#1 HyperConverged Appliance for SMB and ROBO StarWind Virtual SAN Compute and Storage Separated 2-Node Cluster. Creating Scale-Out File Server with Hyper-V. MARCH 2015 TECHNICAL PAPER
Trademarks StarWind, StarWind Software and the StarWind and the StarWind Software logos are registered trademarks of StarWind Software. StarWind LSFS is a trademark of StarWind Software which may be registered in some jurisdictions. All other trademarks are owned by their respective owners. Changes The material in this document is for information only and is subject to change without notice. While reasonable efforts have been made in the preparation of this document to assure its accuracy, StarWind Software assumes no liability resulting from errors or omissions in this document, or from the use of the information contained herein. StarWind Software reserves the right to make changes in the product design without reservation and without notification to its users. Technical Support and Services If you have questions about installing or using this software, check this and other documents first - you will find answers to most of your questions on the Technical Papers webpage or in StarWind Forum. If you need further assistance, please contact us. Copyright 2009-2015 StarWind Software Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of StarWind Software. TECHNICAL PAPER 2
Contents Introduction... 4 Before We Begin: Configuring SOFS Servers... 6 Creating Highly Available Storage for the Failover Cluster... 6 Adding Discovery Portals...14 Connecting Targets and Configuring Multipathing... 18 Creating a Cluster... 25 Configuring and Managing Scale-Out File Server... 29 Adding Cluster Shared Volumes... 29 Configuring Cluster Networks Settings... 30 Configuring the Scale-Out File Server Role... 31 Creating A File Share On a Cluster Shared Volume...35 Configuring Client Cluster... 43 Contacts... 51 TECHNICAL PAPER 3
Introduction This document shows how to configure StarWind Virtual SAN on 2 dedicated servers to provide fault tolerant shared storage to a client hypervisor cluster. A configuration with a dedicated SAN layer gives customers the ability to provide both block level and file level storage to the clients, resulting in a unified SAN/NAS solution which can be used for different applications and virtualization environments at the same time. It also allows users to configure StarWind Virtual SAN as a gateway to consolidate their heterogeneous storage environment into a single storage resource pool. Backend SANs can be a mix of different SANs from different vendors using different storage media like FC and iscsi. This guide is intended for experienced Windows system administrators and IT professionals who would like to configure a hyper-converged Scale-out File Server cluster using StarWind Virtual SAN to convert the local or iscsi attached storage of the cluster nodes into a fault tolerant shared storage resource to be then presented to the client servers using SMB3 file share protocol. A full set of up-to-date technical documentation can always be found here, or by pressing the Help button in the StarWind Management Console. For any technical inquiries please visit our online community, Frequently Asked Questions page, or use the support form to contact our technical support department. TECHNICAL PAPER 4
Below is a reference network diagram of the configuration described in this guide: TECHNICAL PAPER 5
Before We Begin: Configuring SOFS Servers This document assumes that you have already configured Active Directory and added two servers to a domain. It also assumes that you have installed the Failover Clustering and Multipath I/O features. They can be installed using Server Manager (the Add Roles and Features option). On each SOFS node: 1. Install StarWind. 2. Open the StarWind configuration file. NOTE: The default path is C:\Program Files\StarWind Software\StarWind\StarWind.cfg 3. Find the string «<!--<iscsidiscoverylistinterfaces value=»1»/> -->» and uncomment it (should look as follows: <iscsidiscoverylistinterfaces value=»1»/>). 4. Restart StarWind Service and repeat the same procedure on the remaining StarWind nodes. Creating Highly Available Storage for the Failover Cluster This chapter will guide you through the process of creating highly available storage using StarWind Virtual SAN management console. 1. Select the StarWind server where you wish to create the device. 2. Press the Add Device (advanced) button on the toolbar. 3. Add Device Wizard will appear. Select Hard disk device and click Next. 4. Select Virtual disk and click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 6
5. Specify the virtual disk location and size. Click Next. 6. Specify virtual disk options. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 7
7. Define the caching policy and specify the cache size (in MB). Click Next. 8. Define the L2 caching policy and size if necessary. Click Next to continue. 9. Specify the destination directory for the L2 cache, if any. NOTE: It is strongly recommended to use SSD-based storage for L2 caching. TECHNICAL PAPER 8
10. Specify target parameters. Select the Target Name checkbox to enter a custom name of a target. Otherwise, the name will be generated automatically based on the target alias. Click Next to continue. 11. Click Create to add a new device and attach it to the target. Then click Finish to close the wizard. 12. Right-click on the device you just created and select Replication Manager. Replication Manager Window will appear. Press the Add Replica button. TECHNICAL PAPER 9
