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Virtualization Frontier : October 2008

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I've been a user of Fibre Channel SANs for about eight years. I have used the Dell | EMC-based arrays throughout and have gone through a few product transitions from the FC4700 to the CX-600 to most recently a CX3-80. I always liked the Navisphere management tool and was able to great performance across the range of applications that I set up to use the Fibre Channel storage.

About eight months ago I was finally convinced to try out some iSCSI arrays. First, I worked with the Dell | EMC CX3-40c, which has both iSCSI and Fibre Channel ports. This configuration didn't really seem all that different from what I was used to with Fibre Channel, mostly because I was still using Navisphere. Next, I set up and used a PowerVault MD3000i and found this array to be really easier in some ways, although it didn't have the same features in lots of respects. Finally, about four months ago I started using some Dell EqualLogic PS5000 Series iSCSI storage arrays. And I did some performance testing with them in a whitepaper that was released about a month ago. The net was that this setup is really much easier, and I was able to get great performance.

We are having a chat here on delltechcenter to discuss when to use what type of storage for virtualization, and we expect a lot of the discussion to be about iSCSI versus Fibre Channel. Feel free to join the chat or check out the transcript, depending on when you are reading this.

I haven't done a head-to-head performance comparison of Fibre Channel versus iSCSI, and I don't plan to either. I've been able to get great performance with both in the tests that I have run. It's more the ease of setup and use that makes iSCSI so compelling for me. I had resisted iSCSI for a while because I just knew that it wouldn't be good enough, but now that I have started using it I find that it works fine. I think that Fibre Channel still has places where it fits best, but I would highly recommend that iSCSI be considered for all new projects. I'm still using both in my lab. You just might find that you will like iSCSI-if you try it.

Todd

0 Comments Permalink Tags: delltechcenter, equallogic, md3000i, powervault, clariion, emc, fiber, fibre, fibrechannel
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Our recent chat on the benefits of using EqualLogic iSCSI storage for virtualization solutions like VMware and XenServer was great. We had a longtime EqualLogic guy - Tim Sherback - and quite a few expert users who talked in detail about all of the features of EqualLogic that work so well with VMware and XenServer. Things like thin-provisioning, simplified management, and ease of expansion were mentioned. The most compelling aspect to me is the deep integration that has been done with the Auto Snapshot Manager for VMware, Auto Replication with VMware Site Recovery Manager, and the EqualLogic adapter for XenServer 5.0 Dell Edition. In each case the virtualization software (either VMware of XenServer) is able to use the hardware features of an EqualLogic array to accomplish what would have been done in software. For example you can use the snapshot feature of the array to make a VM snapshot. Check out the chat transcript for more details and also check out the demo vidoes to see it in action.

The other really great aspect of the chat was a discussion around when to pick EqualLogic or MD3000i. There was lots of info which should help anybody trying to decide which to use. I recommend that you read the transcript to get the details - this part of the chat is towards the end if you want to just skip right to it.

Todd

0 Comments Permalink Tags: delltechcenter, equallogic, esx, esxi, hyper-v, iscsi, powervault, md3000i, virtualization
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A couple of days after scheduling our current chat series I got an email with a new whitepaper on how EqualLogic can be integrated with XenServer 5.0. To be honest - I had scheduled tomorrow's chat (Value of EqualLogic With Virtualization) expecting to mostly talk about EqualLogic integration with VMware SRM and Auto SnapShot Manager for VMware. Now the conversation can also include XenServer - the new whitepaper outlines how XenServer 5.0 can be integrated wtih EqualLogic for snapshots and thin provisioning.

There are lots of great resources out there that cover the basics of these integration features. The videos on integration with VMware Site Recovery Manager and AutoSnapshot Manger VMware Edition are recommended for those selecting storage for virtualization. Then come to our chat tomorrow to discuss with some EqualLogic experts.

Todd

0 Comments Permalink Tags: delltechcenter, equallogic, iscsi, xenserver
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To follow up on the Hyper-V Server install video from last week, I added a new page to delltechcenter.com that shows how to configure a connection to an iSCSI storage array for Hyper-V Server. With a full Windows Server 2008 installation there is a GUI tool in Administrative Tools called iSCSI Initiator that is used to configure and manage these connections. Windows Server 2008 Core and Hyper-V Server do not have a GUI, so a command-line version called iscsicli.exe must be used.

The page that I added shows how to create a simple iSCSI connection by first enabling the iSCSI Initiator service with the sc (service console) command, then using iscsicli.exe to map the connection to the target iSCSI LUN, and then using diskpart.exe to do the partitioning and formatting. It's not as bad as it sounds, and is pretty straightforward once you know the commands.

To get an MPIO-type connection set up is only a little bit more involved. There is a script that I found in a Microsoft TechNet forum that is an example of how to do an MPIO connection to an MD3000i using iscsicli.exe. You can also use a GUI-based tool called Storage Explorer that is included with Windows Server 2008 to connect remotely to the Hyper-V server and create additional connections. (It doesn't see anything until you have used iscsicli.exe to get the initial connection.)

