Re: CSV.  If you are doing clustered Hyper-V hosts, then yes you need CSV.  

 One very important thing, is NOT to use 100% of the space available on that array.  Leave at lease 5-10% free. 

 Re: Backups.  That's most important.  The downside to your plan is that if the unit were to completely fail you have few options to get going again.  There's no support from Dell.  The license to use the firmware is maintained in the service contract not the physical H/W.   So no firmware updates, etc.

Re; Snapshots are handy for quick restores, depending on how much space your volumes are going to take up will help you determine if you have enough free space on that member. 

 If you can get another one, then at last you could do replication and have another copy and could move to that array very quickly. 

 Also more, smaller volumes work better than one or two MEGA volumes.  

There is an updated PDF but I haven't found it yet. 

http://partnerdirect.dell.com/sites/channel/en-em/documents/tr1043_deploying_microsoft_hyper-v_with_ps_series.pdf

This site has quite a bit of documentation as well. 

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/2653.dell-storage-ps-series

Regards, 

Don 

Here are some useful resources:

• Using Dell EqualLogic Storage with Failover Clusters and Hyper-V  (This is based on Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2 - but the large majority of all context is relevant for Server 2008 R2 as well.)
  
  
• Automation and Integration with MS System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 and Dell EqualLogic Storage
  
  
• Data Center Virtualization using Windows Server Hyper-V, PowerShell, and Dell EqualLogic Storage

Hello Jared, 

 The 2810 is a Desktop GbE switch.  That's really not a good ISCSI switch.  Definitely turn OFF Jumbo Frames on that switch.  With a single array and very few hosts it might suffice.  I've worked with that switch in the past.  It doesn't have HP's Provision chipset and very little cache as it wasn't designed for iSCSI SANs. 

 With Hyper-V cluster you need to have a place to start VMs.   So that would be a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV).   

 Re: Backup.  As long as you keep your backup current that's fine.  

 Since you don't have a contract, I suspect you don't have a login on the EQL support site.  Which means you can't download the HIT/ME software.  Which allows support for SCCVM.   So you won't be able to use that SW. 

 If you do only use one iSCSI session that does put you at risk for downtime if that NIC/Cable should fail or the port stop forwarding.   Also, you can not TEAM the iSCSI NICs with MS.  They don't support it.  You have to use MPIO instead.  With W2K8/2K12 you have to add in that feature (MPIO)  it doesn't get installed by default. 

 This PDF will show you how to manually configure MPIO 

http://www.alacritech.com/legacypdf/iSCSI_Multi-Path-IO_MPIO_Example.pdf

Good luck! 

 Regards,

Don 

Don,

I am a one man show here so it take me time to get back to these projects.

My EqualLogic firmware is V6.0.0 (R215294)

HP Procurve is 2810 with latest firmware.

What if I decide to just place one iscsi connection on there from one host and use it that way.

Would I create a Volume for each guest?

On the backups if the unit failed I would just abandon it and return my hyper V VM's back to local storage using Dell Rapid Recovery.  Wouldn't that work?

Thanks your time and knowledge. 

Jared

You should install HIT/Microsoft on each server in the cluster and install/configure the MPIO DSM.  Dedicate at least two NICS on each server in the cluster for iSCSI.  ...and separate NICS for LAN traffic.  Configure the MPIO DSM to exclude the non-ISCSI adapters from the MPIO configuration.  This can be done via HIT/Microsoft ASM/ME or the PowerShell Tools.

I recommend using CSV's vs. standard cluster volumes.  With CSV's, you can have multiple VMs on the same CSV -- and fail them over to other nodes independently of each other.  With standard cluster volumes, you will need to have 1 VM per standard cluster volume - so that the VMs can failover independently from each other.

All of this information is covered in great detail here:  Using Dell EqualLogic Storage with Failover Clusters and Hyper-V

Good point, Don.  I just noticed the array model - PS100.  Your options will be very limited related to supported PS Series Firmware versions for that array, and thus general incompatibility/limited support for clusters, Hyper-V, and HT/Microsoft.