I thought it would be worth a post on my recent experiences with an iSCSI San, and a Server 2008 Cluster. First off this is using the Release 1 of 2008, not R2 which is currently in BETA and has extended support for iSCSI.
The situation we wanted to use iSCSI San is probably much the same as most, virtualization. We are using Hyper-v along with SC Virtual Machine Manager 2008.
I’ve managed to put this into a nine step process, but if you have questions about any of the steps drop me an email;
1.Setup your SAN, install Server 2008 on desired number of nodes in the cluster, and use the MS iSCSI initiator and MPIO to connect to the SAN. Your SAN provider may provide specific tools to assist with this, such as DELL’s host integration toolkit for the Equillogic units.
2.Validate and create the cluster using Failover Cluster Management
3.Create a very small (1.5GB) LUN on your SAN, this will be used for the Witness Disk by 2008, and holds important configuration information about the cluster. Also create a number of LUNS for hosting virtual machines. Size doesn’t matter too much at this stage as they can be extended using the SAN, and Server 2008 disk management.
4.Connect all the nodes in cluster to the LUNS. Bring online, initialise and format the LUNS. Your best bet is to use a GUID partition, without a drive letter. Otherwise you may end up running out of letters in the alphabet if you have a large number of VMs.
5.Using Failover Cluster Management, add the disks into the cluster, and ensure that the small 1.5GB LUN is set as the Witness Disk. Quorum settings will depend on the number of nodes in the cluster, but the wizard does advise accordingly.
6.Using SCVMM, add one of the nodes from the cluster as a host. VMM will automatically detect that this is a clustered node and add all the other nodes.
7.Ensure that the status of each node shows everything being upto date, and check the properties of the cluster and make sure there is available storage.
8.Create a VM and add it to one of the nodes in the cluster.
9.Test functionality by shutting down the node holding the new VM, and ensure that another node takes over.
When you create your VMs, be sure to set them as highly-available. The above should give you the ability to create highly available VMs, ensuring that if node or nodes in the cluster fail, the VMs will continue to function.
1.Setup your SAN, install Server 2008 on desired number of nodes in the cluster, and use the MS iSCSI initiator and MPIO to connect to the SAN. Your SAN provider may provide specific tools to assist with this, such as DELL’s host integration toolkit for the Equillogic units.
2.Validate and create the cluster using Failover Cluster Management
3.Create a very small (1.5GB) LUN on your SAN, this will be used for the Witness Disk by 2008, and holds important configuration information about the cluster. Also create a number of LUNS for hosting virtual machines. Size doesn’t matter too much at this stage as they can be extended using the SAN, and Server 2008 disk management.
4.Connect all the nodes in cluster to the LUNS. Bring online, initialise and format the LUNS. Your best bet is to use a GUID partition, without a drive letter. Otherwise you may end up running out of letters in the alphabet if you have a large number of VMs.
5.Using Failover Cluster Management, add the disks into the cluster, and ensure that the small 1.5GB LUN is set as the Witness Disk. Quorum settings will depend on the number of nodes in the cluster, but the wizard does advise accordingly.
6.Using SCVMM, add one of the nodes from the cluster as a host. VMM will automatically detect that this is a clustered node and add all the other nodes.
7.Ensure that the status of each node shows everything being upto date, and check the properties of the cluster and make sure there is available storage.
8.Create a VM and add it to one of the nodes in the cluster.
9.Test functionality by shutting down the node holding the new VM, and ensure that another node takes over.
When you create your VMs, be sure to set them as highly-available. The above should give you the ability to create highly available VMs, ensuring that if node or nodes in the cluster fail, the VMs will continue to function.
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