HP StorageWorks Guidelines for using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring Application Note doc-number Part number: T2558-96337 First edition: June 2009
Legal and notice information Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR 12.211 and 12.212, Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor's standard commercial license. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. WARRANTY STATEMENT: To obtain a copy of the warranty for this product, see the warranty information website: http://www.hp.com/go/storagewarranty
Contents About this guide... 5 Intended audience... 5 Prerequisites... 5 Related documentation... 6 Document conventions and symbols... 6 HP technical support... 7 Subscription service... 7 HP websites... 7 Documentation feedback... 8 1 Solution Overview... 9 Configuration... 9 Enabling compression... 10 Configuring memory usage... 10 2 Sample Implementation... 11 Requirements... 11 Install software on the source... 11 Install and configure software on the target... 11 Configure and begin mirroring and replication... 12 Begin monitoring the source for failure... 12 Restore your data... 13 Guidelines for using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring 3
Tables 1 Document conventions... 6 4
About this guide This document is a HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring application note. An application note provides guidelines on the use of Storage Mirroring in a specific environment. This document contains: Document Overview: Explains what an application note contains, how it should be used, what you need to know before trying to use the application note, and where you can go for more information. Solution Overview: Explains how the application works with Storage Mirroring and describes the considerations that you must weigh when implementing your Storage Mirroring solution. Review this section to make sure that you understand the theory involved with using Storage Mirroring and your application. Includes both basics, such as system requirements, as well as configuration and environment-specific topics, such as interactions with specific clients or special considerations for WAN (Wide Area Network) environments. Pay special attention to those topics that are directly related to your environment. Sample Implementations: Describes specific examples of how to use Storage Mirroring for this solution. This includes information about the specific system setup used in the sample implementation. Use these procedures as a guideline for creating your own implementation. Because no two environments or configurations are exactly the same, you will probably need to implement additional or different steps than what is documented here in order to make the solution work in your environment. Intended audience This document is written for network and application administrators who have a working understanding of the applications and environments where the Storage Mirroring solution is to be deployed. You may need to expand on the documented information in order to customize the solution to fit your environment. Before you use this application note, you should have an understanding of: HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring Volume Shadow Copy Prerequisites Application notes are intended to provide a framework for configuring a Storage Mirroring solution in a specific environment and to draw attention to decisions you will need to make when configuring your solution. Because there are an infinite number of possible configuration, network, and environment scenarios, application notes contain general configuration guidelines as well as an example configuration procedure that has been tested for a specific environment. This document assumes that you are comfortable working with your operating system, Storage Mirroring, and Volume Shadow Copy. Guidelines for using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring 5
Related documentation Before you begin to configure your solution, make sure that you have complete documentation for your operating system, application, and Storage Mirroring. This application note does not provide step-by-step instructions for using standard operating system, application, and Storage Mirroring functionality. The following documents contain additional information that you may need while setting up this solution: HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring Enterprise Install Console HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring installation instructions HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring user's guide You can find these documents and more on the Manuals page of the HP Business Support Center website: http://www.hp.com/support/manuals Document conventions and symbols Table 1 Document conventions Convention Blue text: Table 1 Blue, underlined text: http://www.hp.com Bold text Italic text Monospace text Monospace, italic text Monospace, bold text Element Cross-reference links and e-mail addresses Website addresses Keys that are pressed Text typed into a GUI element, such as a box GUI elements that are clicked or selected, such as menu and list items, buttons, tabs, and check boxes Text emphasis File and directory names System output Code Commands, their arguments, and argument values Code variables Command variables Emphasized monospace text WARNING! Indicates that failure to follow directions could result in bodily harm or death. 6 About this guide
