HP LeftHand P4000 - SAN Solutions Bedienungsanleitung

Table of contents

Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 3

Business case ...................................................................................................................................... 3

High availability .............................................................................................................................. 4

Scalability ....................................................................................................................................... 4

Virtualization................................................................................................................................... 4

XenServer storage model ...................................................................................................................... 5

HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN ...................................................................................................... 5

Storage repository ........................................................................................................................ 6

Virtual disk image ........................................................................................................................ 6

Physical block device.................................................................................................................... 6

Virtual block device ...................................................................................................................... 6

Overview of XenServer iSCSI storage repositories ................................................................................... 6

iSCSI using the software initiator (lvmoiscsi) ........................................................................................ 6

iSCSI Host Bus Adapter (HBA) (lvmohba) ............................................................................................ 6

SAN connectivity ............................................................................................................................. 6

Benefits of shared storage ................................................................................................................. 7

Storage node .................................................................................................................................. 7

Clustering and Network RAID ........................................................................................................ 8

Networking bonding..................................................................................................................... 8

Configuring an iSCSI volume ................................................................................................................ 9

Example.......................................................................................................................................... 9

Creating a new volume ............................................................................................................... 10

Configuring the new volume ........................................................................................................ 11

Comparing full and thin provisioning ............................................................................................ 12

Benefits of thin provisioning ......................................................................................................... 12

Configuring a XenServer Host ............................................................................................................. 13

Synchronizing time......................................................................................................................... 14

NTP for XenServer ...................................................................................................................... 15

Network configuration and bonding................................................................................................. 16

Example.................................................................................................................................... 17

Connecting to an iSCSI volume........................................................................................................ 19

Determining or changing the host’s IQN ....................................................................................... 19

Specifying IQN authentication ..................................................................................................... 21

Creating an SR .......................................................................................................................... 25

Creating a VM on the new SR ......................................................................................................... 28

Summary....................................................................................................................................... 30

Configuring for high availability .......................................................................................................... 31

Best practices for deploying Citrix XenServer

on HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN

Configuration............................................................................................................................. 33

Implementing Network RAID for SRs ................................................................................................. 33

Configuring Network RAID .......................................................................................................... 34

Pooling XenServer hosts .................................................................................................................. 35

Configuring VMs for high availability ............................................................................................... 36

Creating a heartbeat volume ....................................................................................................... 36

Configuring the resource pool for HA ........................................................................................... 37

Configuring multi-site high availability with a single cluster.............................................................. 39

Configuring multi-site high availability with multiple clusters............................................................. 41

Disaster recoverability ........................................................................................................................ 45

Backing up configurations............................................................................................................... 46

Resource pool configuration ........................................................................................................ 46

Host configuration ...................................................................................................................... 46

Backing up metadata ..................................................................................................................... 47

SAN based Snapshots.................................................................................................................... 48

SAN based Snapshot Rollback ........................................................................................................ 49

Reattach storage repositories........................................................................................................... 50

Virtual Machines (VMs) ...................................................................................................................... 51

Creating VMs ................................................................................................................................ 51

Size of the storage repository .......................................................................................................... 51

Increasing storage repository volume size ......................................................................................... 52

Uniqueness of VMs......................................................................................................................... 53

Process preparing a VM for Cloning ................................................................................................ 54

Changing the Storage Repository and Virtual Disk UUID..................................................................... 54

SmartClone the Golden Image VM................................................................................................... 60

For more information.......................................................................................................................... 63

Executive summary

Using Citrix XenServer with HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN storage, you can host individual desktops

and servers inside virtual machines (VMs) that are hosted and managed from a central location

utilizing optimized, shared storage. This solution provides cost-effective high availability and scalable

performance.

Organizations are demanding better resource utilization, higher availability, along with more

flexibility to react to rapidly changing business needs. The 64-bit XenServer hypervisor provides

outstanding support for VMs, including granular control over processor, network, and disk resource

allocations; as a result, your virtualized servers can operate at performance levels rates that closely

match physical platforms. Meanwhile, additional XenServer hosts deployed in a resource pool

provide scalability and support for high-availability (HA) applications, allowing VMs to restart

automatically on other hosts at the same site or even at a remote site.

