Essentials for Deploying, Integrating and Scaling VMware vSphere with Dell EqualLogic Keith Swindell

Dell Storage Product Planning Manager

Agenda

• Networking Basics

• Data Drives

• iSCSI Multipathing in VMware

• EqualLogic Virtual Storage Manager (VSM)

• VAAI

• Scaling with EqualLogic and VMware

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Networking Basics

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• Switching infrastructure forms the backbone of all EqualLogic installations

• Use Flow Control … …

• Jumbo Frames - Not required but recommended

• End Node Ports should use Port Fast

• Enterprise Class switching infrastructure

– Sufficient buffers for port groups

– Sufficient bandwidth between switches for intergroup communication

– Check the EqualLogic Compatibility Matrix

As with all things, it starts with the Infrastructure

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Data Drives

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• Three ways to connect Data Drives – VMDK on VMFS

– Raw Device Mapping (RDM)

– iSCSI within the Guest

› Also known as iSCSI Direct Connect

Data Drives

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VMDK on VMFS

• Advantages

– Easy to configure

– Viewable in vCenter

› clones, templates, storage vMotion, etc.

– Doesn’t require Storage Team interaction

– Allows for tiering of data drives to different VMFS volumes/pools based on workload

– Benefits from vSphere MPIO

• Disadvantages

– No host integration with ASM/ME

– No real isolation of Data for Data Protection/DR strategies

• Advantages

– Easy to configure – One volume = One RDM

– Viewable in vCenter storage view

– Allows for tiering of data drives to different volumes/pools based on workload

– Benefits from vSphere MPIO

– Isolates data from OS and allows for 3rd party apps that work with RDMs

• Disadvantages

– No host integration with ASM/ME or ASM/VE

– Each ESXi host needs connectivity, so connection count concerns

Raw Device Mapping

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• Configure virtual disk with new SCSI adapter, change adapter type to Paravirtual SCSI adapter (Win 2012/2008/2003 and RHEL 5/6 )

VMDK or RDM Best Practice

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• Advantages

– Utilize EQL host integration software such as ASM/ME and off host backup – Isolates the data drives for Data Protection/DR strategies – Can be mounted on physical or other virtual machines:

› V2P clustering › V2V clustering

– Use same Best Practices from physical environments – Allows for tiering of data drives to different volumes/pools based on workload

• Disadvantages

– Isn’t visible to vCenter – Requires Storage Team intervention – Slightly more VM vCPU overhead – Needs to be considered for DR Plans separate from VMs

iSCSI within the Guest

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• Use EqualLogic MPIO within the Guest

• With multiple NIC configure Active/Standby vmnics

– ESX/ESXi doesn’t guarantee splitting bandwidth

iSCSI within the Guest: Best Practices

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• All of them offer advantages whether based on:

– Administrative overhead

– Simplicity

– Or host integration

• No one solution is right:

– Use them all to meet the business goals you have

– Local Protection vs. push button Disaster Recovery

• “VMDK on VMFS” and “iSCSI within the Guest” offer the greatest number of benefits verses RDMs

So which one do I use?

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iSCSI Multipathing in VMware

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iSCSI Multipathing in VMware…But first…

• Understanding how EqualLogic is different

• How does EqualLogic scale?

• What happens to a volume?

• How do I get to my data with…

– Fixed path?

– Round Robin?

– EQL MPIO?

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• Do you have Enterprise or Enterprise Plus licensing?

– EqualLogic MEM

› ESXi 4.1 and above

› Requires Enterprise or Enterprise Plus license

› 1:1 VMkernel to physical NIC binding required

• (setup.pl configures this for you)

› Storage Heartbeat recommended

• Not needed with ESXi 5.1 and above

• Do you have Standard or Essentials?

– VMware Round Robin

› ESXi 4.0 and above

› No license requirement

› 1:1 VMkernel to physical NIC binding required

• (setup.pl configures this for you)

› Storage Heartbeat recommended

• Not needed with ESXi 5.1 and above

• What about ESX/ESXi 3.5?

– VMware Fixed Path

iSCSI Configurations with different versions of vSphere or Which do I use and when?

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• MEM has a TOC of the data on the group

– Communicates with array to create and maintain this

• Intelligent IO routing

– Sends IO request to the member with the data

• Load balancing

– Selects path with least queue depth

Benefits of the Multipathing Extension Module (Enterprise/Enterprise+)

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MEM

TOC

• Can be done entirely with GUI

• ESXi 4.x requires some CLI configuration

• Use the Tools!

