Front cover IBM System Storage N series with VMware ESX Server Planning for VMware ESX Server installation on N series Installing and configuring SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure Using FlexClone with VMware ESX Server Alex Osuna Norm Bogard Amrita Das Ricardo Hortencio Gil Pastrana Vicky Rose Michael Slisinger Roland Tretau ibm.com/redbooks International Technical Support Organization IBM System Storage N series with VMware ESX Server April 2011 SG24-7636-01 Note: Before using this information and the product it supports, read the information in “Notices” on page xi Second Edition (April 2011) This edition applies to Data ONTAP 7.3.4 and later © Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2008, 2011 All rights reserved Note to U.S Government Users Restricted Rights Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp Contents Notices xi Trademarks xii Preface xiii The team who wrote this book xiii Now you can become a published author, too! xv Comments welcome xv Stay connected to IBM Redbooks xv Summary of changes xvii April 2011, Second Edition xvii Chapter Introduction to IBM System Storage N series 1.1 Product overview 1.2 N series hardware 1.2.1 Maximum number of network interfaces 1.2.2 N series A model and G model features 1.2.3 Hardware quick reference for N series A and G models 1.3 N series standard software features 1.4 Optional software 1.5 Performance Accelerator Module 10 1.6 N series unified storage systems 10 1.6.1 IBM System Storage N3000 13 1.6.2 IBM System Storage N5000 20 1.6.3 IBM System Storage N6000 21 1.6.4 IBM System Storage N7000 32 1.7 IBM System Storage N series Gateways 38 1.7.1 IBM System Storage N series Gateway highlights 40 1.7.2 Gateway RAID 41 1.7.3 IBM System Storage N6040, N6060, and N6070 Gateway models 42 1.7.4 IBM System Storage N7700 and 7900 Gateway models 42 1.7.5 LUN sizing 43 1.7.6 LUN mapping 43 1.8 N series expansion units 44 1.8.1 Intermixing EXN units with N series A models 45 1.8.2 EXN1000 45 1.8.3 EXN4000 46 1.8.4 EXN3000 48 Chapter Introduction to virtualization 2.1 Advantages of virtualization 2.2 Storage virtualization 2.3 Network virtualization 2.4 Application virtualization 2.5 Server virtualization 2.5.1 VMware Virtual Infrastructure 2.5.2 Implementation example 49 50 51 52 53 53 54 56 Chapter Benefits of N series with VMware ESX Server 57 © Copyright IBM Corp 2008, 2011 All rights reserved iii 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 Increased protection with RAID-DP Cloning virtual machines N series LUNs for VMware host boot N series LUNs for the Virtual Machine File System Using N series LUNs for Raw Device Mappings Growing Virtual Machine File System data stores Multiprotocol capability for storing VMDK files on iSCSI, SAN, or NFS volumes Backup and recovery of your VMware server (SnapVault, Snapshot, SnapMirror) Using N series deduplication with VMware 3.9.1 Coupling deduplication and compression 58 58 58 59 60 60 61 61 62 62 Chapter Planning for an N series and VMware ESX Server 65 4.1 Planning requirements 66 4.1.1 Compatibility and support 66 4.1.2 Data ONTAP 66 4.1.3 VMware ESX Server 66 4.2 Overview of solution sizing 66 4.2.1 VMware ESX Server sizing 66 4.2.2 N series sizing 67 4.3 Planning for the virtualized solution 69 4.3.1 Storage options 70 4.3.2 N series storage configuration 73 4.4 Configuration limits and guidance 75 4.4.1 N series volume options 75 4.4.2 RDMs and data center sizing 75 4.4.3 LUN sizing for VMFS data stores 76 4.4.4 NFS data store limits 76 4.4.5 NFS volume options 77 4.5 Virtual disk starting partition offset 77 4.5.1 Formatting with the correct starting partition