Enterprise IT infrastructures are powered by storage. HP StorageWorks P4000 SANs offer scalable

storage solutions that can simplify management, reduce operational costs, and optimize performance

in your environment. Easy to deploy and maintain, HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN storages help to

ensure that crucial business data remains available; through innovative double-fault protection across

the entire SAN, your storage is protected from disk, network, and storage node faults.

You can grow your HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN non-disruptively, in a single operation, by simply

adding storage; thus, you can scale performance, capacity and redundancy as storage requirements

evolve. Features such as asynchronous and synchronous replication, storage clustering, network RAID,

thin provisioning, snapshots, remote copies, cloning, performance monitoring, and a single pane-of-

glass management can add value in your environment.

This paper explores options for configuring and using XenServer, with emphasis on best practices and

tips for an HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN environment.

Target audience: This paper provides information for XenServer Administrators interested in

implementing XenServer-based server virtualization using HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN storage.

Basic knowledge of XenServer technologies is assumed.

Business case

Organizations implementing server virtualization typically require shared storage to take full

advantage of today’s powerful hypervisors. For example, XenServer supports features such as

XenMotion and HA that require shared storage to serve a pool of XenServer host systems. By

leveraging the iSCSI storage protocol, XenServers are able to access the storage just like local

storage but over an Ethernet network. Since standard Ethernet networks are already used by most IT

organizations to provide their communications backbones, no additional specialized hardware is

required to support a Storage Area Network (SAN) implementation. Security of your data is handled

first-most by authentication at the storage, physical, as well as the iSCSI protocol mechanisms itself.

Just like any other data, it too can be encrypted at the client, thereby satisfying any data security

compliance requirements.

Rapid deployment

Shared storage is not only a requirement for a highly-available XenServer configuration; it is also

desirable for supporting rapid data deployment. Using simple management software, you can

respond to a request for an additional VM and associated storage with just a few clicks. To minimize

deployment time, you can use a golden-image clone, with both storage and operating system (OS)

pre-configured and ready for application deployment.

“Data de-duplication1” allows you to roll out hundreds of OS images while only occupying the space

needed to store the original image. Initial deployment time is reduced to the time required to perform

the following activities:

Configure “the first operating system”

Configure the particular deployment for uniqueness

Configure the applications in VMs

No longer should a server roll-out take days.

High availability

Highly-available storage is a critical component of a highly-available XenServer resource pool. If a

XenServer host at a particular site were to fail or the entire site were to go down, the ability of

another XenServer pool to take up the load of the affected VMs means that your business-critical

applications can continue to run.

HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN solutions provide the following mechanisms for maximizing

availability:

Storage nodes are clustered to provide redundancy.

Hardware RAID implemented at the storage-node level can eliminate the impact of disk drive

failures.

Configuring multiple network connections to each node can eliminate the impact of link failures.

Synchronous replication between sites can minimize the impact of a site failure.

Snapshots can prevent data corruption when you are rolling back to a particular point-in–time.

Remote snapshots can be used to add sources for data recovery.

Comprehensive, cost-effective capabilities for high availability and disaster recovery (DR) applications

are built into every HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN. There is no need for additional upgrades; simply

install a storage node and start using it. When you need additional storage, higher performance, or

increased availability, just add one or more storage nodes to your existing SAN.

Scalability

The storage node is the building block of an HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN, providing disk spindles,

a RAID backplane, CPU processing power, memory cache, and networking throughput that, in

combination, contribute toward overall SAN performance. Thus, HP StorageWorks P4000 SANs can

scale linearly and predictably as your storage requirements increase.

Virtualization

Server virtualization allows you to consolidate multiple applications using a single host server or

server pool. Meanwhile, storage virtualization allows you to consolidate your data using multiple

storage nodes to enhance resource utilization, availability, performance, scalability and disaster

recoverability, while helping to achieve the same objectives for VMs.

1Occurring at the iSCSI block level on the host server disk

The following section outlines the XenServer storage model.

XenServer storage model

The XenServer storage model used in conjunction with HP StorageWorks P4000 SANs is shown in

Figure 1.

Figure 1. XenServer storage model

Brief descriptions of the components of this storage model are provided below.

HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN

A SAN can be defined as an architecture that allows remote storage devices to appear to a server as

though these devices are locally-attached.

In an HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN implementation, data storage is consolidated on a pooled

cluster of storage nodes to enhance availability, resource utilization, and scalability. Volumes are

allocated to XenServer hosts via an Ethernet infrastructure (1 Gb/second or 10 Gb/second) that

utilizes the iSCSI block-based storage protocol.

