W2012R2 HyperV Cluster - storage

sybreeder

sybreeder

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 24, 2010
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193
Hello

We have a problem with decision about what solution should we use to storage vhd for HV and CIFS storage
Right now we use Netapp FAS2040 as iscsi storage that is connected to hp 5500 core switches on separate vlan
whole network is controlled by a pair Fortigate 110C in A-A cluster
Unfortunately performance was so bad that i've decided to move all VMs to local disk on the HV server itself - we have 2 Dell R720 with 2 E5 CPUs and 48GB ram atm.

We have 2 server rooms - main and backup
2 HV servers that we have are lockated 1 per server room
Lately we had meeting with EMC and they offer VNXe3200 or VNX 5200
however i'm wondering that emc may be too expensive for us. especially if we'd like to have use of 2 server rooms as a backup

I've got an idea to set 2 servers that would run W2012R2 Standard with plenty disk on each server and each one of them would be in each server room
It'd be possible make a cluster from those 2 for hyperv ? failover clustering allows for that configuration ?
we'd like to use those servers also for regular cifs/smb file server.
Thank you for any suggestions!
 
You could have a single Hyper-V host in each server room each using local storage for their VMs, but they wouldn't be able to failover to each other in a failover cluster. You'll need shared storage for that. You could set up replication between the two but then you'd need double the storage on each Hyper-V host, would need to monitor the replication, and would either need to script or perform failover manually.

For shared storage, don't bother with the VNX 5200. The VNXe3200 is the next architecture for the VNX anyway and the VNXe3200 is more powerful than the VNX 5200. The earlier VNXe's (3100, 3150, 3300) were crap but the VNXe3200 is a nice array and a lot simpler to use than a VNX.

How far apart are the server rooms? Do the servers need to remain in separate locations or can you consolidate them to one for local failover and then use a cloud like Azure for DR?

How is the storage set up? The iSCSI is on a single VLAN between the two server rooms? Is there one Netapp per server room?

There are a lot of ways to skin a cat..... :)
 
After move we only use local storage on both servers - Dell 146 sas in raid6 in each server.
So we can't make a cluster from that or can i ?
I'd like to have ability to have HA so i assume that we have to have some shared storage. The question is - do we really need SAN for that?

In case of Netapp - we only have 1 on main server room. It was only connected to HV server in main server room.
Second HV server has only ~7 SAS drives

And i'm afraid that if we'd buy EMC they wouldn't sell us 2 of these because of price.
EMC idea is to bring second HV server to main server room, make a cluster by directly connecting cables from SAN to HV server itself to make a HV cluster and other server room leave not used at all.
In my opinion it'd be stupid idea really based on fact how much money we already spent to built that second server room.

Generally i work in a production company that needs some servers to be online. That's why it'd be good idea to make a use of second server room.
We have HP A5500 in both server rooms already,

So in case of consolidation - Those servers shour remain separate.

Isn't that EMC VNXe3200 "too much" for our needs ? because single san would cos us ~70k usd just for SAN. And still it'd not give us redundancy that we need if we'd buy only 1.

What about that new features in W2012R2 like SMB3.0, clustered storage etc ? Is it worth considering ?
Could we buy 2 another servers packed with drivers that we'd place ewach one in one server room and we'd connect them directly through fiber or something like that - it is possible to cluster 2 independend storage drives and create clustered storage space that replicate itself ?

Poor cat :)
 
You will need some type of shared storage if you want a failover cluster, whether that be a NetApp, EMC, or even a file server, it has to be something that both hypervisors can access in the event either of them go down.

Storage: You must use shared storage that is compatible with Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2012. You can use shared storage that is attached, and you can also use SMB 3.0 file shares as shared storage for servers that are running Hyper-V that are configured in a failover cluster.
Click to expand...

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/JJ612869.aspx
 
The VNXe3200 is cheap. You can get two of them for $70k or less easily with the right partner.

Another option would be a shared SAS disk shelf. This would give you the shared storage you'd need for HA but you'd need to have two Hyper-V servers in the same server room connected to it.

Otherwise if that's not an option, your best bet is to use Hyper-V replication between the two servers and configure alerting to inform you when the replication breaks. Then you'd at least have the VM and it's data replicated between server rooms and could manually failover if needed.
 
I understand...But to have 2 What we'd be best way for connection ? FC/SMB/iSCSI that will not break a bank ?

So for shared disk shelf both SAN servers must be in the same room to route SAS cable right ?
What about completely separate File servers with disks that are located in both file servers? Can i make cluster from that?
 
You could do a Windows Scale Out File Server and use SMB3 for the Hyper-V Cluster VM shared storage.

The I/O will be limited to your network bandwidth 1Gbps, I have found it to perform better than MS iSCSI and VMware NFS.

In really small deployments of local Clusters, I have used the Hyper-V hosts themselves as the Clustered File Server

http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmay...with-smb-3-02-scale-out-file-server-sofs.aspx

https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Tec...-How-to-Scale-Out-a-File-Server-using-Hyper-V

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831349.aspx
 
Using a dedicated SAN in this situation is probably not the best idea. You would actually be creating even more chances of failures, not resiliency. By only putting in a single SAN and running all your servers off that cluster, you create an inverted pyramid of doom.

With two Hyper-V hosts, I'd recommend looking into Starwind's VSAN solution. High availability using local disks with no need for a separate dedicated SAN. Yes, you have to duplicate the storage capacity you need on both servers, but local disks will offer better performance at a lower cost than two SANs replicating to each other.
 
we have built a lot of very similar configs for hyper-v setups!

sofs assembled from a pair of dell r620 and starwinds replicating csv storage between them

smb3 acts as an uplink to hyper-v vms and veeam backups

dobieg2002 said:
You could do a Windows Scale Out File Server and use SMB3 for the Hyper-V Cluster VM shared storage.

The I/O will be limited to your network bandwidth 1Gbps, I have found it to perform better than MS iSCSI and VMware NFS.

In really small deployments of local Clusters, I have used the Hyper-V hosts themselves as the Clustered File Server

http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmay...with-smb-3-02-scale-out-file-server-sofs.aspx

https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Tec...-How-to-Scale-Out-a-File-Server-using-Hyper-V

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831349.aspx
Click to expand...
 
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