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IBM Storage Best Practices for Microsoft

Hyper-V on Windows 2012

Session 1229
Peter Kisich- IBM Storage Solutions Engineering
13 June 2013
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Agenda Best Practices on Windows 2012
Presentation Title Goes Here 2
The Microsoft MPIO Framework

Storage Improvements in 2012
CSVs Cluster Shared Volumes
VHDX Virtual Hard Disk Format in 2012
IO Scaling

vFC Virtual Fibre Channel

De-Duplication feature

UNMAP Space Reclamation

ODX Offloaded Data Transfer

SCVMM System Center Virtual Machine Manager
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MPIO Framework
3
MPIO
Device Specific
Module (DSM)
Multipath
Policy
Storwize Implementation
For iSCSI use Native Multipathing and DSM
For Fibre Channel use SDD DSM

XIV Implementation
Both FC and iSCSI, install the native DSM - Host Attach Kit automates
setup
Hot Fixes for MS Multipathing are automatically installed while running
attach command (usually requires a reboot).
Round Robin mutipathing is a MUST for XIV performance

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Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)
Presentation Title Goes Here 4
Clustered file system in Windows Server 2012
Layer of abstraction above NTFS

All cluster nodes can read/write to the CSV volume

LUN ownership by node abstracted from application

Applications failover without drive ownership changes
No dismounting and remounting of volumes
Faster failover times (less downtime)

No Longer Dependent on Active Directory in 2012
Easier to setup

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Cluster Shared Volumes (cont.)
5
Shared
LUN
Metadata
Synch
Read/Write
Metadata
Synch
Metadata updates
occur when:
VM creation/deletion
VM power on/off
VM mobility (live migration
or storage live migration)
Snapshot creation
Extending a dynamic VHD
Renaming a VHD

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VHDX 2012 Improvements
6
Key Changes in VHDX

Larger
Virtual
Disks
Large
Sector
Support
Enhanced
Perf
Larger
Block
Sizes
Enhanced
Resiliency
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IO SCALING
Virtual
Storage
Stack
VM
Dev
IO Throughput Before 2012
1 Channel Per VM
Fixed VP For IO Interrupt Handling
256 Queue Depth/SCSI, Shared For
All Attached Devices

Windows Server 2012
1 Channel/16 VPs , Per SCSI
256 Queue Depth/Device, Per SCSI
IO Interrupt Handling Distributed
Amongst VPs
VM
Dev
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Virtual Fibre Channel - vFC
Extends Fibre Channel Into VMs
High Performance Workloads
Guest Clustering
Exposes SAN Functionality
QoS
Snapshots Integration
Replication
Utilizes NPIV Functionality

Support
Host: Windows Server 2012
Updated NPIV HBA driver
Switch Support for NPIV
Server/Hypervisor = 2012
Guest: >= Windows Server 2008
WWNs WWNs
NPIV
Support
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De-Duplication
Works well for
VHD libraries
Windows images
Dedicated user file repositories

Important Limitations
Not supported for live VHDs
Testing showed issues with UNMAP
You should disable UNMAP if using de-dupe

ALWAYS TEST THIS FEATURE IN YOUR
ENVIRONMENT FIRST
A B C D
C D A B
A D C B
De-duplication
B C D A
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UNMAP Microsoft Server 2012

UNMAP is enabled by default on Windows 2012
Data reclamation on storage will occur about 30 seconds after file system deletion
XIV code level 11.2 currently enables UNMAP

Snapshot consumption considerations
Snapshot space is consumed with UNMAP enabled for volumes with XIV snapshots



UNMAP works on:
FC and iSCSI disks on 2012
CSV volumes on 2012
Cluster disks on 2012
VHDX & PassThru Disks for Hyper-V 3
Virtual SCSI or Virtual Fibre channel for Hyper-V 3

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UNMAP Microsoft Server 2012

Data consumed on XIV and file
system is 14GB

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UNMAP Microsoft Server 2012
Data deleted from the file system
and re-claimed on the XIV
Volume re-claimed visible here
Pool space reclaimed may vary
on XIV
Use pool statistics to view total
space rec-claimed
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VHD
Stack
Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX)
Offload Enabled Data Copy Model
Server Issues Offload Read Request To SAN
SAN Returns Token Representing Request
Server Issues Write Request To SAN Using
Token
SAN Completes Data Copy Internally
SAN Confirms Data Was Copied

Use cases
Merge, Mirror, VHD/VHDX Creation


Coming soon for IBM Storage
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SCVMM System Center Virtual Machine Manager
Manage XIV Gen 3 Storage:
Discover
Classify
Allocate
Provision
Map
Assign
Decommission
Added in 11.1
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SCVMM System Center Virtual Machine Manager (cont.)
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MSVMM 2012 and XIV Provisioning

Three XIV volume provisioning options:
Creating a volume from available capacity
Creating read/write snapshots of an existing volume
Creating a clone of an existing volume

Rapid Provisioning
Leverages XIV Hardware Snapshots
Rapid provisioning using SAN
Leverages XIV VSS provider
Leverages XIV Hardware Cloning
Copy offload from hosts for full cloning
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IBM Resources/Solutions for Hyper-V
http://www-
03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/5cb5ed706d254a8186256c71006d2e0a/2268f2
0436d5bc7086257928006d93f6/$FILE/Highly%20Available%20Virtual%20Machines%20wit
h%20IBM%20Storwize%20V7000%20and%20Microsoft%20Hyper-V.pdf

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4481.pdf

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/storage/san/sanvc/V5.1.0/pubs/English/SVC_Host_Attach_Guide
.pdf

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247904.html

http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102071

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Thank you
Questions?