CAUTION: Indicates that failure to follow directions could result in damage to equipment or data. IMPORTANT: Provides clarifying information or specific instructions. NOTE: Provides additional information. TIP: Provides helpful hints and shortcuts. HP technical support For worldwide technical support information, see the HP support website: http://www.hp.com/support Before contacting HP, collect the following information: Product model names and numbers Technical support registration number (if applicable) Product serial numbers Error messages Operating system type and revision level Detailed questions Subscription service HP recommends that you register your product at the Subscriber's Choice for Business website: http://www.hp.com/go/e-updates After registering, you will receive e-mail notification of product enhancements, new driver versions, firmware updates, and other product resources. HP websites For additional information, see the following HP websites: http://www.hp.com http://www.hp.com/go/storage http://www.hp.com/support/manuals http://www.hp.com/support/downloads Guidelines for using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring 7
Documentation feedback HP welcomes your feedback. To make comments and suggestions about product documentation, please send a message to storagedocsfeedback@hp.com. All submissions become the property of HP. 8 About this guide
1 Solution Overview Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is a virtual management solution optimized for Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Virtual Server, and VMware infrastructures. VMM enables consolidation of physical servers onto virtual machine infrastructure. Storage Mirroring provides real-time enterprise data protection and replication. Storage Mirroring can be used to provide high availability for your Virtual Machine Manager server. With the Storage Mirroring Full-Server Failover feature, you can protect the entire server, including your data and the server s system state, which is the server s configured operating system and applications. Using the Full-Server Failover Manager, Full-Server Failover automatically creates a replication set for you, selecting all of the data and system state data on the source. Additionally, Full-Server Failover automatically established failover monitoring, providing high availability for the source. In the event the source fails, the target can become the source after a reboot. This document describes the steps necessary to configure Storage Mirroring to provide high availability for Windows Hyper-V servers. These procedures allow a secondary server to assume the identity and role of a failed Virtual Machine Manager server while maintaining the availability of Virtual Machine Manager services with minimal disruption or data loss. To complete these instructions, you will install Virtual Machine Manager and Storage Mirroring, and configure Storage Mirroring for replication and failover. NOTE: Due to the complexities of these applications, this document is intended for network administrators with experience installing, configuring, and maintaining network applications including Storage Mirroring and Virtual Machine Manager. Configuration In this solution, Storage Mirroring is used to replicate and failover the Virtual Machine Manager server to a Storage Mirroring target machine. After failover and a target reboot, the target is replaced with the source, including its system state. In the event of a source failure, the Hyper-V servers are directed to the target server. The Virtual Machine Manager server is then able to resume the management of the Hyper-V servers. Guidelines for using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring 9
Enabling compression By enabling compression, you can reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to transmit Storage Mirroring data. When compression is enabled, the data is compressed before it is transmitted from the source. When the target receives the compressed data, it uncompresses it and then writes it to disk. On a default Storage Mirroring connection, compression is disabled. Because the files that should be included in a replication set can generate a significant amount of data, you should enable compression for the connection. For more information about enabling compression, see the HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring user's guide. However, keep in mind that the process of compressing data impacts processor usage. If you notice an impact on performance while compression is enabled in your environment, either adjust to a lower level of compression, or leave compression disabled. Configuring memory usage Storage Mirroring uses memory to queue operations and data on both the source and target. Since the source server is typically running a production application, it is important that the amount of memory Storage Mirroring and the other applications use does not exceed the amount of RAM in the system. If the applications require more memory than there is RAM, the system will begin to swap pages of memory to disk and the system performance will degrade. Using SQL Server as an example, for instance, SQL Server will use all of the available system memory when needed by default, and it may use almost all of the system memory during high-load operations. These high-load operations are precisely what cause Storage Mirroring to need memory to queue the data being changed by SQL Server. On a server with 1 GB of RAM running SQL Server and Storage Mirroring, you might configure SQL Server to use only 512 MB and Storage Mirroring to use 256 MB, leaving 256 MB for the operating system and other applications on the system. Many other server applications will use almost all system memory by default, so it is important to check and configure applications appropriately, particularly on high-capacity servers. 10 Solution Overview