offsets 79 4.6 Storage provisioning 79 4.6.1 Fibre Channel and iSCSI LUN provisioning 79 4.6.2 NFS provisioning 80 4.7 Storage connectivity 80 4.7.1 Fibre Channel connectivity 80 4.7.2 iSCSI and IP SAN connectivity 82 4.7.3 NFS connectivity 87 4.7.4 VMware ESX Server Fibre Channel and iSCSI multipathing 88 4.7.5 Managing multipathing with N series FCP ESX Host Utilities for Native OS 90 4.8 Networking for IP storage 91 4.8.1 Network configuration options for the VMware ESX Server 92 4.8.2 Network configuration options for the N series storage system 96 4.9 Increasing storage utilization 99 4.9.1 N series deduplication 100 4.9.2 Storage thin provisioning 102 4.10 Advanced guest operating system I/O configurations 104 4.10.1 Setting SCSI timeout values for N series failover events 104 4.10.2 Monitoring and management 107 4.10.3 Storage growth management 107 4.11 Backup and recovery 112 4.11.1 Snapshot technologies 112 4.11.2 Data layout for Snapshot copies 113 4.11.3 Configuring Snapshot copies with VMware ESX server Snapshot 117 iv IBM System Storage N series with VMware ESX Server 4.11.4 Configuring VMware ESX Server and N series Secure Shell 4.11.5 Recovering guests from a VMFS Snapshot copy 4.11.6 Recovering guests from an RDM Snapshot copy 4.11.7 Recovering guests from an NFS Snapshot copy 4.12 N series FlexShare 4.12.1 Supported configurations 4.12.2 Features 4.12.3 Prerequisite 4.13 Licensing 4.13.1 VMware licensing 4.13.2 N series licensing 118 120 121 121 122 123 123 123 123 123 124 Chapter Preparing the storage environment for VMware ESX Server 5.1 Boot options for VMware ESX Servers 5.2 Preparing N series for the VMware ESX Server 5.2.1 Preparing N series LUNs for the ESX boot from SAN 5.2.2 Zoning a LUN in the SAN switch 5.2.3 Configuring Fibre Channel HBA for boot from SAN 5.3 Preparing N series LUNs for VMware ESX guest operating systems 5.3.1 Adding licenses to N series systems 5.3.2 Presenting the LUN to the VMware ESX Server over the FCP 5.3.3 Presenting the LUN to VMware ESX Server over the iSCSI protocol 5.3.4 NFS volumes for Virtual Infrastructure 5.4 Using N series LUN for Raw Device Mapping 5.4.1 RDM compatibility mode 5.4.2 Attaching an RDM disk device to a guest operating system 5.5 Partition alignment 5.5.1 Fixing partition alignment on a Windows guest OS 125 126 126 127 139 145 149 150 151 160 173 180 180 180 190 191 Chapter Installing the VMware ESX operating system using N series storage 205 6.1 Preinstallation tasks 206 6.2 Installing the ESX operating system 206 Chapter Installing and configuring Virtual Center 7.1 Installing Virtual Center 7.1.1 Installing Microsoft SQL Server for Virtual Center 7.1.2 Configuring SQL for Virtual Center 7.1.3 Installing Virtual Center 7.2 Configuring Virtual Center 7.2.1 Creating a data center 7.2.2 Adding a host 7.2.3 Templates 215 216 216 228 235 242 242 244 247 Chapter N series cloning 8.1 VMware cloning technologies 8.1.1 Cloning individual guests 8.2 Cloning guests within the data store 8.3 Cloning a data store 8.4 Cloning VMware ESX Servers 249 250 250 253 260 271 Chapter Setting up the network for VMware ESX guest operating systems 9.1 VMware ESX Server networking overview 9.2 Configuring the host network for guest operating systems 9.3 Setting up storage networking 279 280 280 285 Contents v 9.3.1 Preparing the guest operating system and storage system for iSCSI 285 Chapter 10 Backup using snapshots 10.1 Storage preparation 10.1.1 Creating an N series volume 10.1.2 Creating and mapping a LUN 10.1.3 Configuring a Virtual Infrastructure host and data store 10.1.4 Configuring Virtual Infrastructure guests 10.2 Taking a snapshot 