IBM SAN Volume Controller Enhanced Stretched Cluster with VMware

IBM SAN Volume Controller Enhanced Stretched Cluster with VMware

by Angelo Bernasconi, Ole Rasmussen, Jon Tate
Released February 2014
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the IBM storage area network (SAN) and IBM
SAN Volume Controller enhanced stretched cluster configuration when combined with
VMware. We describe guidelines, settings, and implementation steps necessary to achieve a
satisfactory implementation.
Business continuity and continuous availability of applications are among the top
requirements for many organizations today. Advances in virtualization, storage, and
networking make enhanced business continuity possible. Information technology solutions
can now be designed to manage both planned and unplanned outages and to take advantage
of the flexibility, efficient use of resources, and cost savings that cloud computing offers.
The IBM enhanced stretched cluster design offers significant functions for maintaining
business continuity in a VMware environment. You can dynamically move applications across
data centers without interruption to those applications.
The live application mobility across data centers relies on these products and technologies:

  • IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller enhanced stretched cluster solution

  • VMware Metro vMotion for live migration of virtual machines

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

  • Data center interconnection

    •

    Table of contents

    1. Front cover
    2. Notices
      1. Trademarks
    3. Preface
      1. Authors
      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 enhanced stretched cluster option
      3. 1.3 Integration of SAN Volume Controller, Layer 2 IP Network, Storage Networking infrastructure, and VMware
        1. 1.3.1 Application mobility over distance
        2. 1.3.2 Benefits of this integrated solution
        3. 1.3.3 Benefits in more detail
        4. 1.3.4 When to use VMware stretched clusters
        5. 1.3.5 When not to use VMware stretched clusters
        6. 1.3.6 IBM, VMware, and Layer 2 IP network solution
      4. 1.4 Open Data Center Interoperable Network
    5. Chapter 2. Hardware and software descriptions
      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 SAN96B-5 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
        4. 2.7.4 VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
        5. 2.7.5 VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
        6. 2.7.6 VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat
    6. Chapter 3. SAN Volume Controller enhanced stretched cluster architecture
      1. 3.1 Enhanced stretched cluster overview
      2. 3.2 Failure domains, sites, and controllers
      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
        7. 3.3.7 Failure scenarios in an enhanced stretched cluster configuration
      4. 3.4 SAN Volume Controller enhanced 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. 3.7 Enhance stretched cluster three-site DR configuration
    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 Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) configuration
        3. 4.2.3 Application Resource Broker (ARB) server installation
        4. 4.2.4 ADX registration in the ARB plug-in
        5. 4.2.5 Enable VM mobility in the 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 Fibre Channel SAN
        1. 4.4.1 Creating the logical switches
        2. 4.4.2 Creating FCIP tunnels
      5. 4.5 SAN Volume Controller with an enhanced 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 Enhanced stretched cluster configuration
      13. 4.13 Storage allocation to the SAN Volume Controller cluster
      14. 4.14 Volume allocation
    8. Chapter 5. VMware environment
      1. 5.1 VMware vMSC certification program
      2. 5.2 VMware configuration checklist
      3. 5.3 VMware SAN Volume Controller enhanced stretched cluster
      4. 5.4 VMware vCenter setup
        1. 5.4.1 vCenter Heartbeat
        2. 5.4.2 Metro vMotion
      5. 5.5 ESXi host installations
        1. 5.5.1 ESXi host HBA requirements
        2. 5.5.2 Initial ESXi verification
        3. 5.5.3 Path selection policies (PSP) and native multipath drivers (NMP)
        4. 5.5.4 Setting the default path selection policy
        5. 5.5.5 Assigning the preferred path in vSphere web client
        6. 5.5.6 Path failover behavior for an invalid path
      6. 5.6 VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler
      7. 5.7 Naming conventions
      8. 5.8 VMware high availability
        1. 5.8.1 HA admission control
        2. 5.8.2 HA Heartbeat
        3. 5.8.3 HA advanced settings
        4. 5.8.4 All Paths Down detection
        5. 5.8.5 Permanent Device Loss (PDL)
      9. 5.9 VMware vStorage API for Array Integration
      10. 5.10 vCenter Heartbeat setup
        1. 5.10.1 Heartbeat virtual-to-virtual method
        2. 5.10.2 Running vCenter as a virtual machine
      11. 5.11 VMware recovery planning
        1. 5.11.1 VMware alternatives to minimize the impact of a complete site failure (“split brain” scenario)
        2. 5.11.2 Investigating a site failure
      12. 5.12 Design comments
      13. 5.13 Script examples
        1. 5.13.1 PowerShell script to move VMs between two ESXi hosts
        2. 5.13.2 PowerShell script to extract data from the entire environment and verify active and preferred paths
    9. Chapter 6. SAN Volume Controller enhanced stretched cluster diagnostic and recovery guidelines
      1. 6.1 Solution recovery planning
      2. 6.2 SAN Volume Controller recovery planning
      3. 6.3 SAN Volume Controller enhanced stretched cluster diagnosis and recovery guidelines
        1. 6.3.1 Critical event scenarios and complete site or domain failure
        2. 6.3.2 SAN Volume Controller diagnosis guidelines
        3. 6.3.3 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 Volume Controller Enhanced Stretched Cluster with VMware
    • Author(s): Angelo Bernasconi, Ole Rasmussen, Jon Tate
    • Release date: February 2014
    • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
    • ISBN: None