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June 13th, 2011 22:00
Getting Started with PS6000 and Hyper-V
Hello all. We purchased a PS6000 box several months back and are finally getting around to deploying it. I am new to virtualization and iscsi storage so I was hoping to get some guidance from some of the veterans on this forum. First, a bit about our environment:
(1) PS6000, 9TB, 16 600GB 15k drives, 2 controllers with (4) 1Gbps ports, FW ver. 5.0.5
(3) Dell R710, 72GB RAM, 146GB RAID 1, (8) Broadcom BCM5709 NICs (TOE, jumbo frames, flow control enabled) - Windows Server 2008 R2 Full Install w/ Hyper-V role installed, HIT 3.5.1 installed
Isolated iscsi network running on 2 dedicated Cisco switches (jumbo frames and flow control enabled)
Now on to some of my questions:
1. Management - Right now the SAN is completely isolated and has no access to our production network. The PS6000 has dual controllers with all 4 ports on each patched in to the dedicated switches. I can manage the PS6000 by connecting to one of the Hyper-V host nodes and running the the Group Manager tool, but currently I have no means of connecting to an installation of SANHQ or enabling the email functions of this box. If I select the option to "Restrict to management access" on interface e3 on the PS6000, is that going to impact SAN performance? I'm just not clear if the box can actually use all 4 interfaces simultaneously for iscsi traffic. If it does impact it, would it make sense for me to just configure a trunk port on one (or two) of the SAN switches and connect it back to our layer 3 switch for routing to a SANHQ management station and our SMTP server?
2. Snapshots - I've configured the box with a RAID10 policy. With the policy in place right out of the box my 9TB's of storage was reduced to about 3.6TB. In the interest of saving space I had changed the snapshot reserve option on the first few test volumes we created to 0%. Our plan moving forward is to use DPM 2010 to backup Hyper-V guests-some, or all of which may be running in a Cluster Shared Volume. I'm reading about issues backing up Hyper-V guests using DPM 2010 and the default VSS provider..all references seem to indicate that hardware VSS on the EqualLogic side is necessary to get this to work. I'm assuming then that in order to implement this, I'm going to need to set up snapshot reserves for CSV volumes on the PS6000?
3. Guest Attached Volumes - I'm having a little trouble wrapping my head around adding storage to Hyper-V hosts. When I read the term "guest attached volumes", am I correct in assuming that these are volumes that are attached to guest machines...in other words separate from the OS volumes (that would be located on the CSV)? I'm thinking that these volumes would be things like file shares, db's, log files, etc. The other point of confusion I'm having is the best practice of how to attach to volumes located on the PS6000 from within a guest OS (Windows 2008). From my initial research it seems that the method that is suggested when taking into account backups using DPM 2010 that VHD's attached the host and then added to the guest is the recommended solultion? True, or should the volumes be connected via iscsi initiator inside the guest? Lastly, if I'm using CSV for the guest OS, should I be using CSV for the other volumes as well-or can I make them available to multiple hosts? What's the recommended implementation in most cases?
Ultimately we'll be looking to virtualize file/print services, SQL, and Exchange so this a very big change for us. Any tips/advice is greatly appreciated!
Dev Mgr
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June 14th, 2011 07:00
Did you buy a remote install service with your SAN? If so, I'd suggest to contact that team and schedule to have someone work with you to set up the SAN.
As for SANHQ, why not install it on one of the hyper-v servers? Alternatively take a (physical) server running Windows (any version) with at least 2 NICs, and put 1 NIC on the LAN and the other NIC into the iSCSI network.
I'm not too familiar with backup solutions (main job deals with SANs and connecting servers to SANs), but if the hardware provider is needed, it indicates that it would indeed involve using SAN based snapshots (and reserve). You don't specifically need 100% (default) though. If you just want to use the snapshot to do backups, 20% or maybe even 10% could be enough space, especially if you take the snapshots at a low-IO time and are done with the backups before IO picks up again (e.g. at night).
Guest attached volumes do require more physical NIC ports in your host, as you would use 2 NICs for the host's iSCSI and then 2 more NICs for the guest' s iSCSI (I wouldn't recommend piggy-backing the guest's iSCSI on the same NICs as the host uses for it's iSCSI). You'd turn these extra NICs into (2) external network connections for the guests, give the guests 2 extra NICs (on top of their regular LAN NIC), install the Equallogic HITKIT on the guest and configure the guest for iSCSI connectivity just like you did the host.