– MEM setup.pl script, even for RR, single command

› setup.pl --configure --server=[hostname]

• Additional steps with Round Robin

– Set new and existing volumes to use RR

– Set IOs per path per turn to 3

Configuring Round Robin iSCSI Multipathing

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• Set iSCSI Login Timeout to 60

– ESXi 5.0 patch 02 and above – Set by MEM install

• Storage Heartbeat

– Required with ESX 4.1 and 5.0 – Resolved in 5.1

• Disable Delayed ACK

– Appears as high latency during lower I/O periods – VMware KB 1002598

• Disable Large Receive Offload

– Aggregates packets into a buffer before sending to TCP stack

Additional ESXi iSCSI settings

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EqualLogic Virtual Storage Manager

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• Virtual Storage Manager

– EqualLogic Datastore Manager

– EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager

› SmartCopies, Clones and Replicas

– EqualLogic Virtual Desktop Deployment Utility

• Plus:

– vSphere VASA Provider for vSphere 5

Virtual Storage Manager v3.5 Automation at Your Fingertips

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• Allows creation of new VMware® datastores

• Allows for expansion and deletion of existing datastores

• Access control list manager

• Monitor alarms on EqualLogic volumes

Virtual Storage Manager: Datastore Manager

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• Automated hypervisor consistent snapshots, clones and replicas

• Scheduled Data Protection and Disaster Recovery

Virtual Storage Manager: Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware

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• Enhanced information about SAN volumes

– Know if datastore has replication and/or snapshot protection – Informed VM placement

• User-defined Storage Capability profiles • VASA provider included with VSM for VMware

– Only a small part of EQL VMware Integration

Virtual Storage Manager: VASA VMware APIs for Storage Awareness

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• Storage DRS

– Same DRS concept as Host CPU and Memory – Like datastores are grouped in a Datastore Cluster – Determines initial placement – Should capacity or IO load become imbalanced

› It will Storage vMotion to another datastore › Only after it get the okay from VASA Provider

– What about array snapshots & replication?

• Profile-Driven Storage

– Assign a profile to storage

– Assign a profile to the VM

› Profile can be changed as needs change

– Profile-Driven Storage

› Will flag compliant & non-compliant storage › Will warn if VM is on non-compliant storage

• *VMware requires Enterprise Plus licensing to enable these features

VASA Benefits: How vSphere uses this knowledge

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VAAI: VMware APIs for Array Integration

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• Leverages intelligence within the EqualLogic to:

– Offload storage related workloads

– Increase scalability

– More efficiently use space

• Requirements:

– vSphere Enterprise or above

– Array firmware support

VAAI: A summary…

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VMW EQL Default state

Zero Offload 4.1 5.0 Enabled

Full Copy 4.1 5.0 Enabled

Scalable Locking 4.1 5.0 Enabled

Thin Provisioning Stun 5.0 5.1 Enable per volume

Space Reclamation 5.0u1 6.0 Manual task

• Gone are SCSI Reservations – well almost…

– Replaced by T10 Atomic Test & Set

– Locks blocks rather than entire volume

– Can fallback to old SCSI Reservations

• Enables…

– Move VMs per volume

– And larger volumes

– Therefore few iSCSI connections

• However remember…

– Few volumes = few queues = few concurrent IO in flight

VAAI: Hardware Scalable Locking

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Normal VMware Locking

Hardware Assisted Locking

• Shrinks thin provisioned volumes, freeing up unused capacity • Volumes with snapshots are supported, but…

– The de-allocated space will not become available until snapshots dependent upon that page age out or are deleted

• Replicated volumes are not supported • Currently must be run manually from CLI

– ESX 5.0/5.1: vmkfstools –y <% of free space to unmap>

– ESX 5.5: esxcli storage vmfs unmap --volume-label [datastore_name]

• VMware cautions to do unmap in a maintenance window

– ESXi won’t control the rate of unmaps – EqualLogic 6.0 limits the rate of unmaps

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VAAI: Space Reclamation

Scaling with EqualLogic and VMware

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• There is no right volume size…

– Fewer and bigger will limit IO › But don’t put multiple busy VMs on one volume

– Many and smaller will consume more sessions

• Does every hosts really need to see every volume?

– Consider multiple smaller clusters verses one large cluster

• Consider lowering session parameters

– Do you really need 6 sessions per volume with 10gb?

• Consider multiple pools

– Rather then one large pool, use multiple smaller pools

• Monitor your environment and know its norms

– syslog – SAN HQ – esxtop

Scalability Concerns: ”It depends…”

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• ESXi hosts * Sessions per volume * volumes = Total Connection Count • Sessions per volume:

– MEM = 2 per volume per member, max of 6 by default (8 max VMware limit) – RR = 1 session per iSCSI vmkernel port

• Don’t forget to include other sessions:

– iSCSI within the VM mounted volumes – Inbound replication – VAAI Full Copy aka xcopy – Windows off-host backups

• Session limits

– PS6xxx/PS5xxx: 1024 per pool, max of 4 pools – PS4xxx: 512 per pool, max of 2 pools

• Exceptions:

– PS6110

MPIO Scalability Concerns ESXi Connection Count Formula

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• VAAI enables:

– Offloading of storage workloads – Larger volumes with wore VMs per volume – More efficient use of storage capacity

• EqualLogic-specific MPIO enables

– Intelligent routing of I/O – Increased bandwidth / lower latency

• VASA increases vSphere’s ability to

– Match workloads with storage – Dynamically adjust to changes

• EqualLogic Host Integration Tools enable

– Simpler management – Data protection – Rapid deployment

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Summary: EqualLogic & VMware scaling together

Q & A

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Thank You!

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