Performance, capacity and availability can be scaled on-demand and on-line.

Storage repository

A storage repository (SR) is defined as a container of storage to which XenServer Virtual Machine

data will be stored. Although SRs can support locally connected storage types such as IDE, SATA,

SCSI and SAS drives, remotely connected iSCSI SAN storage will be discussed in this document.

Storage Repositories abstract the underlying differences in the storage connectivity, although

differences between local and remotely connected storage repositories enable specific XenServer

Resource Pool capabilities such as High Availability and XenMotion. The demands of a XenServer

resource pool dictate that storage must be equally accessible amongst all hosts and therefore data

must not be stored on local SRs

Virtual disk image

A virtual disk image (VDI) is the disk presented to the Virtual Machine and its OS as a local disk (even

if the disk image is stored remotely). This image will be stored in the container of a SR. Although

multiple VDIs may be stored on a single SR, it is considered best practice to store one VDI per SR. It is

also considered best practice to have one Virtual Machine allocated to a single VDI. VDIs can be

stored in different formats depending upon the type of connectivity afforded to Storage Repository.

Physical block device

A physical block device (PBD) is a connector that describes how XenServer hosts find and connect to

an SR.

Virtual block device

A virtual block device (VBD) is a connector that describes how a VM connects to its associated VDI,

which is located on a SR.

Overview of XenServer iSCSI storage repositories

XenServer hosts access HP StorageWorks P4000 iSCSI storage repositories (SRs) either using the

open-iSCSI software initiator or thru an iSCSI Host Bus Adapter (HBA). XenServer SRs regardless of

the access method, use Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM) as the underlying file system to store

Virtual Disk Images (VDI). Although multiple virtual disks may reside on a single storage repository, it

is recommended that a single VDI occupy the space of an SR for optimum performance.

iSCSI using the software initiator (lvmoiscsi)

In this method, the open-iSCSI software initiator is used to connect to an iSCSI volume over the

Ethernet network. The iSCSI volume is presented to a XenServer or Resource Pool thru this connection.

iSCSI Host Bus Adapter (HBA) (lvmohba)

In this method, a specialized hardware interface, an iSCSI Host Bus Adapter, is used to connect to an

iSCSI volume over the Ethernet network. The iSCSI volume is presented to a XenServer or Resource

Pool through this connection.

lvmoiscsi is the method used in this paper. Please refer to the XenServer Administrator’s Guide for

configuration requirements of lvmohba.

SAN connectivity

Physically connected via an Ethernet IP infrastructure, HP StorageWorks P4000 SANs provide storage

for XenServer hosts using the iSCSI block-based storage protocol to carry storage data from host to

storage or from storage to storage. Each host acts as an initiator (iSCSI client) connecting to a storage

target (HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN volume) in a SR, where the data is stored.

Since SCSI commands are encapsulated within an Ethernet packet, storage no longer needs to be

locally-connected, inside a server. Thus, storage performance for a XenServer host becomes a function

of bandwidth, based on 1 Gb/second or 10 Gb/second Ethernet connectivity.

Moving storage from physical servers allows you to create a SAN where servers must now remotely

access shared storage. The mechanism for accessing this shared storage is iSCSI, in much the same

way as other block-based storage protocols such as Fibre Channel (FC). SAN topology can be

deployed efficiently using the standard, pre-existing Ethernet switching infrastructure.

Benefits of shared storage

The benefits of sharing storage include:

The ability to provide equal access to shared storage is a basic requirement for hosts deployed in a

resource pool, enabling XenServer functionality such as HA and XenMotion, which supports the

migration of VMs between resource pools in the event of a failover or a manual live state.

Since storage resources are no longer dedicated to a particular physical server, utilization is

enhanced; moreover, you are now able to consolidate data.

Storage reallocation can be achieved without cabling changes.

In much the same way that XenServer can be used to efficiently virtualize server resources, HP

StorageWorks P4000 SANs can be used to virtualize and consolidate storage resources while

extending storage functionality. Backup and DR are also simplified and enhanced by the ability to

move VM data anywhere an Ethernet packet can travel.

Storage node

The storage node is the basic building block of an HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN and includes the

following components:

CPU

Disk drives

RAID controller

Memory

Cache

Multiple network interfaces

These components work in concert to respond to storage read and write requests from an iSCSI client.

