VMware vSphere Storage Appliance€¦ · Technical WhiTe PaPeR / 4 VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Evaluation Guide Hardware and Infrastructure Requirements The VSA can be deployed

VMware vSphere® Storage ApplianceEvaluation Guide

T e c h n i c a l W h i T e P a P e R

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Evaluation Guide

T e c h n i c a l W h i T e P a P e R / 2

Table of contents

About This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Intended Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Hardware and Infrastructure Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Server Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Hard-Disk Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Hardware RAID Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Network Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Two-Node Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Three-Node Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Section 1: Install the VSA Manager Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Section 2: Enable the VSA Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Section 3: Configure the VSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Section 4: Verify that the NFS Datastores Are Available on the ESXi Hosts . . . . . . . . . 29

Section 5: Manage and Monitor the VSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Section 6: Create a Virtual Machine on a VSA Datastore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Section 7: Maintenance Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Section 8: Availability Features of the VSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Product Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Help and Support During the Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

VMware vSphere and vCenter Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

VMware Contact Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Providing Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46



About This GuideThe purpose of the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Evaluation Guide is to support a self-guided, hands-on evaluation of the VMware vSphere® Storage Appliance (VSA) features. It highlights the VSA features usable by all customers of VMware vSphere® 5.0 (‘vSphere”).

Intended AudienceThis guide covers evaluation cases that are suitable for the following IT professionals:

•TheyhaveanexistingVMwarevirtualizationenvironment,whichincludessharedstorage,butstillwishtoevaluate the VSA.

•TheyhaveanexistingVMwarevirtualizationenvironmentbutdonothaveastoragearraytoprovidesharedstorage. With the VSA, administrators create shared datastores using the local storage on the VMware ESXi™ hosts. These customers can then make use of many additional vSphere features that require shared storage, such as VMware vSphere® vMotion® (vMotion) and vSphere High Availability (HA).

•Theydonothaveanexistingenvironmentbutwishtodeploysuchanenvironmentwithsharedstorageusingthe VSA, and they use vSphere features that require shared storage, such as vMotion and HA.



Hardware and Infrastructure RequirementsThe VSA can be deployed as a two-node or three-node configuration. In the two-node configuration, the VSA installation automatically configures a special VSA cluster service on the VMware vCenter™ Server to help the VSA storage cluster determine proper cluster membership in the event of a node or communications failure.

Always refer to the VSA Installation and Configuration Guide for the latest information on hardware and infrastructure requirements.

Server RequirementsFor the 1.0 release of VSA, only the following subset of hosts on the standard VMware vSphere Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) is supported:

•DellPowerEdgeR510server(IntelXeonProcessor5500series)

•DellPowerEdgeR710server(IntelXeonProcessor5500series)

•HPDL380G7server(IntelXeonProcessorE5600series)

Each host in the VSA storage cluster must be configured with the following:

•6GBRAM(minimum),24GBRAM(recommended)

•2GHz(orhigher)processors

•4xnetworkadaptorportsspreadacrossone,two,threeorfourphysicalnetworkadaptors

•8xsmallformfactor(SFF)disks(detailsbelow)

•1xhardwareRAIDcontroller(detailsbelow)

NOTE: Because the VSA installer also creates an HA cluster, the admission control policy for memory will reserve one-half of each host’s physical memory in a two-node configuration and one-third of each host’s physical memory in a three-node configuration. This will directly impact the number of virtual machines that can be deployed on a VSA cluster.

The hosts must be configured with a fresh installation of VMware ESXi™ 5.0, with the default network configuration created by the ESXi installation.

NOTE: Additional hosts will be added to the HCL over time, so refer to it for updates.

Hard-Disk RequirementsEach server in the VSA storage cluster must be configured with one of the following disk configurations:

•8xSFF,15Krevolutionsperminute(RPM),serialattachedSCSI(SAS),twodrives

•8xSFF,10KRPMserialadvancedtechnologyattachment(SATA)drives

AlthoughtheVSAcanalsousefour-orsix-diskconfigurations,therecommendationistouseeightforoptimalperformance.ThesediskswillbeattachedtoahardwareRAIDcontrollerlistedasfollows.

NOTE: Disks cannot be added after the VSA has been deployed, so care must be taken to correctly size storage requirements before installation.

Hardware RAID RequirementsBasedonthesetofsupportedserversfortheVSA1.0release,thefollowinghardwareRAIDcontrollers are supported:

•DellPowerEdgeR510/R710server:PERCH700IntegratedRAIDwith512MBNVRAM

•DellPowerEdgeR510/R710server:PERC6/I

•HPDL385G7server:HPSmartArray410icontrollerwith256MBNVRAM



ThehardwareRAIDcontrollerisnecessary,astheadministratorwillcreateaRAIDvolumeoneachESXi5.0host.This volume is used to install ESXi 5.0 on, and the remaining space is used to create a single VMFS-5 volume to be used by the VSA. Additional controllers will be added to the HCL over time, so refer to the HCL for updates.

TheVSAconfigurationrequireseitheraRAID5,6or10configurationtoprovideredundancyatthestoragelevel.EachhostintheVSAstorageclustermusthaveasupportedhardwareRAIDcontrollerconnectedtoeightphysicaldisks.ThesedisksmustbeconfiguredintosingleormultipleRAIDvolumes,whicharepresentedasinstall devices for the ESXi 5.0 host.