Todd

0 Comments Permalink Tags: delltechcenter, iscsi, iscsicli, iscsicli.exe, diskpart, diskpart.exe, command, line, md3000i, equallogic, core, ps5000, powervault
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So you want to know what the right storage solution is for your new VMware deployment you are planning. Or maybe you are ready to start deploying Microsoft Hyper-v and need to know which iSCSI array is right for you. Because there really isn't a single answer that is right for everybody, the answer is - It depends.

The question really should be how do I decide what is the right storage. What questions should I ask? and how do I find the answers? Or maybe more simply - What process should I follow to find the right answer? I think that the answer is basically to ask questions, learn about the options, and learn from others experiences. We did a similar focus topic on selecting a server for virtualization in the summer and now it is time to look at storage.

For the next three weeks on DellTechCenter we are going to focus on the question of what is the right storage for virtualization for a range of scenarios. There is a homepage for the topic and series of three web chats scheduled. So if you have a question about storage and virtualization get it answered here. We have lined up experts from the storage engineering teams to help out with the chats and assist in getting your questions answered.

Todd

0 Comments Permalink Tags: delltechcenter, powervault, equallogic, storage, fibre, iscsi, das, dell, md3000i, ps5000, dell|emc
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Microsoft released Hyper-V Server as a FREE download from their website on Wednesday. Like lots of other server geeks out there, I downloaded it immediately and installed it to see what it was like. It took me about an hour and a half to complete the whole install process. I recorded the whole session as a video file and then edited it down to 5 minutes by speeding up all of the sections where it is loading files or rebooting.

I have decided to also give away for FREE my video of the Hyper-V Server install. Yes that's right. You can view my video for FREE, just like you can download Hyper-V Server or ESXi and install them for FREE.

I did the entire install remotely from my desk - our servers are in another room. In order to do the install I connected via remote desktop into a "gateway" system in the lab and then used a browser from that system to connect to the Dell Remote Access Card (DRAC) in the target server. Then using the remote console redirection and virtual media features of the DRAC I did the install from the Hyper-V Server ISO that was on our file server.

Hyper-V Server is basically Windows Server 2008 Core with only the Hyper-V role included. Did I mention that it is free? Which is a really big deal - I don't remember Microsoft ever giving away something like this before. Because it is based on Windows Server Core it does not have a GUI. It does include a text based configuration tool that enables you to set the hostname, IP, subnet, etc (This is included in the FREE video). Once a Hyper-V Server is on the network you can then use the Hyper-V Manager MMC from a Windows Server 2008 or Vista system to manage it.

Todd

0 Comments Permalink Tags: delltechcenter, hyper-v, video, demo, free
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A [thread started here|http://www.delltechcenter.com/thread/1670169/iSCSI+Enabled+NICs] on delltechcenter.com lead me to do some investigation into an "iSCSI Ready" feature of the onboard Broadcom 5708 NICs on the PowerEdge R805. Turns out that the Broadcom 5708 or NetExtreme II NIC has the capability to be a TCIP/IP offload engine (TOE) which is a fairly well known thing. It also can be a hardware based iSCSI adapter with some iSCSI offload capability as well - which is the "iSCSI Ready" feature. It is also possible to use this to boot from iSCSI as it is hardware based.

I had a really hard time finding the any documentation about how to configure and enable the iSCSI Ready feature, so I put together a really cool wiki page that has few screen-shots and some basic guidance. Additionally, I did a quick performance test to see if it did indeed reduce CPU utilization. I found that a small reduction with my test workload and posted a screen-shot of that as well.

Todd

1 Comments Permalink Tags: iscsi, broadcom, r805, r905, 5708, bacs, dellltechcenter, poweredge
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I just posted a new whitepaper that I have been working on for the last month or two. It was a great opportunity to test out how well Hyper-V performs with a large number of virtual machines (VMs) on a richly configured R900. You'll have to check out the whitepaper for the complete details. Here I'm going to give you a little bit of the background into how the paper was done.

I found out in early summer that we would be announcing and shipping some new 6-core Intel Xeon processors in our PowerEdge R900 server (4-socket, 4U). I was being asked what I thought would be a good way to show how well it performed for virtualization and recommended that we use Hyper-V and the Dell DVD store in a test similar to some tests that I had done in the past with ESX. At the time, Hyper-V was still just a release candidate, and I was told that I wouldn't get the processors until early August. Both of these things changed-Hyper-V went officially final with an RTM build (which was great), and I ended up not getting any 6-core processors to test with until late August (which was bad because I had only one week to complete testing at that point).

I switched over to EqualLogic for the storage in this test. Previous tests had mostly been with Dell | EMC CX series storage, but I wanted to get a chance to run a heavy load against the EqualLogic iSCSI storage. It was fun to set up and test with the new arrays. I thought that setup was much easier, and I learned about setting up MPIO with the iSCSI initiator on Windows 2008.

Showing that the R900 with 24 cores was able to support 40 VMs, achieving a total of 74K DVD Store Orders per minute, wouldn't mean anything unless it was compared to something else. Using an R900 and an HP DL585 as quad-core comparison points, the testing showed an advantage in not only performance, but performance per watt as well.

So check out the full paper, and let me know if you have any questions.

0 Comments Permalink Tags: hyper-v, r900, dunnington, performance

ToddMuirhead

 Member since: Feb 13, 2006

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