IBM SAN and SVC Stretched Cluster and VMware Solution Implementation

IBM SAN and SVC Stretched Cluster and VMware Solution Implementation

by Jon Tate, Angelo Bernasconi, Torben Jensen, Ian MacQuarrie, Ole Rasmussen, Matthew Robinson, Steven Tong
Released April 2013
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the IBM Storage Area Network and IBM SAN Volume Controller Stretched Cluster solution when combined with VMware. We describe guidelines, settings, and implementation steps necessary to achieve a satisfactory implementation.

Business continuity and continuous application availability are among the top requirements for many organizations today. Advances in virtualization, storage, and networking have made enhanced business continuity possible. Information technology solutions can now be designed to manage both planned and unplanned outages, and the flexibility and cost efficiencies available from cloud computing models.

IBM has designed a solution that offers significant functionality for maintaining business continuity in a VMware environment. This functionality provides the capability to dynamically move applications across data centers without interruption to those applications.

The live application mobility across data centers relies on these products and technology:

  • The industry-proven VMware Metro vMotion

  • IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller Stretched Cluster solution

  • A Layer 2 IP Network and storage networking infrastructure for high performance traffic management
    DC interconnect

    •

    Table of contents

    1. Front cover
    2. Notices
      1. Trademarks
    3. Preface
      1. The team who wrote this book
      2. Now you can become a published author, too!
      3. Comments welcome
      4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
    4. Chapter 1. Introduction
      1. 1.1 SAN Volume Controller
      2. 1.2 SAN Volume Controller Stretched Cluster solution
      3. 1.3 SAN Volume Controller, Layer 2 IP Network, Storage Networking infrastructure, and VMware integration
        1. 1.3.1 Application mobility over distance
        2. 1.3.2 IBM, VMware, and Layer 2 IP Network solution
      4. 1.4 Open Data Center Interoperable Network (ODIN)
    5. Chapter 2. Hardware and Software Description
      1. 2.1 Hardware description
      2. 2.2 IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller
      3. 2.3 SAN directors and switches
        1. 2.3.1 SAN384B-2 and SAN768B-2 directors
        2. 2.3.2 SAN24B-5, SAN48B-5, and SAN80B-4 switches
      4. 2.4 FCIP routers
        1. 2.4.1 8 Gbps Extension Blade
        2. 2.4.2 SAN06B-R extension switch
      5. 2.5 Ethernet switches and routers
        1. 2.5.1 IBM System Networking switches
        2. 2.5.2 Brocade IP routers and Layer 4-7 Application Delivery Controllers
      6. 2.6 Software high availability
      7. 2.7 VMware ESX and VMware ESXi
        1. 2.7.1 VMware vSphere
        2. 2.7.2 vSphere vMotion
        3. 2.7.3 vSphere High Availability (HA)
        4. 2.7.4 VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
        5. 2.7.5 VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
        6. 2.7.6 VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat
    6. Chapter 3. SAN Volume Controller Stretched Cluster Architecture
      1. 3.1 Stretched Cluster overview
      2. 3.2 Failure domains
      3. 3.3 SAN Volume Controller volume mirroring
        1. 3.3.1 Volume mirroring prerequisites
        2. 3.3.2 Read operations
        3. 3.3.3 Write operations
        4. 3.3.4 SAN Volume Controller quorum disk
        5. 3.3.5 SAN Volume Controller cluster state and voting
        6. 3.3.6 Quorum disk requirements and placement
        7. 3.3.7 Failure scenarios in SAN Volume Controller Stretched Cluster configuration
      4. 3.4 SAN Volume Controller Stretched Cluster configurations
        1. 3.4.1 No ISL configuration
        2. 3.4.2 ISL configuration
        3. 3.4.3 FCIP configuration
      5. 3.5 Fibre Channel settings for distance
      6. 3.6 SAN Volume Controller I/O operations on mirrored volumes
    7. Chapter 4. Implementation
      1. 4.1 Test Environment
      2. 4.2 ADX: Application Delivery Controller
        1. 4.2.1 VIP and Real Server configuration
        2. 4.2.2 GSLB Configuration
        3. 4.2.3 ARB Server Installation
        4. 4.2.4 ADX registration in ARB plug-in
        5. 4.2.5 VM mobility enable in ARB plug-in in vCenter
        6. 4.2.6 Additional references
      3. 4.3 IP networking configuration
        1. 4.3.1 Layer 2 Switch configuration
        2. 4.3.2 IP Core (MLXe) configuration
        3. 4.3.3 Data Center Interconnect (CER) configuration
      4. 4.4 IBM FC SAN
        1. 4.4.1 Creating the logical switches
        2. 4.4.2 Creating FCIP tunnels
      5. 4.5 IBM Storage Volume Controller using Stretched Cluster
      6. 4.6 SAN Volume Controller volume mirroring
      7. 4.7 Read operations
      8. 4.8 Write operations
      9. 4.9 SAN Volume Controller quorum disk
      10. 4.10 Quorum disk requirements and placement
      11. 4.11 Automatic SAN Volume Controller quorum disk selection
      12. 4.12 Backend Storage allocation to the SAN Volume Controller Cluster
      13. 4.13 Volume allocation
      14. 4.14 ESXi: VMware
    8. Chapter 5. VMware environment
      1. 5.1 VMware vMSC certification program
      2. 5.2 VMware configuration checklist
      3. 5.3 VMware vCenter setup
        1. 5.3.1 vCenter Heartbeat
        2. 5.3.2 Metro vMotion
      4. 5.4 ESX host installations
        1. 5.4.1 ESX host HBA requirements
        2. 5.4.2 Initial verification
        3. 5.4.3 Path Selection Policies (PSP) and Native MultiPath Drivers (NMP)
      5. 5.5 VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
      6. 5.6 Naming conventions
      7. 5.7 VMware High Availability (HA)
        1. 5.7.1 HA Admission Control
        2. 5.7.2 HA Heartbeating
        3. 5.7.3 HA advanced settings
        4. 5.7.4 All Paths Down (APD) detection
        5. 5.7.5 Permanent Device Loss (PDL)
      8. 5.8 VMware vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI)
      9. 5.9 vCenter Heartbeat setup
        1. 5.9.1 Heartbeat Virtual to Virtual (V2V)
        2. 5.9.2 Why vCenter as Virtual
      10. 5.10 Overall design comments
      11. 5.11 Scripting examples
        1. 5.11.1 PowerShell script to move VMs between two ESX hosts
        2. 5.11.2 PowerShell script to extract data from entire environment and verify active and preferred paths
    9. Chapter 6. SAN Volume Controller Stretched Cluster diagnostics and recovery guidelines
      1. 6.1 Solution recovery planning
      2. 6.2 SAN Volume Controller recovery planning
      3. 6.3 VMware recovery planning
      4. 6.4 SAN Volume Controller diagnosis and recovery guidelines
        1. 6.4.1 Critical event scenarios and complete domain failure
        2. 6.4.2 SAN Volume Controller diagnosis guidelines
        3. 6.4.3 SAN Volume Controller Recovery guidelines
    10. Related publications
      1. IBM Redbooks
      2. VMware online resources
      3. Other publications
      4. Websites
      5. Help from IBM
    11. Back cover

    Product information

    • Title: IBM SAN and SVC Stretched Cluster and VMware Solution Implementation
    • Author(s): Jon Tate, Angelo Bernasconi, Torben Jensen, Ian MacQuarrie, Ole Rasmussen, Matthew Robinson, Steven Tong
    • Release date: April 2013
    • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
    • ISBN: None