ESXi

PhysicalHardware

SCSIDisk

RAID 10

SAS RAID Adapter RAID 10 Array

PSA/VMFS/vSCSI

Partition TableESXi ImageVMFS

HP Smart Arrayor

LSI MegaRAID

SCSIDisk

Figure 1. VMware ESXi 5 .0 Server Configuration with Local Storage Configured as a RAID 10 Array

The initial storage configuration must be done outside of vSphere on the physical server. Users will typically needtorebootthehost,andaccesstheconfigurationmenuoftheRAIDcontrollerusingtheappropriatekeystrokes.Thesewillvaryfromservertoserver.Figure2isanexamplescreenshowingacorrectlyconfiguredHPserverusingtheHPSmartArrayP410iRAIDcontroller.ItisrecommendedthatusersrefertotheappropriatevendordocumentationonhowtocorrectlyusetheBIOS-basedRAIDconfigurationutilityofaparticularhost.

Figure 2 . HP Smart Array P410i RAID Controller Configuration Screen



Network RequirementsEach ESXi host in the VSA storage cluster should have a minimum of four physical network adaptor ports. The VSAinstallerexpectsanetworkconfigurationidenticaltoafreshdefaultinstallationofESXi.Thismeansthenetwork adaptors must be labeled vmnic0, vmnic1, vmnic2 and vmnic3.Oneoftheseuplinksmustbeassignedto the vSwitch that is used by the ESXi management network and the virtual machine network port group of the ESXi 5.0 host. If you have made any changes to the default network configuration during installation, these changes must be reversed or a new installation must be performed.

InFigure3,therearetwodual-portnetworkadaptors.DuringtheVSAdeployment,threevirtualmachineportgroupswillbecreated,onefortheVSAfront-endnetwork(VSAandVSAclustermanagement,andNFSserver),onefortheVSAback-endnetwork(clustercommunicationandstoragesynchronization)andoneforvMotion(called the feature network).

ESXiVSA Front-End PG

Virtual Switch 0NIC Team

e1000vmic

Dual-ported 1 GigE NIC

GigEPhysical Switch

GigEPhysical Switch

Dual-ported 1 GigE NIC

e1000vmic

e1000vmic

e1000vmic

VSA Back-End PG

Virtual Switch 1NIC Team

PhysicalHardware

Figure 3. vSphere Storage Appliance Network Configuration Requirement

Figure4isanexampleofwhatvSwitch0shouldlooklikefromthevSphereUIbeforetheVSAinstallationisinitiated.Thisisastandard/defaultconfigurationfollowingESXiinstallation.ThemanagementnetworkisalreadyonaVLAN.

Figure 4. Default Network Configuration from a Fresh VMware ESXi 5 .0 Installation



The VSA installer will automatically add a second network adaptor port, which will provide optimal dual redundancy for both network adaptors and physical switches. This forms a network adaptor team on the vSwitch. This vSwitch is used for the front-end networking of the VSA (in other words, VSA node and cluster managementIPaddresses,andtheNFSvolumeIPaddress).TheadministratorwillprovideIPaddressesfor each of these during the installation.

The two remaining network adaptors will be automatically combined to form a new network adaptor team on a newvSwitch.ThesewillbeusedforVSAback-endnetworkingandvSpherefeaturesnetwork(forexample,vMotion).Theback-endinterfaceswillusethe192.168networkbydefault,sotheadministratorwillneedtomakesurethattheseaddressesareunusedontheback-endnetwork,oradministratorscanchoseanalternateIPaddress for the features network during installation.

The front-end and back-end networks are virtual machine networks. They are used by all the deployed VSA members.

ThevSpherefeature(vMotion)IPaddresscanbeprovidedasastaticIPduringtheinstallationorcanbeconfiguredtopickupanIPaddressusingDHCP.Thiswillbedeterminedbytheadministratorduringinstallation.

TheVSAmanagementIPaddressesshouldbeonthesamesubnetasthevCenterServerthatisbeingusedtomanage the ESXi 5.0 hosts.

When the VSA cluster installation is complete, each ESXi network configuration should look similar to the following.Figure5showsthatthefront-endnetworkingandvMotionnetworkareonadifferentVLANthan the back-end network.

Figure 5. VMware ESXi 5 .0 Network Configuration After a VSA Cluster Installation



PopulateoneofthefollowingtableswiththeIPaddressesyouplantouseinthecluster,basedontheconfiguration you plan to implement.

Two-Node ConfigurationThereare9,11or13IPaddressesneeded(dependingontheDHCPforthefeaturesnetworkandchoosinganondefaultIPfortheback-endnetwork):

NAME IP AddRESS

VSAClusterIPAddress ____.____.____.____

VSAClusterServiceIPAddress ____.____.____.____

vCenterServerIPAddress ____.____.____.____

ESXiHost0ManagementIPAddress ____.____.____.____

VSAHost0ManagementIPAddress ____.____.____.____

VSAHost0NFSIPAddress ____.____.____.____

VSAHost0vMotion/FeatureIPAddress(leaveblankifusingDHCP)

____.____.____.____

VSAHost0Back-EndNetworkIPAddress(leaveblankifusingdefault192.168.0.x)

192.168.____.____





____.____.____.____


192.168.____.____

Front-EndVLANID(leaveblankifnoVLAN)

________

Back-End/FeaturesNetworkVLANID(leaveblankifnoVLAN)

________

Table 1. Network Details for a Two-Node VSA Cluster



Three-Node ConfigurationThereare11,14or17IPaddressesneeded(dependingontheDHCPforthefeaturesnetworkandchoosinganondefaultIPfortheback-endnetwork):

NAME IP AddRESS

VSAClusterIPAddress ____.____.____.____

vCenterServerIPAddress ____.____.____.____





____.____.____.____


192.168.____.____





____.____.____.____


192.168.____.____




VSAHost2NFSIPAddress (leaveblankifusingDHCP)

____.____.____.____


192.168.____.____

Front-EndVLANID(leaveblankifnoVLAN)

________

Back-End/FeaturesNetworkVLANID(leaveblankifnoVLAN)

________

Table 2. Network Details for a Three-Node VSA Cluster

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AssumptionsTosuccessfullyutilizethisguide,thefollowingisassumed:

•ServerhardwarehasbeenvalidatedagainsttheHCL,andallhoststhatmakeuptheVSAclusterareofa similar configuration.

