DELL PowerVault MD32xxi Deployment Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software A Dell Technical White Paper Version 1.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. © 2010 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................. 1 Terminology/Glossary ........................................................................................ 2 Introduction ................................................................................................... 3 Implementing ESX4.1 on the MD32xxi Storage Array .........................
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Step A6: Binding VMkernel Ports to iSCSI Software Initiator ..................................... 36 Step A7: Connect to the Dell PowerVault Storage .................................................
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Introduction The Dell™ PowerVault™ MD32XXi storage solution consists of either a standard or high availability configuration. The standard (simplex) configuration has a single controller with four 1GbE ports. It can be deployed to support up to 16 hosts non-redundantly. The high availability (duplex) configuration has dual controllers with four 1GbE ports per controller for a total of eight 1GbE ports.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software MPIO – With ESX4.1 and vSphere4, customers can benefit from Multi-Path I/O from the ESX4.1 server and the SAN. This allows for multiple connections to be concurrently used to allow for greater bandwidth. This is especially important for the PowerVault SAN as each PowerVault member has multiple connections and now ESX4.1 can take full advantage of these connections. Third Party MPIO Support – With ESX4.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 3. More than one Network Interface Card (NIC) set aside for iSCSI traffic 4. No Distributed Virtual Switch (DVS) for iSCSI traffic Not every environment requires all of the steps detailed in this whitepaper.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software PowerVault MD32xxi Storage Setup and Configuration CREATE VIRTUAL DISKS ON MD32XXI USING STEPS DESCRIBED IN: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/md3000i/multlang/gsg/DAO_BCC/DY731A00MR.pdf. AFTER OPENING THE MODULAR DISK STORAGE MANAGER AND SELECTING THE MD32XXI STORAGE ARRAY TO BE CONFIGURED, SELECT THE SETUP TAB.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 1. SELECT MANUALLY DEFINE HOSTS. 2. ENTER THE HOST NAME FOR THE SERVER WHICH HAS THE ESX SERVER SOFTWARE IS INSTALLED. 3. SELECT VMWARE AS THE HOST TYPE. From the next screen, specify the iSCSI Initiator by entering a name for the iSCSI initiator. The label is autopopulated from the server name. Host Group configuration starts from the screen titled “Manually Define Hosts”.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software If a new host group is desired select the radio button for that option and enter in a name for your host group using standard host naming conventions (e.g. no spaces etc.). Should you already have one or more host groups assigned, select the radio button enabling selection from a drop down list of existing host groups. This option is to be used when configuring the second, third, etc. host in a group.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software On completion, Select Yes to proceed to the next host you wish to configure, or Select No to end the configuration wizard. Helpful Hint: Record the MD32xxi IP address for later configuration iSCSI Software Initiator Configuration on ESX4.1 Server This section lists the steps required to configure the software initiator on the VMware ESX4.1 Server. Connect to the ESX4.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 3. Check Software iSCSI Client option. 4. Select Configuration->Storage Adapters on the ESX4.1 server. 5. Select iSCSI Software Adapter and click on Properties. 6. The iSCSI initiator Properties window appears. 7. Under the General tab select Configure tab. Select the Enabled checkbox and click OK. Select Close.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 8. Select iSCSI Software Adapter under Storage Adapters. You should now see your iSCSI Target name listed. 9. Select Properties under storage adapters. Select Dynamic Discovery. Select Add. Provide the IP address of the MD32xxi iSCSI Target Port and click OK. There may be a slight delay before the process completes.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 10. Click Close. Clustering with ESX4.1 / Creating DRS Clusters Refer to the following VMware website for a complete up-to-date list of the prerequisites for clustering with ESX4.1 server. http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_mscs.pdf Configure iSCSI storage on ESX4.1 Server - Example Installation Steps Connect to the ESX server/vCenter using VI Client and follow the steps below.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Go to the configuration tab and select Storage Adapters. Select the iSCSI Software Adapter and click Rescan. The newly created iSCSI target and LUN should be visible from the ESX server. Step1: Configure vSwitch & Enable Jumbo Frames This step will create a new vSwitch and enable Jumbo Frame support for this switch. This step is used for both examples no matter the number of VMkernels or physical NICs.