Introduction to Dell SC Series Storage Synchronous Live ... · 5 Hands-on Lab Manual | Introduction to Dell SC Series Storage Synchronous Live Volume Automatic Failover | DS03-SLVAF-VM

1 Hands-on Lab Manual | Introduction to Dell SC Series Storage Synchronous Live Volume Automatic Failover | DS03-SLVAF-

VM

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Introduction to Dell SC Series Storage Synchronous Live Volume Automatic Failover

Dell Storage Hands-on Lab Instructions

Estimated Completion Time: 40 minutes

Introduction

Audience

The audience for this document is technical professionals that wish to learn more about administrative tasks of the Dell™ Storage SC Series arrays running Live Volume for VMware vSphere® Metro Storage Cluster configurations.

Reminder: This is a virtualized lab environment running GA (Generally Available) versions of SCOS (Storage Center Operating System) 7.1 and Dell Storage Manager (DSM) 2016 R2 software. Since the hardware is virtualized, performance may be slower than labs using physical hardware. Please be patient. Some of the steps in this lab will take longer to execute than it would normally take in a typical production environment.

What you will be doing

This lab will take you through the SC Series storage Synchronous Live Volume HA failover in a uniform vSphere host configuration. The two node vSphere cluster will have a Live Volume Datastore presented from two separate arrays for high availability. After configuring the Live Volume and starting I/O load against a virtual disk, one of the arrays will be rebooted to simulate an outage. The secondary array will gain primary ownership of the datastore, and storage traffic will resume. Once the array comes back online, the data will resynchronize the delta changes to automatically repair the Live Volume array pairs in an effort to regain a protected status.

In this lab you will: 1. Create a Live Volume Replication datastore using the Dell Storage vSphere Web Client Plug-in 2. Enable Automatic Failover on the Live Volume to enable array based high availability 3. Create disk I/O load from a virtual machine to the arrays 4. Simulate an array outage 5. Watch the behaviors as the secondary array assumes ownership of the datastore

2 Hands-on Lab Manual | Introduction to Dell SC Series Storage Synchronous Live Volume Automatic Failover |

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Background

Dell Storage SC Series arrays can license Live Volume: an add-on feature that gives vSphere administrators added storage flexibility with in their datacenters. While Live Volume was traditionally a tool that gave administrators the ability to migrate volumes between arrays for maintenance and load balancing purposes, recent changes to the core replication engines within the array firmware have allowed it to also become a robust disaster recovery tool. This lab uses the generally available release of SCOS 7.1, where Live Volume takes advantage of an automatic failover of volumes between arrays through the use of a tie breaker (quorum). This enables high availability configurations for local and stretched vSphere Metro Clusters.

Live Volume – Logical View

Uniform Configurations

With Live Volume, two arrays can be used in a uniform configuration for an application that has extremely high uptime requirements. Typically these configurations are used within a datacenter or campus where connectivity is sufficient for low latency to allow for synchronous replication to transfer data. For example, some companies have campuses with data centers in multiple buildings so that two arrays and the tiebreaker machine can all be placed into physically separate locations. With such a uniform configuration, if an array were to experience an unplanned outage, the vSphere cluster access to the datastores would remain up and functional. Since such a configuration can have up to four array controllers (heads), data can still be accessed even when three of the four controllers are unavailable.


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Uniform Configurations

Non-Uniform Configurations

With non-uniform configurations, the vSphere hosts can be split geographically, where particular ESXi hosts only have visibility to the arrays at their respective sites. In these configurations, if an entire datacenter fails, vSphere High Availability (HA) can restart the virtual machines on the other site.

Non-Uniform Configurations


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Managed Replications

In addition, a third array can be added to the configuration where managed replications can be used to replicate asynchronously over distance when off campus DR storage is required.

Managed Replications

Lab Start

This lab walks through the following sections:

Login to Dell Storage Manager Login to vSphere Web Client Provision a Live Volume datastore Configure virtual machine and simulate a failure

- Add a VMDK to a test VM - Initialize a new disk in the VM - Confirm Live Volume is operational - Simulate an unplanned SC Series storage failure

Cleanup


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Login: Dell Storage Manager 1. Click the Dell Storage Manager Client icon on the desktop.