•ThelocalstorageoneachESXihosthasbeencorrectlyconfiguredintooneormoreRAIDlogicalvolumes.There is no audit check for this setting by the installer, so the assumption is that the customer has done this configuration correctly.

•TwoindependentVLANornetworksegmentsareavailable:

– Networksegment/VLANA–UsedfortheESXimanagementnetwork,thefront-endnetworkingoftheVSA,and vMotion

– Networksegment/VLANB–UsedfortheVSAback-endnetworking

•AvCenterServer5.0systemusedformanagingtheVSAisonthesamesubnet/VLAN/networksegmentastheVSAmanagementIPaddresses.

ConsiderationsThere are a number of considerations to keep in mind when deploying a VSA cluster.

•vCenterisrequiredtoinstalltheVSAcluster.Forthatreason,itmustexistbeforetheVSAclusterisdeployed.And it must be deployed outside of the VSA to align with the best practice of not placing an administrative utility on the infrastructure that is being administrated. For instance, if there were a fatal cluster infrastructure failure, it would also bring down the vCenter if it resided on one of the VSA datastores, meaning that there would be no window into what caused the failure and no tool to troubleshoot the issue.

•Thechoiceofrunningasatwo-nodeorthree-nodeclustermustbemadeatthetimeofinstallationandcannotbechangedlater.Forexample,ifthreenodesarelikelytoberequiredeventuallyforaconfiguration,butonlytwo nodes are needed now, three nodes must be installed initially in the VSA cluster instead of installing two nodesnowandexpandingtothreenodeslater.

•Thediskcapacityofthephysicalhostsmustbedeterminedatdeploymenttimeandcannotbechangedafterinstallation. Capacity needs must be planned before the VSA is installed. In addition, the VSA currently supportsRAID5,6and10configurationsinthehardwareRAIDcontroller,whichreducesavailablestorage. ARAID10configurationreducesavailablestoragebyhalf.AndbecausetheVSAdatastoresarealsomirroredacross appliances, which reduces available storage by half again, the usable storage in the VSA datastores is roughly25percentthesizeofthephysicalstoragewithaRAID10configuration.SotodeterminehowmuchstoragewillbeavailabletovirtualmachineswithaRAID10configuration,physicalstoragefromallESXiservers in the VSA cluster must be added, and this sum must then be divided by four. This won’t be quite sosevereforotherRAIDconfigurations.FurtherdiscussionofthisappearsintheVSA Installation and Configuration Guide.

•ThevSphereHAclusterwillreserve33percentofCPUandmemoryinathree-nodeconfigurationand50percentofCPUandmemoryinatwo-nodeconfiguration.ThismustbeconsideredwhensizingtheVSAclusterforvirtual machine deployments. A VSA cluster currently does not support memory overcommitment, because swapping to VSA datastores can make the VSA cluster unstable. Therefore, each virtual machine that is deployed must reserve all of its memory. This is a consideration when determining how many virtual machine workloadscanrunintheVSAcluster,andphysicalmemoryontheESXiserversmustbesizedappropriately.This is discussed in greater detail in the VSA Administration Guide.



VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation WorksheetYoucanusethefollowingworksheettoorganizeyourevaluationprocess.

HARdWARE CHECKLIST:

All servers have been validated against the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) for the VSA.

AllservershavethesameCPUfamily.

AllRAIDcontrollersontheservershavebeenvalidated against the HCL for the VSA.

All disks on the servers have been validated against the HCL for the VSA.

Local storage on the servers has been set up into a RAIDconfiguration.

There are four physical network adaptor ports on each of the servers.

SOFTWARE CHECKLIST:

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 is installed.

VMware vCenter Server is installed.

VMware vSphere Client is installed.

VSA software installer is on the vCenter Server.



Section 1: Install the VSA Manager SoftwareDownloadtheVSAsoftwaretoyourvCenterServer.VSAcurrentlysupportsvCenterandVSAManageronWindows2008R2(64-bit).

After the software has been downloaded, start the install. You will first be prompted for a language for the installation.Inthisexample,English(UnitedStates)hasbeenchosen.

After you click OK, the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Manager splash screen is displayed:

ThisissoonfollowedbytheInstallShieldWizard:



After the .msihasbeenextractedsuccessfully,theInstallShieldWizarddisplaysthewelcomescreen:

Initially the Next button might not be displayed, but after a few moments it will be available:

Click the Next button to proceed with the installation.



This will bring you to the End-User Patent Agreement:

Click Next to continue. This will bring you to the License Agreement. Select the option “I accept the terms in the license agreement”; click Next to continue:



ThenextscreenwillaskyoutoprovidevCenter Server Information. The IP address or host name as well as the HTTPS portfieldshouldbeautomaticallypopulated.TheIPaddressherehasbeendeliberatelyobfuscated.ClickNexttoproceedtothenextscreen.