The RAID controller supports a range of RAID types for the node’s disk drives, allowing you to

configure different levels of fault-tolerance and performance within the node. For example, RAID 10

maximizes throughput and redundancy, RAID 6 can compensate for dual disk drive faults while better

utilizing capacity, and RAID 5 provides minimal redundancy but maximizes capacity utilization.

Network interfaces can be used to provide fault tolerance or may be aggregated to provide

additional bandwidth. 1 Gb/second and 10 Gb/second interfaces are supported.

CPU, memory, and cache work together to respond to iSCSI requests for reading or writing data.

All physical storage node components described above are virtualized, becoming a building block

for an HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN.

Clustering and Network RAID

Since an individual storage node would represent a single point of failure (SPOF), the HP

StorageWorks P4000 SAN supports a cluster of storage nodes working together and managed as a

single unit. Just as conventional RAID can protect against a SPOF within a disk, Network RAID can

be used to spread a volume’s data blocks across the cluster to protect against single or multiple

storage node failures.

HP StorageWorks SAN/iQ, the storage software logic, performs the storage virtualization and

distributes data across the cluster.

Network RAID helps prevent storage downtime for XenServer hosts accessing that volume, which is

critical for ensuring that these hosts can always access VM data. An additional benefit of virtualizing

a volume across the cluster is that the resources of all the nodes can be combined to increase read

and write throughput as well as capacity2.

It is a best practice to configure a minimum of two nodes in a cluster and use Network RAID at

Replication Level 2.

Networking bonding

Each storage node supports multiple network interfaces to help eliminate SPOFs from the

communication pathway. Configuration of the network interfaces is best implemented when attaching

both network interfaces to an Ethernet switching infrastructure.

Network bonding3provides a mechanism for aggregating multiple network interfaces into a single,

logical interface. Bonding supports path failover in the event of a failure; in addition, depending on

the particular options configured, bonding can also enhance throughput.

In its basic form, a network bond forms an active/passive failover configuration; that is, if one path in

this configuration were to fail, the other would assume responsibility for communicating data.

Note

Each network interface should be connected to a different switch.

With Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB) enabled on the network bond, both network interfaces can

transmit data from the storage node; however, only one interface can receive data. This configuration

requires no additional switch configuration support and may also span each connection across

multiple switches ensuring there is no single point of failure to multiple switches.

Enabling IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) Dynamic Mode on the network

bond allows both network ports to send and receive data in addition to providing fault tolerance.

However, the associated switch must support this feature; pre-configuration may be required for the

attached ports.

Note

LACP requires both network interfaces’ ports to be connected to a single

switch, thus creating a potential SPOF.

Best practices for network configuration depend on your particular environment; however, at a

minimum, you should configure an ALB bond between network interfaces.

2The total space available for data storage is the sum of storage node capacities.

3Also known as NIC teaming, where “NIC” refers to a network interface card

Configuring an iSCSI volume

The XenServer SR stores VM data on a volume (iSCSI Target) that is a logical entity with specific

attributes. The volume consists of storage on one or more storage nodes.

When planning storage for your VMs, you should consider the following:

How will that storage be used?

What are the storage requirements at the OS and application levels?

How would data growth impact capacity and data availability?

Which XenServer host –or, in a resource pool, hosts –require access to the data?

How does your DR approach affect the data?

Example

An HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN is configured using the Centralized Management Console (CMC).

In this example, the HP-Boulder management group defines a single storage site for a XenServer host

resource pool (farm) or a synchronously-replicated stretch resource pool. HP-Boulder can be thought

of as a logical grouping of resources.

A cluster named IT-DataCenter contains two storage nodes, v8.1-01 and v8.1-02.

20 volumes have currently been created. This example focuses on volume XPSP2-01, which is sized at

10GB; however, because it has been thinly provisioned, this volume occupies far less space on the

SAN. Its iSCSI qualified name (IQN) is iqn.2003-10.com.lefthandnetworks:hp-boulder:55:xpsp2-01,

which uniquely identifies this volume in the SR.

Figure 2 shows how the CMC can be used to obtain detailed information about a particular storage

volume.

Figure 2. Using CMC to obtain detailed information about volume XPSP2-01

Creating a new volume

The CMC is used to create volumes such as XPSP2-01, as shown in Figure 3.

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