2. Credentials in the lab environment have been pre-populated for your convenience, however if you need to enter them manually, use those shown in the screenshot with a password of password and then click Log In.

3. If the DSM client does not automatically connect to both SC Series arrays after logging in (disconnected arrays appear with a red circular X), reconnect them manually by:

a. Highlight any disconnected array (for example, SC73900 Demo Array 01 or SC73902 Demo Array 02) within the navigation tree.

b. In the Summary pane, click Reconnect to Storage Center. c. Verify that the Hostname or IP Address field is populated with the default management IP address of the array:

SN73900=172.20.0.100 or SN73902=172.20.0.200. d. Enter the User Name: Admin (case sensitive). e. Enter the Password: Password (case sensitive). f. Click OK to reconnect the SC Series array.


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Login – vSphere Web Client 4. From the desktop, double click the vSphere Web Client icon.

5. Once the Chrome browser opens to the vSphere Web Client login page, log in using the following credentials:

If the login screen does not appear, enter the URL https://vcenter.mydemo.local/vsphere-client/.

- User Name: demouser - Password: password

6. Click Login.

Provision a datastore using the Dell Storage vSphere Web Client Plug-in 7. From within the vSphere Web Client, navigate to the Hosts and Clusters view. 8. Within the DSM-Datacenter, right-click the cluster named ESX_Lab_Cluster, select All Dell Storage Actions, and

then select Add Datastore…


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9. Follow through the Dell Storage Add Datastore wizard

a. Make the following selections: - Select type:

i. Select: VMFS ii. Click Next

- Storage Center:

iii. Select: Storage Center 73902 (SC73902 Demo Array 02) iv. Select Active Controller: Auto-Select (default) v. Click Next

- Action Type:

vi. Select: Create New Dell Volume vii. Click Next

- Volume Properties:

viii. Volume Name: LV-Datastore1


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ix. Size: 8 GB x. Select Volume Folder: LiveVolumes xi. Click Next

- Storage Profile:

xii. Select Storage Profile: Recommended (All Tiers) xiii. Click Next

- Replay Profile:

xiv. Leave default Replay Profile: Daily xv. Click Next

- LUN number:

xvi. Select LUN number: Accept default (LUN 2) xvii. Click Next

- Datastore Properties:

xviii. Datatore name: LV-Datastore1 xix. Inventory Location: DSM-Datacenter xx. Click Next

- Replication/Live Volume:

xxi. Select (check): Create Replication/Live Volume xxii. Click Next

- Target Storage Center:

xxiii. Select Target Storage Center: Storage Center 73900 (SC73900 Demo Array 01) xxiv. Click Next

- Replication Options:

xxv. Select Replication Type: Live Volume, Synchronous – High Availability xxvi. Leave default Replication Settings - QoS Definition: QoS1 xxvii. Leave default Replication Target Location: Duplicate Source Folder Path at Destination xxviii. Click Next

- Live Volume Options:

xxix. Leave default Live Volume Settings - Secondary QoS Definition: QoS1 xxx. Select (check): Automatically Swap Primary Storage Center xxxi. Select (check): Failover Automatically xxxii. Select (check): Restore Automatically xxxiii. Select Live Volume Secondary Mapping: ESX_Lab_Cluster (expand Servers tree) xxxiv. Click Next

- Ready to Complete:

xxxv. Verify settings xxxvi. Click Finish


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Note: Creating the new Datastore should take approximately 1-2 minutes. Refresh the vSphere Web Client and view the Recent Tasks to monitor the progress of the Executing Dell Storage task. Once the status has changed to Completed, refresh the vSphere Web client again, and the Datastore should be ready to proceed. Please be patient.

When finished, the vSphere cluster will be presented the storage in a uniform configuration. In other words, all hosts in the cluster have paths to the Live Volume through both sites A and B.