ThenextscreenintheInstallShieldWizardrequiresthatyouinsertalicensekey.Thelicenseherehasbeendeliberately obfuscated.



You are now ready to begin the install. Click the Install button to continue.

When the installation completes, the InstallShield Wizard Completed screen is displayed. Click the Finish buttontoclosethewizard.

TheVSAManagerinstallationisnowcompleted.ThenextstepistheactualinstallationoftheVSAcluster.ThisisdoneviatheVMwarevSphere®Client™andwillbediscussedinthenextsections.



Section 2: Enable the VSA Plug-inAfter you have logged into vCenter via the vSphere Client, select the Datacenter icon. Then check to see if there is a VSA Manager tab available. If there is a VSA Manager tab visible, the plug-in is already enabled. You can proceedtoSection3.

If you do not see this tab when the Datacenter tab is selected, select Plug-ins from the vCenter main menu, followed by Manage Plug-ins.ThiswillopenthePlug-inManager.



Check the status of the VSA Manager. You might find that it is disabled initially. To enable it, simply click the VSA Manager plug-in name, right click and select the Enable option.

This will enable the VSA Manager plug-in. You should observe the VSA Manager tab appearing in vCenter when the Datacenter icon is selected. When the VSA Manager tab is visible, you can proceed.



Section 3: Configure the VSATo begin the configuration of the VSA, click the VSA Manager tab. You should receive a security alert in relation to the security certificate. Click Yes to proceed.

The plug-in will now load. You will be presented with the first screen of the VSA installer. We are going to do a New Installation. The installer also enables VMware vSphere® vMotion® (vMotion) and vSphere High Availability (VMware HA). Click Next to continue:



Thenextscreenisthefeaturereviewscreen.IthasinformationabouttheVSAclusteraswellastheotherfeatures that will be enabled on the cluster, such as vMotion and VMware HA.

This installer will build a VMware HA cluster from the VMware ESXi™ 5.0 hosts that are chosen for the VSA cluster. The installer will also enable vMotion, which will enable virtual machines to be moved between hosts in the cluster. Click next to continue.

Youmighthaveanenvironmentwithmultipledatacenters.OnthisscreenoftheVSAinstaller,youmustchoosethe appropriate datacenter. There is only a single datacenter (called VSA_Eval) in this configuration.

In the 1.0 release of the VSA, there can be only a single VSA cluster per vCenter Server instance. Therefore, if you want to use multiple VSAs, you must deploy multiple vCenter Servers.

Click Next after you have chosen the desired datacenter.



ThenextscreenoftheVSAinstalleriswhereyouchoosewhichESXi5.0hostsparticipateintheVSAcluster. You can choose to deploy VSA in a two-node or three-node configuration. After it has been installed, a two-node configuration cannot be updated to three-node without a complete reinstallation.

Duringthisphaseoftheinstallation,theinstallercarriesoutahostaudit.Ifanyofthehostsdonothaveavalidconfiguration,theywillnotbeeligibleforselection.Inthisparticularexample,twoofthehostsinthedatacenterhaveaCPUspeedoflessthan2GHz,sothesecannotbechosen.Otherreasons,suchasnothavingenoughphysical network adaptors, not having local storage, or the fact that the host is already running virtual machines, will make an ESXi 5.0 host ineligible for selection.

Noticetheunsupported hardware message. This might be due to the fact that you do not have enough physical network adaptors available on the host. After you have selected two or three supported and compliant nodes, click Next to continue.



Aspreviouslymentioned,ifyoucreateatwo-nodecluster,youcannotcomebackatalaterdateandexpanditinto a three-node configuration. There is no facility in the 1.0 release of VSA to add nodes to the cluster.

NOTE: Although this evaluation guide utilizes three ESXi hosts for the VSA cluster, you can still evaluate the VSA using only two ESXi nodes.

The two-node configuration will use a special VSA cluster service installed on the vCenter Server and will require an additional IP address.

Thenextscreenisthenetworkingscreen.Atthispoint,referbacktotheselectionthatyoumadeearlierfortheIPaddressesthatyouwillbeusingfortheVSAcluster.

Inthisexample,athree-nodeclusterhasbeenselectedforconfiguration.Ifyouweresettingupatwo-nodecluster,anadditionalfieldwouldappear,theIPaddressfortheVSAclusterservice.

TheIPaddressesusedherefortheVSAnodesshouldbeonthesamesubnetasthevCenterServer.Bymeansofahelpfulfeatureoftheinstaller,afteryouprovidetheVSAclusterIPaddress,theremainingIPaddresseswillbeautomaticallypopulatedwithincrementsofthatIPaddress.Therefore,ifyoucanassignacontiguousrangeofIPaddressestotheVSAcluster,itwillmakethisstepmucheasierandquicker.ThefollowingisanexampleusingtheIPaddress10.20.196.115 for the VSA cluster:



IfwenextcheckoneoftheESXihosts,weseetheIPaddressesforthemanagement,NFSandback-endnetworks automatically populated:

ThevSpherefeatureIPaddress(vMotionnetwork)willuseDHCPbydefaultforanIPaddress.However,ifyouuncheck the “Use DHCP”flag,itwillalsobeautomaticallypopulatedwiththeincrementaloftheIPaddressprovided.AtthispointyoushouldalsosupplytheVLANIDs(ifany)ofthemanagementVLANandtheback-endVLAN.TheVLANIDswillalsobepropagatedtotheotherhostsintheconfiguration,soyouonlymustinputthemonce.

