Help to Configure BL460-C with HP MSA1000

[habibalby]

Dear All,

I'm on the process to configure 2 HP Blades BL-460 C with HP MSA1000 SAN Storage through HBA. Each Server with 20 gig of RAM. Each Server will be having 6 NICs. 2 Will be for VMs in Production, 2 for VMs in DMZ, 1 for S.C ((Failover is VMotion NIC)), 1 for VMotion ((Failover is S.C NIC)).

VLan will be created on the Physical Switch, and each Network Card will be connected to it's corresponded VLAN Port. Then, vSwitch will be Created, and the VLAN Number will be specify in the VLAD ID for the Virtual Switch.

The SAN has got 6 Drives 146X6 = 5256 GB. What is the recommended Raid 10 or Raid 5?

On the SAN there will be:

Migrating NT4.0 Domain to Windows 2000 and Windows 2003

Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007, each server will be having separate Role i;e, MB Role, CAS, Edge Transport, Hub Transport ect....

File and Print Server

Oracle Server

Application Server

How to Configure the HP MSA 1000 LUN in order for the ESX Server to detect the HBA which is connected to it?

Do I have to follow this KB http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1249&slice...

Each Server will be having 2 HBA's that going to be connected directly to the MSA Controller, are they going to be Active/Active or Active/Passive?

Does the I/O for the Disk Performance, and Oracle, Exchange are going to be good in this Configuration?

Please help, of if there is a Step By Step how to configure the HP MSA1000 with ESX Server, I will be glad to have it.

[azn2kew]

Your spec look very good and you should have them running fine without any problems. RAID 5 is very standardize for all applications but if you have enough storage than use RAID 10 because you will waste about 50% overhead but RAID 10 is use for SQL, exchange and oracle applications due to better performance. Your HBA I/O should be at least 4GB FC standard with two dual port Qlogic card for multipaths connected to your SwitchA/SwitchB with Active/Passive mode in case active went down you still have passive picked up right alway.

You can consult all ESX related documents on Eric's website at www.vmware-land.com for extensive knowledge also on vmware.com as well. There are great best practices on www.vmworld.com website you can read. For your MSA1000, you should follow their guides and standards, but once its connected and power on you should have access to manage and zone your LUNs to ESX and simply rescan it with VI Client and your LUN should show up if you zoned it correctly. Make sure to update your firmware, bios to the latest to maximize performance and stability.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[azn2kew]

You didn't mention what you have for your ESX host but I'm assuming it at least dual quad cores neither Dell PE 2950 or HP DL380 series in the mix. You should have a 8 VMs per core and start with 1 vCPU and 1GB for your VMs. You can of course increase as it demands especially Oracle, Exchange servers those can utilize vSMP features and more RAM. Standard SAN LUN between 400-600GB for better performance but if you want more can create larger LUN as fit. I'm assuming you have HA, DRS and VMotion configured across your ESX clusters.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[habibalby]

Yeah, I forgot to mention the CPU they are Dual Quad Cores 3.x GHz.

Regarding the LUN, what I was planning to make is creating 2 LUN and present them to the ESX Server. 1 will be around 160 GB and the other is the Left Space. The 160 will be used to create an OS Only. And the other one will be to add an Drive / Volume to the VMs for Data. Does this correctly works or I have to create One Big One LUN and make it for everything for OS as well as it's Data?

Yes, I have HA and DRS will be configured.

Any Suggestion?

[habibalby]

No one can say thier experiance with MSA1000 and ESX nor someone can help to setup the ESX with MSA1000 ?

[christianZ]

You have already the right kb article, I think - but I would be sceptical about the performance for oracle, exchange etc. How many users are using them?

You shouldn't forget to have one hot spare disk also - thus remains only 5 disks - not to many IMHO. The MSA1000 is not the fastest storage here.

Check this here (page 66) : http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_san_cfg.pdf

[habibalby]

Hi

You have already the right kb article, I think - but I would be sceptical about the performance for oracle, exchange etc. How many users are using them?

Hi,

Well, I would say the exchange server will be having 455 users, but my Capacity Planner for the Disk Space, RAM, CPU ect for 600 users.

Oracle Server, is mainly used to extract the Data from the Core Application and presenting them to a Reporting Fermat application. This Database is used only once every month.

Attached is the project document which I'm going to make. Through any comments.

[mcowger]

The MSA1000 is a piece of crap - go seach for peoples stories with it. I certainly wouldn't be running any of my own production services on it. As far as I am concerned, its good for storing your MP3 collection and thats it.

As far as performance - 600 users in VM on a MSA1000 sounds like a bad plan to me too, but it depends on your IO needs.

--Matt

[christianZ]

I would agree. For your plan the MSA1000 is not the right choice. Your bank needs a real HA (not realistic with MSA1000) and 400-600 Exchange users need definitely more power (on more disks spindles). Choose another storage and your management will thank you in the future for the right decision.

The question is would you like stay by hp - then choose EVA, or maybe you need 2 sites iscsi san (with sites mirroring) then look for the Lefthand storage on hp servers. Just thoughts.

[kharbin · Accepted solution]

The MSA1000 is HP's lowest performing, entry level, departmental SAN. It is not designed for, nor should be used for high I/O situations like production VMware farms with 600 users. From my own personal experience these units perform poorly in VMware environments.

There's an old saying, "the right tool for the job". So I'll use A metaphor; I can use my pocket knife as a screw driver, but theres a good chance I'll get cut. You can use a MSA1000 as your primary, production, VMware datastore, but there's also a good chance you'll get cut.

You should look at storage devices designed for high, random and sustained I/O. Personally I would look toward 10G iSCSI based storage if I were building a new farm from scratch.

my 2 cents

Ken Harbin

www.esXpress.com

[habibalby]

Yes, I agree with you entierly. The MSA1000 is a Low ,SAN Storage in Performance. I have mentioned that for them as well, in other decoumentation as Disadvantage of using MSA1000 for the Production. Actually, they don't want to invest this year too much on this project. As Start, we will go for the MSA1000 and later on, I will try to convenice them to upgrade our HP EVA 4000, which is hosting the Core Application and Database. "They have one think in thier mind, i couldn't change it. They consider the EVA4000 Storage is only for one Database and Application, they dont want to intrupt the system with new System that share the same SAN Storage X-("

I really disappointed. But what I can do, since the HP Guy who has Migrate from HP CASA to EVA4000 the one which convienced them NOT DO DISTRUB the SAN STORAGE? 50 mig LEASED LINE is being used only for that Database and Application, to Replicate to the EVA4000 at the DR SITE. Eventhough, they don't want to use that Line to replicate other stuff over it:D. again, i have tried to conviced them to use the QoS to segregate the Traffice for the two Replication process, and this time i have success to convenice them;).

As a Kick Start, we will go for the MSA1000 not because it's we gonna purchase it and they are lacking on bugdet. Becuase, it's already in place! and setting almost ideal.

The cut of Cost which i made for them, is by starting with VM Virtulization and almost the cut was almost 70% to 88% I would say in using a Physical Servers to migrate the Email and Domain Project.

With this setup, what is the expected Performace in Exchange Servers and DB Servers?

BR,

Habibalby