Note: Selecting Automatically Swap Primary Storage Center and Failover Automatically in the steps above, will set this DSM Data Collector as the tie breaker to decide which volume to activate when a failure is detected. This is the reason it is important for the DSM Data Collector to reside at a third location within the WAN, so that when a failover occurs, there is no site bias. The Restore Automatically selection configures Live Volume to automatically repair any of the arrays that come back online after an outage. Essentially this re-synchronizes the delta data so that both sites are once again protected.

Configure virtual machine and test failover

Now that the Synchronous Live Volume has been created and is enabled to automatic failover for high availability, a lab virtual machine can now be configured to generate load, and the array can be rebooted to simulate an outage.


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Add a VMDK to the test machine to simulate I/O

10. From within the vSphere Web Client, click the icon to return to the Hosts and Clusters view. 11. Right click the virtual machine named SC-ProdVM, then click Edit Settings. 12. New Device: New Hard Disk. 13. Click Add. 14. Click the triangle to Expand New Hard disk and reveal the options:

- Size: Change GB to MB - Size: Change to 100 (Keep this small for shortened lab replication time purposes) - Location: Select the dropdown to Browse to LV-Datastore1 - Click OK

15. Click OK on the main dialog box to finish adding the new virtual disk.

Note: If the VM (SC-ProdVM) is not running, please power it on by right-clicking SC-ProdVM, selecting Power, and clicking Power On.

Log into the SC-ProdVM: initialize new virtual disk / configure and start IOmeter

16. Right-click SC-ProdVM and click on Open Console.

Note: You may need to click into the console window to wake the machine from screen saver mode.


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17. Once the console opens, double click the Computer Management icon on the desktop. 18. Click Disk Management. The Initialize Disk dialog box will open.

b. Select (check) Disk 1. c. Select (check) MBR (Master Boot Record). d. Click OK. e. Close Computer Management.

19. From the desktop of the SC-ProdVM machine, double click on the IOmeter Configuration file named LiveVolume. 20. From the IOmeter application, expand SC-PRODVM and click to select Worker 1 under All Managers in the Topology

pane.

f. Under Disk Targets tab:

i. Verify that the PHYSICALDRIVE:1 is checked for Worker 1. ii. Verify the # of Outstanding I/Os is set to 1 per target.

g. Under Access Specifications tab:

i. Verify the Assigned Access Specification lists the MyProdWorkload-Simulation specification.

h. Under the Results Display tab:

i. Verify the Results Since is set to Last Update. ii. Verify the Update Frequency is set to 2 seconds.

i. Click the green flag icon to begin the test. j. When prompted to save the results, click Cancel (the results do not need to be saved).


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Note: Load Generation will begin.

k. Restore Down the browser window containing the virtual machine console to be able to view the virtual machine IOmeter console and the Dell Storage Manager console at the same time to watch the IOmeter performance while the array failure occurs during the following steps.

Verify the Live Volume is operational

21. On the landing machine, switch to the Dell Storage Manager Client from the task bar. 22. Navigate to the Replications & Live Volumes screen and select the Live Volumes tab. 23. Click the circular refresh button, then verify that LV-Datastore1 Live Volume shows no warnings or alerts:

l. Verify Primary Status: Up m. Verify Secondary Status: Up n. Verify Primary Peer State: Connected o. Verify Secondary Peer State: Connected p. Verify Failover State: Protected q. Verify Percent Complete: 100% r. Verify Local Tiebreaker: Yes s. Verify Primary to Tiebreaker Connectivity: Up t. Verify Secondary to Tiebreaker Connectivity: Up

24. If any of these settings are alerting, click the blue circular refresh until the Live Volume is Synced and protected.


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Simulate an unplanned Dell SC Series outage

25. Back in Dell Storage Manager, from the Actions pane in the lower left-hand corner, select Storage, select SC73902 Demo Array 02 in the left-hand pane, and then open the Hardware tab.

26. From the hardware navigation tree, right click on Controller SN 73902, then Shutdown/Restart Controller. 27. Once prepared to watch the failure, select Restart Controller, and then click OK. (Quickly switch to the VM console

to watch IOmeter!).