Selectanotherhosttoverify.TheVLANIDsandback-endIPaddressautomaticallyincrement.

When the networking addresses have been correctly populated, click Next.



ThenextscreenoftheinstallerrelatestohowthedisksbelongingtotheVSAshouldbeformatted.Therearetwooptions:initializethediskblocksonfirstaccessorinitializealldiskblocksbeforeusingthem.

The respective advantages of each option are as follows:

•Firstaccess:The installation time will be quicker, but the initial performance of the device will be slower until allofthedisksareinitialized.

•Immediately: The installation time will be longer, but there won’t be any performance degradation from the appliance,becauseitwon’tneedtoinitializeblocksonfirstaccess.

After you have made your choice, click Next. This will take you to the ReadytoInstall screen. From there, you can checktoseeifthenetworksettingsarecorrect.IPaddresseshavebeendeliberatelyobfuscatedinthisscreenshot.



If everything looks correct, click the Install button to begin the configuration of the ESXi hosts and the deploymentoftheappliancestocreateaVSAstoragecluster.Apopupwillappear,statingthatexistingdatawillbe deleted. Click Yes.

The following are configuration steps to be carried out:

•ConfigureNFS,back-endandvMotionnetworkingonallESXihosts.

•ConfigureavSphereHAclusterwithEnhancedvMotionCompatibility(EVC)toensurethatvMotioncorrectlyworks between all hosts.

•DeployvSphereStorageAppliances.

•InstallandconfiguretheVSAcluster.

•SynchronizethemirrorcopiesofthedatastoresacrossdifferentVSAmembers.

•MountthedatastoresfromtheVSAclusternodestotheESXi5.0hosts.

In the task manager, you can see tasks relating to the creation of the vSphere HA cluster:



You should also be able to see the vSphere High Availability cluster being created. In addition to vSphere High Availability,EVCisenabled.ThisiswhyitisarequirementtohaveonlyhostswithinthesameCPUfamilyintheVSA cluster.

You can safely ignore the warnings against the ESXi hosts. They are there because there is currently no shared storage to configure heartbeat datastores for the vSphere HA cluster. When the VSA cluster is up and running correctly, and it is presenting shared storage to all of the ESXi hosts, these warnings will disappear.

The network changes are quite significant and are carried out on all ESXi 5.0 hosts in the VSA storage cluster. The following are the main networking changes:

•VSAfront-endvirtualmachineportgroupaddedtovSwitch0

•vSwitch1createdwithtworemainingnetworkadaptors

•VSAback-endvirtualmachineportgroupaddedtovSwitch1

•VSA-vMotion(featurenetwork)addedtovSwitch1

When the vSphere High Availability cluster has been created and the network has been configured successfully, the VSA installer will move on to deploying the appliances.

Here you can see that the DeployingvSphereStorageAppliancestepisunderway.Noticeintheinventorythatthere are now three new virtual machines in the configuration. Each of these is a VSA. There will be one VSA deployedperESXi5.0host.Becausethisisathree-nodeconfiguration,therewillbethreeVSAsintotal.

You might ask what advantage a vSphere HA cluster gives you when you are already using VSA. vSphere High Availability will restart virtual machines on other ESXi hosts in the cluster if one of the ESXi hosts fails. So although VSA gives you availability from a storage perspective, vSphere HA gives you availability from an ESXi host perspective.



Whentheappliancesareupandrunning,theclusterframeworkstartstoinitialize.Setupmirroringbetweentherespectivenodesintheclusteralsoinitializes,sothatifonenodefails,anothernodecantakeoverthedutiesofpresentingthedatastoreviaNFS.ThesearetheactionsthataretakingplaceduringtheInstalling VSA cluster step. There is very little to observe during this phase, so you must wait until it completes.

After the cluster framework is in place, and the datastores are successfully being mirrored, you will see the final step, Mountingthedatastores:



In the vCenter Recent Tasksview,youwillnowstarttoseeoperationsrelatedtothemountingoftheNFSvolumes from the VSA onto the ESXi 5.0 hosts.

When all of this completes successfully, the VSA Installer screen should look like the following:

ThatcompletestheinstallationoftheVSA.ThenextstepwillbetoverifythatyoucansuccessfullyseetheseNFSdatastores on your ESXi 5.0 hosts. Click the Close button. This will automatically place you in the VSA Manager.



Section 4: Verify that the NFS datastores Are Available on the ESXi HostsBeforegoinganyfurther,checkthattheNFSdatastoresfromeachoftheVSAshavebeenmountedtoeachofthe ESXi 5.0 hosts. If there are three nodes in your cluster, there should be three VSAs. So there should be three NFSdatastoresmountedoneachESXihost.

In the UI, select one of the ESXi 5.0 hosts from the vCenter inventory. Then select the Configurationtab.Next,select Storage from the Hardware list. You should observe that there are now three datastores mounted to that ESXi 5.0 host, one datastore from each of the VSAs. You can verify that they are from the VSAs by checking the IPaddressagainsttheIPaddressthatwasusedforNFSwheninstallingtheVSA.

NOTE: You will also observe an alert against the local datastore. This is because the VSA appliance is consuming almost all of the available storage on the local datastore. This is to be expected.