13. Select Synchronous two-way replication. Click Next to proceed. 14. Specify the partner server IP address. Default StarWind management port is 3261. If you have configured a different port, please type it in the Port number field. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 10
15. Choose Create new Partner Device. Click Next. 16. On this screen you can select the synchronization and heartbeat channels for the HA device. You can also modify the ALUA settings and modify the target name of the device. Click Change network settings... 17. Specify the interfaces for synchronization and Heartbeat. TECHNICAL PAPER 11
Click OK. Then click Next. 18. Press the Create Replica button. Then click Finish to close the wizard. 19. The added device will appear in the StarWind Management Console. 20. Repeat the steps 3 20 for the remaining virtual disks that will be used as Cluster Shared Volumes. TECHNICAL PAPER 12
21. Once all devices are created the Management console should look as follows: NOTE: It is recommended to create at least one CSV volume per cluster node according to StarWind Virtual SAN best practices. TECHNICAL PAPER 13
Adding Discovery Portals This chapter illustrates how to connect the devices we created in the previous chapter, to the failover cluster nodes. 1. Launch Microsoft iscsi Initiator: Start > Administrative Tools > iscsi Initiator or iscsicpl from the command line interface. The iscsi Initiator Properties window appears. 2. Navigate to the Discovery tab. 3. Click the Discover Portal button. Discover Target Portal dialog appears. Type in 127.0.0.1. Click the Advanced button. Select Microsoft ISCSI Initiator as your Local adapter and select your Initiator IP (leave default for 127.0.0.1). Click OK. Then click OK again to complete the Target Portal discovery. TECHNICAL PAPER 14
4. Click the Discover Portal button again. 5. Discover Target Portal dialog appears. Type in the first IP address of the partner node you will use to connect the secondary mirrors of the HA devices. Click Advanced. TECHNICAL PAPER 15
6. Select Microsoft ISCSI Initiator as your Local adapter, select the Initiator IP in the same subnet as the IP address on the partner server from the previous step. Click OK. Then click OK again to complete the Target Portal discovery. 7. Click the Discover Portal button once again. 8. Discover Target Portal dialog appears. Discover Target Portal dialog appears. Type in the second IP address of the partner node you will use to connect the secondary mirrors of the HA devices. 9. Select Microsoft ISCSI Initiator as your Local adapter, select the Initiator IP in the same subnet as the IP address on the partner server from the previous step. Click OK. Then click OK again to complete the Target Portal discovery. TECHNICAL PAPER 16
10. All target portals added on the first node. 11. Complete the same steps for the second node. 12. All target portals added on the second node. TECHNICAL PAPER 17
Connecting Targets and Configuring Multipathing 1. Click the Targets tab. The previously created targets are listed in the Discovered Targets section. NOTE: If the created targets are not listed, check the firewall settings of the StarWind Server as well as the list of networks served by the StarWind Server (go to StarWind Management Console -> Configuration -> Network). 2. Select a target located on the local server and click Connect. TECHNICAL PAPER 18
3. Enable both checkboxes. Click Advanced 4. Select Microsoft iscsi Initiator from the Local adapter drop down menu. 5. In the Target portal IP select 127.0.0.1. Click OK. TECHNICAL PAPER 19
6. Select the partner target from the other StarWind node and click Connect.. 7. Select Microsoft iscsi Initiator in the Local adapter text field. In the Initiator IP field select the IP address. In the Target portal IP select the corresponding portal IP from the same subnet. Click OK. 8. Select the same target like in step before and again click Connect. Press Advanced. 9. This time in target portal IP in dropdown list select another data channel IP addresses for initiator and target portal. TECHNICAL PAPER 20
Click OK, click OK again to connect to the target. 10. Repeat actions described in the steps above for other HA devices (CSV1, CSV2, and witness share). 11. Repeat steps 1-10 of this section on the second StarWind node, specifying corresponding local and data channel IP addresses. The result should look like on the screenshot below. 12. Once all targets are connected, launch the MPIO manager: Start > Administrative Tools > MPIO TECHNICAL PAPER 21
Or mpiocpl from the command line interface. MPIO manager window will appear. Go to the Discover Multi-Paths tab and enable the Add support for iscsi devices checkbox. Press the Add button. Restart the server to apply the changes. After the server is restarted, wait for the HA devices to resynchronize. Repeat step 12 on the second StarWind node once the synchronization is finished. 13. After both StarWind nodes are restarted and the MPIO support is enabled you have to configure the MPIO policy for each device specifying localhost (127.0.0.1) as the active path. Select a target and click Devices 14. Devices dialog appears. TECHNICAL PAPER 22
Click MPIO. 15. Select Fail Over Only load balance policy and then designate the local path as active. 16. You can check that 127.0.0.1 is the active path by selecting it from the list and clicking Details TECHNICAL PAPER 23
17. Repeat the same steps on the second node. 18. Initialize the disks and create partitions on them using the computer management snap-in. It is required that the disk devices are visible on both nodes to create the cluster. TECHNICAL PAPER 24