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28. Watch the behavior when the array is restarted.

u. The IOmeter load should pause briefly while the tiebreaker promotes the secondary Live Volume on the remaining array, and then should resume I/O within the 60 second SCSI timeout period.

v. The SC73902 Demo Array 02 will become unavailable within Dell Storage Manager as it reboots. w. A red indicator will appear on the array within Dell Storage Manager to indicate that new alerts have been

generated due to a failover. This is expected. x. The Shutdown/Restart Controller dialog box will remain on the screen until the array has come back online.


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y. In a few minutes, SC73902 Demo Array 02 should come back online, and you will see an informational message indicating, “Successfully performed Restart of Storage Center 73902”. Click OK to acknowledge the informational prompt.

z. If Dell Storage Manager does not automatically reconnect to the array when it comes back online, you may need to reconnect it manually:

> Highlight the SC73902 Demo Array 02 within the navigation tree. > From within the Summary pane, click Reconnect to Storage Center. > The Hostname or IP Address field should already be populated with the management IP address of the array,

so you should not need to change it: (Defaults: SN73902=172.20.0.200). > For the User Name, fill in "Admin" (without the quotes, case sensitive). > For the Password, fill in "password" (without the quotes, case sensitive). > Click OK to reconnect the Dell SC Series array.

29. Observe the automatic repair process

aa. Click the Replications & Live Volumes action and selecting the Live Volumes tab. Click the blue circular refresh icon to refresh the data.

bb. In a few moments after the source array comes online, the Live Volume will begin to automatically repair. This is because the Live Volume was configured to restore automatically. This process re-syncs the data on both arrays, and once completed, the Live Volume status indicators will all become green again indicating that the volume is once again protected from an array outage.

cc. Switch to the virtual machine console and click the Stop icon within IOmeter. Once the workload has stopped, close the IOmeter application.

dd. At this point, the virtualized application has survived an unplanned storage infrastructure outage with zero data loss. Once the Failover State changes back to Protected, the array pair is once again protected.


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Cleanup 30. Return to the vSphere Web Client, so that the Live Volume datastore can be gracefully removed from the cluster.

ee. Remove virtual disk dependencies from the virtual machine.

i. Right click on SC-ProdVM and select Edit Settings… ii. Highlight Hard Disk 2, then click the gray circular x to remove it.

iii. Select Delete files from datastore, then click OK.

ff. Switch back to the Storage tab in the vSphere web client.

gg. Right click on the LV-Datastore1, select All Dell Storage Actions, select Replication/Live Volume, and then select Remove.

hh. Remove Replication/Live Volume wizard:

i. On the Select Replication(s) screen, select the LV-Datastore1, and click Next. ii. On the Delete Options Screen, Check all of the boxes to completely delete everything, then click Next.


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iii. On the last screen of the wizard, verify the settings then click Finish.

Note: Refresh the vSphere Web Client and view the Recent Tasks to monitor the progress of the Executing Dell Storage task. Once the status has changed to Completed, refresh the vSphere Web client again, and the Datastore should be ready to proceed. Please be patient.

Note: The above process removes the Live Volume, but does not remove the source volume or datastore.

ii. To Remove the LV-Datastore1, right click on LV-Datastore1, select All Dell Storage Actions, and then click Remove Datastore…

jj. Since there is no data on this datastore, select Permanently Delete, click OK, and then Submit.

You have now successfully removed a Live Volume gracefully using the vSphere Web Client Plug-in.


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Lab Complete!

You have successfully configured a Synchronous High Availability Live Volume between two Dell Storage SC Series arrays. The automatic failover kept the storage resources available to the simulated application running within the vSphere cluster even though an entire array went offline. The SC Series storage system is very flexible. With the latest feature updates to Live Volume, it can allow for simple tasks such as migrating volumes between arrays for maintenance or load balancing, as well as for disaster recoveries. Additionally, it can establish high availability intra-datacenter or between datacenters.

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Introduction to Dell SC Series Storage Synchronous Live ... · 5 Hands-on Lab Manual | Introduction to Dell SC Series Storage Synchronous Live Volume Automatic Failover | DS03-SLVAF-VM