AlsosignificantisthesizeoftheNFSshare.ItisapproximatelyhalfthesizeofthelocalstorageoftheESXihost.This is because the other half is used for mirroring purposes. This is discussed in more detail in the “Considerations” section.



Section 5: Manage and Monitor the VSALet’s now return to the VSA Manager. Click the Datacenter object in the vCenterInventory. Select the VSA Manager tab. The DatastoresviewdisplaysthelistofdatastorescurrentlybeingexportedfromtheVSAcluster,andwhichVSAmemberisdoingtheexport.Becausethisisathree-nodeconfiguration,therearethreedatastores visible, one from each VSA cluster member. If this were a two-node configuration, there would be only two datastores visible.

If you select an individual datastore, the properties, including the location of the replica (mirror) of the datastore, are displayed in the lower part of the window.

At this time, no virtual machines have been deployed to the datastore, so the Capacityicon shows it as completely empty.



Another view is the Appliances view. Select the Appliances button, located to the left of the center of the window. This view will give you an appliance-centric view as opposed to a datastores-centric view. Again, this is a three-node configuration, so there are three members visible. If this were a two-node setup, only two members would be displayed. Select the individual appliances to get a more detailed view in the lower part of the window:

Finally, we have the Map view. This diagrammatically represents the relationship between ESXi hosts, VSAs and theNFSdatastoresthatareexportedfromtheappliancesandmountedontheESXihosts.UsingtheMap Relationships check-boxestotherightofthewindow,youcanchoosewhichobjectstoincludeinthemap:



Section 6: Create a Virtual Machine on a VSA datastoreTo look at the performance of the VSA cluster during various operations and how resilient it is to failures, it is recommendedthatyoudeployavirtualmachinetooneofthedatastores.Inthisexample,IhavedeployedavirtualmachinerunningMicrosoftWindows2008R2astheguestoperatingsystem(OS).Thisvirtualmachinehastwodisks.Oneofthedisks,thebootdisk,isononeVSAdatastore;anotherdisk,thedatadisk,isonanotherVSAdatastore.IhavealsoinstalledIometer(http://www.iometer.org)ontotheguestOSsoacertainamountofI/Oloadcanbedriventothevirtualmachine’sdatadisk.

Disk1:Bootdisk–residesonVSADs-0

Disk2:Datadisk–residesonVSADs-2



After Iometer is installed, launch it and set the Disk Targettotheseconddisk.ThepurposeistogenerateanI/Oloadtothesecondvirtualmachinedisk,whichinturnwillgenerateI/Ototheunderlyingdatastore,VSADs-2. It doesn’tmatterwhichI/OloadyouchooseintheAccess Specifications;theobjectiveissimplytogenerateI/O.ClickthegreenflagicontostartI/O.ThengototheResultsDisplay tab. Move the UpdateFrequency (seconds) slider tabto2secondsasinthisexample,andyoushouldobserveI/Ogoingtothediskasinthefollowingscreenshot:

WithI/Orunning,wecannowproceedtolookattheresiliencefeaturesoftheVSA.



Section 7: Maintenance ModeAtthispoint,I/Oisgoingtothevirtualmachine’sseconddrive,whichinthiscaseisontheVSADs-2 datastore. WewillnowplacetheappliancethatisexportingthisdatastoreintomaintenancemodeandobservetheeffectontheIometerapplicationinthevirtualmachine.Onceagain,thisexerciseisbeingcarriedoutonathree-nodeconfiguration. If you are using a two-node configuration, the views will differ slightly.

First,determinewhichVSAclustermemberispresentingdatastoreVSADs-2.ReturntotheVSA Manager > Datastores view.

From here we can clearly see that VSADs-2 is running on appliance VSA-2. Click the Appliances button to go to theVSAview.Next,selectVSA-2,rightclickandselectEnter Appliance Maintenance Mode…



When prompted, click Yes to confirm that you wish to put the VSA into maintenance mode:

When the VSA enters maintenance mode, the following popup appears:

After a few moments, click the Refresh Page link in the VSA Manager > Appliances view. You should observe that thestatusforVSA-2changestoOffline.Youshouldalsonoticethatitisnolongerresponsibleforhosting/exportingdatastores and that the VSADs-2datastoreisnowhosted/exportedbyanewappliance,VSA-1inthiscase.



Next,clicktheDatastores button to view the status of the datastores. You should see that there are two datastoresinadegradedstate.ThisisbecauseVSA-2wouldhaveprovidedbothaprimaryforonedatastoreandareplica/mirrorforanotherdatastore.Therefore,twodatastoresareaffectedbythisappliance’sbeingplaced into maintenance mode, so two datastores are degraded.

BeforeweplacedVSA-2intomaintenancemode,wesawthattheprimarydatastoreofVSADs-2wasrunningonit.

Nowwhenwelookatthedatastores,wecanseethatVSADs-2isbeingexportedfromapplianceVSA-1.

ByplacingapplianceVSA-2intomaintenancemode,thereplicaoftheVSADs-2datastoreonVSA-1ispromotedtoaprimaryandtheexportisnowdonefromVSA-1.



Let’s now check the virtual machine to see whether Iometer continues to run without any issues, by clicking back on the console of the virtual machine running Iometer.

Iometer continues to run without incident. There should not have been any errors (the last indicator in the IometerUI),showingthatthetransitionofI/Ofromtheprimarytothereplicadatastoreoccurredwithoutanyimpact to the virtual machine or to the applications running in the virtual machine.