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software There are some suggested configurations depending on the number of NICs that will be used for iSCSI traffic. Every environment will differ depending on the number of hosts, the number of members, and the number of volumes. In a default configuration assign one VMkernel port for each physical NIC in the system. So if there are 3 NICs, assign 3 VMkernel Ports.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software To verify the configuration enter the following command: esxcfg-vswitch –l The output will look similar to this: Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks vSwitch2 64 7 64 PortGroup Name VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks iSCSI3 0 1 iSCSI2 0 1 iSCSI1 0 1 9000 This will show the VMkernel ports that are assigned to the vSwitch.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software esxcfg-nics –l The output will look similar to this: Name PCI Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address vmnic0 03:00.00 bnx2 Up 1000Mbps Full MTU 00:21:9b:8b:4b:b0 1500 This will list all of the adapters in the system. Assign the NICs that are physically connected to the SAN infrastructure and to the vSwitch. The following command assumes that we are assigning vmnic1, vmnic2, and vmnic3 to the vSwitch.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Click the Network Adapters tab. Then click Add. This will open up the Add Adapter Wizard. From here select the vmnics that you want to add to the vSwitch. In our example it will be vmnic1, vmnic2 and vmnic3.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Click Next after you have selected the chosen adapters. For now keep the defaults listed in the Failover Order screen and click Next. Review the adapters listed and click Finish completing the process. These adapters will now show up in the GUI under the Network Adapters tab. Step4: Associate VMkernel Ports to Physical Adapters The next step is used to create the individual path bindings for each VMkernel to a NIC.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software By default, all the vmnics are assigned to each VMkernel port. We need to remove all but one vmnic from each VMkernel port so that each VMkernel port has only one uplink.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks vSwitch2 64 7 64 9000 PortGroup Name VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks iSCSI3 0 1 vmnic3 iSCSI2 0 1 vmnic2 iSCSI1 0 1 vmnic1 The important thing to note is that under the Uplinks section there is only one vmnic assigned to each iSCSI VMkernel port and that they are evenly distributed across them. This can also be done through the vCenter GUI.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Step5: Enable VMware iSCSI Software Initiator The next step, if it has not been done already, is to enable the iSCSI initiator to prepare the ESX host to connect to the PowerVault SAN. This can be done either through a CLI command or through the vCenter GUI.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software This will enable the software iSCSI initiator. To verify that it is enabled type the following command: esxcfg-swiscsi –q This can also be accomplished by using the vCenter GUI. From the vCenter GUI on the ESX host navigate to Configuration -> Storage Adapters. Select the iSCSI Software Adapter and click Properties. Under the General tab click the Configure button. Place a check mark in Enabled and hit Ok.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Step6: Binding VMkernel Ports to iSCSI Software Initiator This next step will bind the VMkernel ports, which were configured in Step 4 earlier, to the iSCSI Software Initiator. If this step is skipped there will only ever be a single connection to the PowerVault SAN. This step must be done via CLI. The first thing to do is to note the vmhba# of the iSCSI Software Initiator.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software In this example we see that iSCSI1 is vmk0, iSCSI2 is vmk1, and iSCSI3 is vmk2. This is also information that we need to note. We can also see this in the CLI by using the following command: esxcfg-vmknic –l The output will look similar to this: Interface Port Group/DVPort IP Family IP Address Netmask Broadcast MAC Address MTU TSO MSS Enabled Type vmk0 iSCSI1 IPv4 10.10.5.173 255.255.255.0 10.10.5.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software esxcli swiscsi nic list –d vmhba33 This will list all of the information for VMkernel ports that are assigned to the iSCSI Software Adapter. Step7: Connect to PowerVault MD32XXi Storage Now that the advanced configuration for the vSphere4 iSCSI Software Initiator has been completed, the next stage is to connect to the Dell PowerVault SAN and to the volumes it contains.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software When this is done click Close or enter in another IP Address if there are multiple SANs in your environment. You will be prompted for a Rescan of the HBAs but at this time as there are no volumes assigned it is unnecessary. The next step will be to create a new volume and assign it to the ESX server. This can be done multiple ways so refer to the PowerVault User’s Guide for more information.