For lab purposes, you could use an old desktop with a few hard disks and create an iscsi storage target. There are free programs available to keep costs down.
Openfiler can do iscsi (installed os) or vmware player on top of xp. There are ready built iscsi appliances downloadable from the vmware site.
Rocket division make a product called Starwind, which in it's basic form is a free download. You can create 2 disks. THe site also gives a 'Howto' for MS cluster.
It can be done, i've had a virtual cluster running on my desktop. It was slow but was more for proof of concept than use.
I need to setup a cheap two node cluster in a lab environment and I was looking at buying used equipment. I found a Dell Powervault 210S SCSI Storage SAN Array and thought that may just the thing. Does anyone have any knowledge of that unit and know whether or not it can be used for clustering two nodes or what additional modules or devices I would need? Would you suggest a different unit? Thanks for any help you can provide.
Riley
The PV210S isn't a "SAN" array. A SAN is defined as a Storage Area Network; which means it's a networkable protocol like fibre channel or iSCSI.
The PV210S can be used for clustering, but only if it has ESEM or SEMM controllers. You can find some information about configuring the setup for clustering here.
A few notes;
- Red Hat hasn't certified SCSI clustering if I'm not mistaken. Possibly due to the low performance (can't use write cache as that would be in the raid controllers and if 1 server/controller failed the server OS would assume it was written to disk, but if it was in write cache the other server wouldn't 'find' the new data on the disks when it took over the cluster).
- Windows 2008 doesn't support SCSI clustering, so if you're wanting to do a Windows cluster you'll have to use Windows 2000 Advanced server or Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition.
- when using a SCSI enclosure for clustering you can only have a single container on a set of physical disks. So, for the quorum, you could use 2 x 36GB in a raid 1 and then the other disks in a raid 5 or so, but you can't take all disks in a raid 5 and then slice it into 2 containers (like you can when you're not clustering).
- you'll need 2 identical raid controllers; e.g. PERC3DC.
If I still wanted to go the hardware route and didn't want to run into any incompatibilities with SCSI, what would be my best bet for fiber attached storage?
If I still wanted to go the hardware route and didn't want to run into any incompatibilities with SCSI, what would be my best bet for fiber attached storage?
Do you mean; what can I buy that uses fibre channel to be able to set up a cluster?
If so, you could look into a Dell|EMC AX4-5F. If you're considering things off of Ebay or so, I'd stay away from the PV660F. You could also look into a PV650F or EMC FC5600.
You'd have to have both servers connect to the same controller/storage processor, which may require you to go into the FC card and change the FC ID on the card of 1 of the 2 servers, or they'd conflict (would be similar to conflicting scsi ids).
Thanks for the info, it's much appreciated. I didn't find any PV650Fs, or EMC5600s on eBay however the link you provided to the Dell|EMC AX4-5F listed on the Dell site for a whopping $9,940! If I was Bill Gates I could afford that. I'm looking for some older hardware to stick in my basement to learn with and was hoping there was something a lot more affordable.
Then I'd look into Tommo666's suggestion and use something like StarWind's iSCSI target software and create a cluster using iSCSI.
This just requires NICs and switches (Gbit recommended for performance reasons). I'd recommend to set up a separate network for the iSCSI part;
- pick up a (cheap) 8-port Gbit switch
- put 2 NICs in each 'server'; one connected to your regular network and the other to the 'iSCSI' network
- pick a different subnet for the iSCSI network than what your regular network uses (e.g. if your regular network is 192.168.1.x (with a 255.255.255.0 subnet mask), you could use 192.168.2.x for iSCSI).
You can also set up a two node cluster using a shared MD3000 or MD3000i (can create a cluster with > 2 nodes). This will probably be your lowest cost hardware solution and will leave a lot of room for expansion of capacity in the future.
tommo666
3 Apprentice
•
1.2K Posts
0
February 27th, 2009 05:00
For lab purposes, you could use an old desktop with a few hard disks and create an iscsi storage target. There are free programs available to keep costs down.