Tocompletethissection,taketheVSA-2applianceoutofmaintenancemode,poweringitoninthevCenterinventory (placing a VSA into maintenance mode powers it off):



Use the Refresh Page link to update the VSA Manager UI. After the appliance is powered on, it does not automatically rejoin the cluster but will in fact remain in maintenance mode.

To leave maintenance mode and have the appliance rejoin the cluster, right click it and select Exit Appliance MaintenanceMode:

Use the Refresh PagelinktoupdatetheVSAManagerUIifVSA-2isn’tbeingupdatedinatimelyfashion.IfyouhaveleftVSA-2inmaintenancemodeforalongtime,youwillhavetowaitforthedatatosynchronizebetweentheprimaryandthemirrorvolumes.Thiscantakeafewminutes.ThesynchronizationcanbemonitoredinthevCenter task bar.

After a while, all VSAs will be back online, as will be all the datastores.



Whenthesynchronizationcompletes,refreshthepageandobservethattheresponsibilityforexportingdatastores is now balanced across all VSAs once again.

Alldatastoresarenowbackonlineaftertheprimariesandthemirrorshavesynchronized.Tworesynchronizationoperations must take place because two datastores (primary and replica) were affected by placing a VSA into maintenance mode.



Section 8: Availability Features of the VSAIn this final section of the evaluation guide, we cause a worst-case scenario on one of the ESXi hosts participating in the VSA cluster. This will have a catastrophic effect on the VSA running on that ESXi host. The purpose of this is to highlight how well the VSA handles this scenario.

NOTE: You will need access to your ESXi server console when doing this lab, because the availability test causes an outage that will require resetting your host after the event.

Atthisstage,Iometershouldstillberunninginthevirtualmachine,sendingI/Ototheseconddisk.Verifythatthis is the case. If it is not running, restart it.

Now,aswedidpreviously,checkwhichdatastorethevirtualmachineisusingforitsdisks.Thiscanbefoundbyselecting the virtual machine in the vCenter inventory and choosing the Edit Settingsoption.Inthisexample,the first disk is on datastore VSADs-0.



TheseconddiskisonVSADs-2.ThisisthedatastorethatisreceivingI/OfromIometerrunninginthevirtualmachine.

ThenextstepistodeterminewhichVSAisexportingthedatastores.ReturntotheVSAManagerUIbyclickingthe datacenter object in the vCenter inventory and then selecting the VSA Manager tab. Select the Appliances button,checkthe“HostedDatastores”columnanddeterminewhichVSAisexportingthedatastoresusedbythe virtual machine.

Inthissetup,VSADs-0isexportedfromVSA-1,andVSADs-2isexportedfromVSA-2.Nowcheckthehostcolumn, and find which ESXi host the VSAs reside on. In this setup, appliance VSA-1 is on host h03-h380-15.pml.local,andapplianceVSA-2isonh03-h380-16.pml.local.

BecauseitisdatastoreVSADs-2thatisreceivingI/OfromIometer,wewillnowcreateanoutageontheESXihostonwhichtheappliancethatexportsthisdatastoreresides.BecauseVSADs-2isexportedfromVSA-2,inthissetup,VSA-2isontheESXihosth03-h380-16.pml.local.



NowwewillcrashthisESXihostandseehowtheVSAhandlesit.

Tocausetheoutage,usePuTTYoranequivalenttooltoSSHontotheESXihosth03-h380-16.pml.local. If SSH is not enabled, you can enable it via the Configuration>SecurityProfile settings in the vSphere Client. Alternatively, you can connect directly to the server console and log in that way. Use the root credentials to log in.

To verify that this is indeed the correct ESXi host, we can use the esxtop command, followed by the “v” option todisplaythevirtualmachinesrunningonthisESXihost.Forthisexample,weshouldobservethatapplianceVSA-2istheonlyvirtualmachineonthisESXihost.IfanyothervirtualmachinesareonthisESXihost—forinstance,thevirtualmachinethatisrunningIometer—movetheothervirtualmachinestoanotherESXihostusingvMotion.RememberthattheVSAinstalleralsobuiltavMotionnetworkbetweenallofyourESXihosts.

Forsimplicity,wewanttoshowhowwehandlelosingaVMDKasopposedtolosingawholevirtualmachine,which would then involve vSphere HA restarting the virtual machine on another host. That is not something we want to demonstrate in this evaluation guide.

This is all you want to see from the esxtop “v”optionforthepurposesofthisexercise—theappliancethatispresentingadatastoreonwhichtheIometervirtualmachineissendingI/O:

NowwearereadytoinitiatetheoutageontheESXihost.Type“q”toexitesxtop.



To do this, keep your virtual machine running Iometer. To create a crash on the ESXi host, the following commandcanbeusedfromthePuTTYrootSSHsession:

# vsish -e set /reliability/crashMe/Panic 1

This will cause an outage on the ESXi host on which it is run. We will then see how VSA handles this outage. You should observe a slight degradation in performance while the VSA cluster switches from the primary to the mirror datastore.Butafterthefailoverhassuccessfullytakenplace,I/Oshouldreturntoitspreviousperformance.

NOTE: If you are uncomfortable causing a crash such as this on the host, you can try an alternate method such as removing power. The objective here is to show how the VSA can handle such a catastrophic event.