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 1. Set the volume size and keep the rest of the defaults and click Finish.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 2. Under iSCSI Access you can choose to use an IP Address or Initiator Name. 3. To find the iSCSI Initiator Name from the vCenter GUI go to Configuration -> Storage Adapters. Click on the iSCSI Software Adapter. The iqn can be copied and pasted into the Group Manager interface for the Initiator Name. There is another check box option for “Disallow un-named discovery sessions”.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 4. Check Disallow un-named discovery sessions, if desired. Step8: Connect to a Volume on PowerVault SAN The next step is to connect to the volume on the SAN and verify the connection status. Since the iSCSI access and configuration was configured in the last step, the only thing to do now is to rescan the HBAs and make sure the volume appears correctly.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Step9: Enabling VMware Native Multipathing – MRU One of the new advanced features that is enabled by configuring the iSCSI Software Initiator the way we have is that now we can take advantage of MPIO by using MRU. This combined with the fan-out intelligent design of the PowerVault group allows for greater and better bandwidth utilization than in previous versions of ESX.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vs_pages/vsp_pubs_esxi41_e_vc41.html Dell/VMware alliance home page: http://www.dell.com/vmware Appendix A This appendix details an example of how to over commit the number of VMkernel ports to the physical NICs. This is usually done in environments in which the NIC is capable of handling multiple sessions such as 10GbE.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software esxcfg-vmknic –a –i 10.10.5.175 –n 255.255.255.0 –m 9000 iSCSI3 esxcfg-vswitch –A iSCSI4 vSwitch2 esxcfg-vmknic –a –i 10.10.5.176 –n 255.255.255.0 –m 9000 iSCSI4 esxcfg-vswitch –A iSCSI5 vSwitch2 esxcfg-vmknic –a –i 10.10.5.177 –n 255.255.255.0 –m 9000 iSCSI5 esxcfg-vswitch –A iSCSI6 vSwitch2 esxcfg-vmknic –a –i 10.10.5.178 –n 255.255.255.0 –m 9000 iSCSI6 To create less VMkernel Ports just skip iSCSI5 and iSCSI6 for example.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Step A3: Assign Network Adapters Just like in the previous example, the next step in the process is to assign the network adapters (NICs) that will be attached to the iSCSI network and used for iSCSI traffic. These will be attached to the vSwitch2 that we created earlier. This can be done two ways, in the vCenter GUI or by CLI.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Click the Network Adapters tab. Then click Add. This will open up the Add Adapter Wizard. From here select the vmnics that you want to add to the vSwitch. In our example it will be vmnic2 and vmnic3. Click Next after you have selected the chosen adapters. For now keep the defaults listed in the Failover Order screen and click Next. Review the adapters listed and click Finish completing the process.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks vSwitch2 64 9 64 9000 vmnic3,vmnic2 PortGroup Name VLAN ID iSCSI6 iSCSI5 iSCSI4 iSCSI3 iSCSI2 iSCSI1 Used Ports 0 0 0 0 0 0 Uplinks 1 1 1 1 1 1 vmnic2,vmnic3 vmnic2,vmnic3 vmnic2,vmnic3 vmnic2,vmnic3 vmnic2,vmnic3 vmnic2,vmnic3 You can see that there are two vmnics in each uplink for each VMkernel Port.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software The important thing to note is that under the Uplinks section there is only one vmnic assigned to each iSCSI VMkernel port and that they are evenly distributed across them all. This can also be done through the vCenter GUI. To configure this from the GUI first navigate to the Networking section on the ESX host you are configuring. Configuration -> Networking. From here, click Properties on the vSwitch2.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software The first thing to do is to note the vmhba# of the iSCSI Software Initiator. This can be seen in the vCenter GUI under Configuration -> Storage Adapters. This can also be found by running the following CLI command to discover all SCSI devices including the iSCSI software adapter: esxcfg-scsidevs –a The output will look something like the following: vmhba33 iscsi_vmk link-n/a iscsi.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software In this example we see that iSCSI1 is vmk0, iSCSI2 is vmk1, iSCSI3 is vmk2 and iSCSI4 is vmk3. This is also information that we need to note. We can also see this in the CLI by using the following command: esxcfg-vmknic –l The output will look similar to this: Interface Port Group/DVPort IP Family IP Address Netmask Broadcast MAC Address MTU TSO MSS Enabled Type vmk0 iSCSI1 IPv4 10.10.5.173 255.255.255.0 10.10.5.
Dell PowerVault MD32xxi Configuration Guide for VMware ESX4.1 Server Software 255.255.255.0 10.10.5.255 00:50:56:7d:b5:f2 9000 65535 true STATIC We can determine the same information as was found from the GUI. Now that we know the vmhba# and the vmk# we can map each VMkernel Port to the iSCSI Software Initiator. This is done through the CLI by typing the following command: esxcli swiscsi nic add –n vmk0 –d vmhba33 This will bind the vmk0 VMkernel port to the iSCSI Software Adapter vmhba33.