Openfiler can do iscsi (installed os) or vmware player on top of xp. There are ready built iscsi appliances downloadable from the vmware site.
Rocket division make a product called Starwind, which in it's basic form is a free download. You can create 2 disks. THe site also gives a 'Howto' for MS cluster.
It can be done, i've had a virtual cluster running on my desktop. It was slow but was more for proof of concept than use.
Dev Mgr
4 Operator
•
9.3K Posts
0
February 27th, 2009 05:00
The PV210S isn't a "SAN" array. A SAN is defined as a Storage Area Network; which means it's a networkable protocol like fibre channel or iSCSI.
The PV210S can be used for clustering, but only if it has ESEM or SEMM controllers. You can find some information about configuring the setup for clustering here.
A few notes;
- Red Hat hasn't certified SCSI clustering if I'm not mistaken. Possibly due to the low performance (can't use write cache as that would be in the raid controllers and if 1 server/controller failed the server OS would assume it was written to disk, but if it was in write cache the other server wouldn't 'find' the new data on the disks when it took over the cluster).
- Windows 2008 doesn't support SCSI clustering, so if you're wanting to do a Windows cluster you'll have to use Windows 2000 Advanced server or Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition.
- when using a SCSI enclosure for clustering you can only have a single container on a set of physical disks. So, for the quorum, you could use 2 x 36GB in a raid 1 and then the other disks in a raid 5 or so, but you can't take all disks in a raid 5 and then slice it into 2 containers (like you can when you're not clustering).
- you'll need 2 identical raid controllers; e.g. PERC3DC.
rileymartin
28 Posts
0
February 27th, 2009 10:00
If I still wanted to go the hardware route and didn't want to run into any incompatibilities with SCSI, what would be my best bet for fiber attached storage?
Dev Mgr
4 Operator
•
9.3K Posts
0
February 28th, 2009 08:00
Do you mean; what can I buy that uses fibre channel to be able to set up a cluster?
If so, you could look into a Dell|EMC AX4-5F. If you're considering things off of Ebay or so, I'd stay away from the PV660F. You could also look into a PV650F or EMC FC5600.
You'd have to have both servers connect to the same controller/storage processor, which may require you to go into the FC card and change the FC ID on the card of 1 of the 2 servers, or they'd conflict (would be similar to conflicting scsi ids).
rileymartin
28 Posts
0
February 28th, 2009 15:00
Thanks for the info, it's much appreciated. I didn't find any PV650Fs, or EMC5600s on eBay however the link you provided to the Dell|EMC AX4-5F listed on the Dell site for a whopping $9,940! If I was Bill Gates I could afford that. I'm looking for some older hardware to stick in my basement to learn with and was hoping there was something a lot more affordable.
Dev Mgr
4 Operator
•
9.3K Posts
0
March 2nd, 2009 07:00
Then I'd look into Tommo666's suggestion and use something like StarWind's iSCSI target software and create a cluster using iSCSI.
This just requires NICs and switches (Gbit recommended for performance reasons). I'd recommend to set up a separate network for the iSCSI part;
- pick up a (cheap) 8-port Gbit switch
- put 2 NICs in each 'server'; one connected to your regular network and the other to the 'iSCSI' network
- pick a different subnet for the iSCSI network than what your regular network uses (e.g. if your regular network is 192.168.1.x (with a 255.255.255.0 subnet mask), you could use 192.168.2.x for iSCSI).
dining_philosop
60 Posts
0
March 2nd, 2009 09:00
You can also set up a two node cluster using a shared MD3000 or MD3000i (can create a cluster with > 2 nodes). This will probably be your lowest cost hardware solution and will leave a lot of room for expansion of capacity in the future.
rileymartin
28 Posts
0
March 2nd, 2009 10:00
Thanks for the help. I'll start looking for used MD3000's on eBay and see if I can afford one.