There will be no outage on the Iometer virtual machine, because the VSA cluster has handled the outage by exportingthemirrorcopyofthedatastorefromadifferentVSAinthecluster(verysimilartohowwesawmaintenance mode perform). In the vCenter inventory, the ESXi host (h03-h380-15.pml.local) and the VSA-1 appliance appear to be not responding and disconnected, respectively:

However, there has been no adverse impact on the virtual machine that was using the datastore from that VSA. The failover mechanisms built into VSA can handle such catastrophic failures. Check the VSA Manager UI once more. Again, because we have lost a complete VSA, two datastores are in a degraded state. You should observe the following from VSA and datastore perspectives:



VSA-2isnowinanofflinestate,andpresentationofitsdatastoreVSADs-2hasagainmovedtoanotherappliance.

VerifythatIometerisstillrunninginthevirtualmachineandissendingI/Ototheseconddiskwithnoerrors.

EvenwithanESXihostfailurethattakesaVSAmemberoutofthecluster,thereisnoadverseeffectontheNFSdatastores or on the virtual machines running on those datastores.



ConclusionWe have now completed all the tasks in this evaluation guide. However, if this failure was a catastrophic, nonrecoverable hardware error, the VSA has a procedure that enables you to replace the broken server with a new server without interrupting the datastores on the remaining cluster members.

You can now reset your server and allow it to reboot. It will rejoin the cluster and automatically restart VSA-1. Aftertheprimaryandmirrorvolumeshavesynchronized,thewholeVSAclusterwillbebackonline.

In this evaluation guide, you have seen the following:

•TheVSAusinglocalstorageonESXihostsandpresentingthemassharedstorageintheformofNFSdatastores

•Thesimpleandeasy-to-followinstallationsteps

•TheavailabilityoffeaturessuchasvSphereHAandvMotion,whichareautomaticallyconfiguredbythe VSA installer

•ThemanagementinterfacefortheVSA

•TheresiliencefeaturesoftheVSAwhenanoutageoccurs

Remembertorevisitthe“Considerations”sectionifyouaredecidingwhethertodeploytheVSAinaproductionenvironment. Also, refer to the Release Notes, VSA Installation and Configuration Guide and VSA Administration Guide, as these will provide additional guidance on how to correctly deploy a VSA.

This completes the evaluation guide. Although they are outside the scope of this document, you might also like to use this setup to test out vMotion and vSphere HA, both of which are automatically configured by the VSA installer.

Product documentationFor detailed information regarding installation, configuration, administration and usage of VMware vSphere, refer to the online documentation: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vs_pubs.html.

TASKS dOCUMENTATION REQUIREd

Install and configure vCenter Server 5.0 VMware ESXi Installable and vCenter Server Setup GuideVMware ESXi Embedded and vCenter Server Setup Guide

Install and configure ESXi 5.0 VMware ESXi Installable and vCenter Server Setup GuideVMware ESXi Embedded and vCenter Server Setup Guide

Install and configure VSA 1.0 HCLVSA Release NotesVSA Installation and Configuration Guide

Administrate VSA 1.0 VSA Administration Guide

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vs_pubs.html


Help and Support during the EvaluationThis guide provides an overview of the steps required to ensure a successful evaluation of VMware vSphere StorageAppliance.Itisnotmeanttosubstituteforproductdocumentation.Refertotheonlineproductdocumentation for VSA for more detailed information (see the following for links). You can also consult the online VMware knowledge base if you have any additional questions. If you require further assistance, contact a VMware sales representative or channel partner.

VMware vSphere and vCenter Resources •Productdocumentation: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/

•Onlinesupport: http://www.vmware.com/support/

•Supportofferings: http://www.vmware.com/support/services

•Educationservices: http://mylearn1.vmware.com/mgrreg/index.cfm

•Supportknowledgebase: http://kb.vmware.com

VMware Contact InformationFor additional information or to purchase VMware vSphere, the VMware global network of solutions providers is ready to assist you. If you would like to contact VMware directly, you can reach a sales representative at 1-877-4VMWARE(650-475-5000outsideNorthAmerica)[email protected]. When emailing, include the state, country and company name from which you are inquiring. You can also visit http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/.

Providing FeedbackWe appreciate your feedback on the material included in this guide. In particular, we would be grateful for any guidance on the following topics:

•Howusefulwastheinformationinthisguide?

•Whatotherspecifictopicswouldyouliketoseecovered?

•Overall,howwouldyouratethisguide?

Send your feedback to the following address: [email protected], with “VMware vSphere Storage ApplianceEvaluationGuide”inthesubjectline.Thankyouforyourhelpinmakingthisguideavaluableresource.

About the AuthorCormacHoganisaseniortechnicalmarketingmanagerintheInfrastructureProductMarketinggroupatVMware.HewasoneofthefirstVMwareemployeesatourEMEAheadquartersinCork,Ireland,backinApril2005.Hespent two years as the technical support escalation engineer for storage before moving into a support readiness training role, where he developed training materials and delivered training to technical support and VMware support partners. He is currently responsible for technical marketing of core vSphere storage technologies, including the VSA.

VMware, inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www .vmware .comCopyright © 2012 VMware, Inc . All rights reserved . This product is protected by U .S . and international copyright and intellectual property laws . VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www .vmware .com/go/patents . VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc . in the United States and/or other jurisdictions . All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies . Item No: VMW-WP-vSPHR-STOR-APP-EVAL-USLET-101-WEB

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http://www.vmware.com/support/services

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Documents

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance€¦ · Technical WhiTe PaPeR / 4 VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Evaluation Guide Hardware and Infrastructure Requirements The VSA can be deployed