2 Sample Implementation This section describes an example of how to configure Storage Mirroring and Virtual Machine Manager. Use these procedures as a guideline for creating your own implementation. Because no two environments or configurations are exactly the same, you will probably need to implement additional or different steps than what is documented here in order to make the solution work in your environment. Requirements For this scenario, your system must meet the following requirements: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or later (must include Hyper-V) Licensed copies of Storage Mirroring 5.0 with service pack 2 or later Install software on the source 1. Install Virtual Machine Manager on the source, if it is not already installed. 2. Install Storage Mirroring on the source machine using the installation defaults. Full-Server Failover is installed with Storage Mirroring and is activated with your Storage Mirroring activation code. See the HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring installation instructionsfor details. Install and configure software on the target 1. Install Storage Mirroring on the target server using the installation defaults. See the Storage Mirroring Getting Installation Instructions for details. 2. Verify that the source and target are compatible, as described in the HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring user's guide. The following components should be checked for compatibility: Operating system version File system System volume Boot volume System path Storage Mirroring path HAL type and version Volume Network adapters Memory CPU count Capacity and free space Guidelines for using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring 11
Configure and begin mirroring and replication 1. Select Start, Programs, Storage Mirroring, Full-Server Failover Manager. 2. Enter your source and target servers. You can click Browse when selecting either server to locate it by drilling down through your network. After you have specified a server name, enter login credentials when prompted. Once the server is selected and logged in, the Properties tab at the bottom of Full-Server Failover Manager updates to display the server s properties. 3. You can configure optional protection settings, if desired. For details on each of the optional settings, see the HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring user's guide 4. Click Configure protection. In the Volumes to include area, select the volumes that you want to protect. You must have the same volumes on the source and target. You cannot deselect the boot volume. 5. Validate that your target is compatible with your source and can stand-in if the source fails. Click Validate configuration. The Validation tab at the bottom of Full-Server Failover Manager updates to display the validation check. Double-click on any of the validation items to see details. You must correct any errors before you can enable protection. Depending on the error, you may be able to click Fix or Fix All and let Full-Server Failover correct the problem for you. For those errors that Full-Server Failover cannot correct automatically, you will need to modify the target to correct the error, or you can select a different target. 6. After the validation check passes without errors, click Enable Protection to begin monitoring. Begin monitoring the source for failure The following steps should be performed on the target server. 1. After you have enabled protection, you can monitor the protection from Full-Server Failover Manager. The Protection Status is displayed in the right center of Full-Server Failover Manager. 2. When a failover condition is met, you will want to start failover. Additionally, you can start it without a failover condition, as long as protection is enabled. To start failover, click Failover. 3. If Full-Server Failover determines there is a possibility that the data on the target is incomplete, you will be warned before failover begins. If you proceed with failover, the state of the source will be unknown until failover is complete. The best case scenario would be a missing data file, while the worst case scenario would be missing system state data that causes the server to be unusable or unbootable. 4. Click OK to initiate failover. Monitor the failover percentage as shown in the Protection Status. At the end of failover, the target will be rebooted automatically. After the reboot, the target will no longer exist, since it will become the source. NOTE: ecause the Windows product activation is dependent on hardware, you may need to reactivate your Windows registration after failover. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the reactivation. The target server is now standing in for the source Virtual Machine Manager server. Hyper-V servers may access Virtual Machine Manager on the target server just as if it were the original source. 12 Sample Implementation
Restore your data After your target has failed over and becomes your source, you can stay with that configuration long term. However, you can go back to using the original hardware after you have failed over. Use the following process to failback to your original (or other) hardware. For details, see the HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring user's guide. 1. Because your new source is on the network, you must make sure your original source is unique on the network to avoid name and IP address conflicts. You have several options available for achieving this. Reinstall Windows using unique server information. This may be the best option if your original source was a domain controller or running a name-specific application like Exchange. Run a utility like Microsoft SysPrep to modify SIDs (security identifiers), IP addresses, and the server name. Manually make the original source unique by modifying IP addresses and the server name. If your original source was a domain controller, you must also modify the SIDs. 2. Establish protection from your new source to your original source using the same process as when you protected your original source. 3. When the protection has been established from your new source to your original source, initiate failover. Once failover has completed, you will be back to your original hardware. Guidelines for using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring 13
14 Sample Implementation