Hyper-V 2012 R2 and MD3420

Question

Hi,

I am new to Dell and their storage solution and shortly we are taking on the support of a 2-node Dell Hyper-V Cluster consisting of the following:

2 x Dell 730 XD server

1 x MD3420

The configuration is multi path as well.

This is already obviously configured and running and has approximately 10 VM's running on it.

What I am looking for is information on how we best understand how this is configured and setup. I have seen the guides (Administrative and setup) and the e-learning for the MD3420 which we will complete, however even reading the guides i am still struggling to understand certain aspects, such as what is required and how does the SAN discover the Hosts. Do the hosts need to any software installing. Once discovered how is the storage attached to the hosts, etc.

Any help or assistance would be really appreciated. Or if I have not explained enough information regarding the configuration for you to assist please let me know.

Many Thanks

Mark

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello Mark,

You will use MDSM to manage your MD3420 as well as add & remove host. There is no software that needs to be installed on the host. When you want to add a host, you will follow the steps on page 57 & 58 to provide the host access to your MD3420. Most customer will put most host servers in a host group when they are using a cluster. How to create a host group is on page 59 of the administrator guide.

When it comes to your virtual disk you will create them and assign them to a disk group which is show on page 63 of the administrator guide on how to configure them. Once the virtual disk is created then you will need to do the Host to virtual disk mapping so the host can see the virtual disk. The host to virtual disk mapping can be found in the administrator guide on page 84.

Once the host to virtual disk mapping is complete then you will do a scan on your host and you should see a new drive that is present. You will need to give it a drive letter and format it & once complete you can start writing data to the new drive in windows.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Markne · Answer

Hi Sam,

Many thanks for the reply that is really useful information. What would be really handful is any guides etc showing the end to end process? Do you know if anything like that exists?

What I am think of is something that goes through:

How to configure the SAN with arrays, virtual disks, groups etc
How to when ready connect your hosts and how you do that
How to carry out basic configuration on the server to use the disk presented.

One question that springs to mind re when the disk is presented in the OS. You mentioned that you would have to provide a drive letter and format. What if the disk has data already or you are adding a host?

Apologies if my questions are random.

Thanks

Mark

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello Mark,

Here is a link to the Deployment guide for installing and setting up your MD3420. https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/powervault-md3400_deployment-guide2_en-us.pdf

All other options for managing your MD3420 can be found in the administrator guide.

If the virtual disk already have data on it then all you need to do is to map the VD to the host and then bring online without formatting it.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

PowerVault

Hyper-V 2012 R2 and MD3420

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