Creating a Cluster 1. Open Server Manager. Select the Failover Cluster Manager item from the Tools menu. Click the Create Cluster item in the Actions section of Failover Cluster Manger. 2. Specify servers to be included to the cluster. Click Next to continue. TECHNICAL PAPER 25
3. Verify that your servers are suitable for building a cluster: select Yes and click Next. Specify a cluster name. TECHNICAL PAPER 26
NOTE: If the cluster servers get IP addresses over DHCP, the cluster also gets its IP address over DHCP. If IP addresses are static, you have to provide the cluster IP address manually. Click Next to continue. Make sure that all of the settings are correct. Click Previous to make any changes. Click Next to continue. TECHNICAL PAPER 27
4. The cluster creation starts. After it s completed, the system displays a report with detailed information. Click Finish to close the wizard. TECHNICAL PAPER 28
Configuring and Managing Scale-Out File Server Adding Cluster Shared Volumes In order to create a SoFS role for the cluster we have to add the cluster disks to Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). 1. Open Failover Cluster Manager. 2. Go to Cluster->Storage -> Disks. 3. Right-click the required disk and select Add to Cluster Shared Volumes. TECHNICAL PAPER 29
Configuring Cluster Networks Settings 1. Go to Cluster->Networks. 2. Check Allow client to connect through this network for 172.16.1.0/24 and 172.16.2.0/24 Subnets. Uncheck the checkbox for 172.16.0.0/24. TECHNICAL PAPER 30
Configuring the Scale-Out File Server Role 1. Right-click the Role item and select Configure Role. High Availability Wizard appears. 2. High Availability Wizard appears. Click Next to continue. TECHNICAL PAPER 31
3. Select the File Server role. Click Next. 4. Select File Server for scale-out application data. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 32
5. On the Client Access Point page, in the Name text field type a NETBIOS name that will be used to access a Scale-Out File Server. Click Next to continue. 6. Check the provided settings. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 33
7. Review the information on the Summary page. Click Finish. 8. The Failover Cluster Manager window should look as on the screenshot below. TECHNICAL PAPER 34
Creating A File Share On a Cluster Shared Volume 1. Right-click on the file server role and select Add File Share. NOTE: if you see Client Access Point alert. Open command promt and run the command ipconfig /flushdns TECHNICAL PAPER 35
2. Select SMB Share Applications from the list of profiles. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 36
3. Select a CSV to host the share. Click Next. 4. Enter a share name and verify the path to the share. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 37
5. Ensure the Enable Continuous Availability checkbox is selected. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 38
6. Click Customize permissions and grant the following permissions: If you are using Scale-Out File Server for Hyper-V, all Hyper-V computer accounts, the SYSTEM account, and all Hyper-V administrators have to be granted full control on the share and file system. If you are using Scale-Out File Server for Microsoft SQL Server, the SQL Server service account has to be granted full control of the share file system. 7. On the Permissions page, click Customize Permissions. 8. Click Add, click Select a Principal, and then click Object Types. 9. In Object Types, click to select Computers, and click OK. 10. Enter the name of the first client cluster node SW7, and click OK. TECHNICAL PAPER 39
In Permissions Entry, select Full Control, and click OK. Repeat the previous three steps for the second client cluster node SW8. Click OK when finished. On the Permissions page, click Next. 11. Review the settings provided. Click Create. TECHNICAL PAPER 40
12. Review the results. Click Close. 13. Add the other 2 shares following steps 1 15. These will be used as CSVs in client cluster. 14. The Failover Cluster Manager should look as on the screenshot below. 15. Right click on the witness share. TECHNICAL PAPER 41
Click Properties. 16. Uncheck the Enable continuous availability checkbox. Press Apply. TECHNICAL PAPER 42
Configuring Client Cluster This chapter shows how to create a failover cluster using the SMB shares we have configured in the previous chapter. 1. Open the create cluster wizard. Click Next. 2. Select the nodes to participate in the cluster. Press Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 43
3. Pass the cluster validation tests to ensure the configuration is suitable for clustering. Select Yes and click Next. 4. Select the cluster name and cluster IP address. 5. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 44
6. Verify the settings provided. Click Next. 7. After creating the cluster you will see a warning like on the screenshot below. Press Finish. TECHNICAL PAPER 45
8. Right click on cluster you created and select Configure Cluster Quorum Settings 9. Configure Cluster Quorum Wizard appears. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 46
10. Chose Select the quorum witness. Click Next. 11. Chose Configure a file share witness. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 47
12. Enter the path to the witness file share. Click Next. 13. Verify settings provided. Click Next. TECHNICAL PAPER 48
14. You will see a report once the quorum settings are changed. Click Finish. 15. You should now see the file share witness in Cluster Core Resources. TECHNICAL PAPER 49
16. When creating virtual machines, always specify the CSV file share as the virtual machine location. TECHNICAL PAPER 50
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