Joe S586
9 Technologist
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729 Posts
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June 14th, 2011 08:00
Sorry, I miss read the post and thought this was VMware, We have specific information on Hyper-V on the EqualLogic support web site as well.
Also check this link for Hyper-V: attachments.wetpaintserv.us/6bO2uWcS8hgKUohwpLhWxQ813609
Joe
Joe S586
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729 Posts
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June 14th, 2011 08:00
gkurcon,
Hi, it's Joe with Dell EqualLogic. Welcome to the forum! Moving forward, try to limit each post to just one specific subject. This way you can get better responses from the subject experts.
First ensure you update your array to the latest firmware after you have configured the Array group. The current version is v5.0.7. Information on how to do an update is available on the EqualLogic site at: support.dell.com/equallogic web site (login required).
Q1: If all 4 interfaces are configured for iSCSI traffic, you would need to create a port group (trunk) for remote management of the Array. If you decide to use the dedicated management interface option, the management interface is no longer available for iSCSI traffic. Performace may vary depending on your host disk IO, work load, etc.
See:
www.delltechcenter.com/.../EqualLogic+Configuration+Guide
Also, see the EqualLogic website listed above for specific information on VMware
Q2: Yes, lowering your snapshot reserve will provide some additional space for volumes, however, since you plan on using snapshots you will need to provide space for this, but this can be adjusted based on your snapshot retention needs. You may want to review this link to ensure you have selected the best RAID policy for your needs (you may be able to use RAID5 or RAIS50 to gain space without losing performance): (Choosing the Right RAID policy: attachments.wetpaintserv.us/H_ZTtYOIygZYOluTq6bP4w955999).
Regarding the backup, you may need to incorporate the EqualLogic ASM/ME (Auto Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition) and/or ASM/VE (Auto Snapshot Manger/VMware Edition) (both are free BTW!). Again, download both from the EqualLogic support site to review the documentation, and post any additional questions on this thread.
Q3: Review these links, once reviewed, if you have any additional specific questions, post them on this thread (VMware® ESX Server 3.x Considerations, Configuration and Operation Using an EqualLogic PS Series SAN: attachments.wetpaintserv.us/JI4wgF1klLCXvvgvg5OYGA753490). Again, the EqualLogic support site listed above also has specific information on setting up ESX.
Regards,
Joe
gkurcon
9 Posts
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June 14th, 2011 08:00
Yes we did. I think most of what I had questions about isn't really covered as part of the remote install...particularly tuning for Hyper-V, at least if I'm reading the guide that they included that details the included services. I'm pretty comfortable now with setting up the SAN, configuring the networking, attaching the Hyper-V hosts to the SAN. I've actually done some testing with IOMeter and I was happy to see some really great throughput with MPIO working. I'm just getting anxious as we had to wait for nearly 8 months while we had a lot of physical improvements done (cabling and power). I suppose it doesn't hurt to call.
I was trying to keep the hyper-v servers as clean as possible to preserve resources. Your second option is a possibility since we should have a few servers once we get vm's into production. But I still need a way to get mail enabled...I suppose I could set up a smtp relay on the same server and have it forwarding mail from the SAN.
Our environment is pretty small (about 250 end users), so I think if I cut down the size of the CSV volume for the VM's I can get away with reserving 40-50% for snapshots.
Thanks for clearing that up. So is there a general consensus out there that giving the VM's their own iSCSI vNIC is the best way to attach additional volumes to a guest?
Great information, thanks!
gkurcon
9 Posts
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June 14th, 2011 08:00
Hi Joe,
Sorry for the multiple topics mashed into one thread-as I mentioned in my previous reply I think I'm just getting anxious. We are a small shop with a staff of 2 people (myself included) so I'm trying to ramp up my knowledge as fast as possible. I probably would benefit by taking a step back and just absorbing as much as possible.
Thanks for the links as well. I've already read through the first two that you provided, the third link doesn't really apply to us since we're going to be a pure Hyper-V environment (think local government with a very limited budget).