10.3 Scheduling snapshots 297 298 298 303 307 315 330 334 Chapter 11 Recovery options 11.1 Restoring a volume 11.2 Restoring a volume to a different location (FlexClone) 11.2.1 Creating a clone 11.2.2 Accessing a LUN from a cloned volume 11.2.3 Preparing the LVM Resignature 11.2.4 Mounting a cloned LUN 11.3 Recovering a VMware guest 11.3.1 Shutting down the guest 11.3.2 Deleting guest data 11.3.3 Copying cloned data 11.3.4 Reinventorying the guest 11.3.5 Recovering the VMware snapshot 11.3.6 Starting the guest 11.4 Recovering files from within a guest 11.4.1 Creating a temporary recovery guest 11.4.2 Connecting the cloned VMDK to the temporary guest 11.4.3 Copying the files to the target guest 11.4.4 Disconnecting the cloned data store from the guest 11.4.5 Removing the clone 339 340 342 343 346 351 351 353 353 354 357 360 366 366 367 368 370 379 386 390 Chapter 12 Backup and recovery to a separate system 12.1 Licensing the SnapVault locations 12.2 Setting up the primary storage 12.3 Creating a Qtree 12.4 Setting up auxiliary storage 12.5 Configuring SnapVault 12.5.1 Running the CLI 12.5.2 Setting permissions 12.5.3 Performing an initial SnapVault transfer 12.5.4 Configuring the schedule 12.5.5 Scripting a schedule 12.6 Taping backups from the SnapVault secondary system 12.7 Restoring SnapVault snapshots 12.7.1 Preparation 12.7.2 Restoring the Qtree 12.7.3 Restoring a previous backup 12.7.4 Mapping the LUN 12.7.5 Mounting a restored image in the VMware host 397 398 399 400 403 406 407 407 408 409 410 411 411 411 412 413 414 416 Chapter 13 High availability and disaster recovery 417 13.1 High availability 418 13.1.1 N series node failures 418 vi IBM System Storage N series with VMware ESX Server 13.1.2 VMware ESX Server machine failures 13.2 Disaster recovery options 13.3 Setting up disaster recovery 13.3.1 Setting up the primary storage 13.3.2 Licensing SnapMirror 13.3.3 Setting permissions 13.3.4 Configuring the volume mirror 13.3.5 Starting a mirror 13.4 Recovering from a disaster 13.4.1 Breaking the mirror 13.4.2 Mapping the LUNs 13.4.3 Rescanning the hosts 13.4.4 Reinventorying virtual machines 13.4.5 Editing virtual machines 13.4.6 Starting virtual machines 13.5 Returning to production 13.5.1 Replicating data from disaster recovery to the production site 13.5.2 Preventing access and performing a final update 13.5.3 Splitting the mirror 13.5.4 Re-establishing the mirror from the production to disaster recovery site 13.5.5 Configuring VMware hosts and virtual machines on the production site 13.6 Disaster recovery testing 419 419 420 420 421 422 423 426 430 430 434 436 437 440 445 446 447 448 449 449 450 451 Chapter 14 Advanced Single Instance Storage with VMware Virtual Infrastructure 14.1 A-SIS deduplication overview 14.2 Storage consumption in Virtual Infrastructure environments 14.3 When to run deduplication 14.4 The effect of snapshots in deduplicated volumes 14.5 Enabling deduplication on a volume 14.5.1 Setting up deduplication on a volume 14.5.2 Deduplication results 14.5.3 Deduplication of LUNs 453 454 455 455 455 456 456 459 460 Chapter 15 Postinstallation considerations for VMware ESX Server 461 15.1 Connecting to the host Virtual Infrastructure Client 462 15.2 Patching the VMware ESX Server to the latest patch level 464 Chapter 16 N series thin provisioning and Virtual Infrastructure 16.1 Overview of thin provisioning 16.2 Elements of thin provisioning 16.2.1 Volume-level thin provisioning 16.2.2 LUN-level thin provisioning 16.3 Setting up thin provisioning 16.3.1 Enabling volume-level thin provisioning 16.3.2 Enabling LUN-level thin provisioning 465 466 466 466 466 467 467 470 Chapter 17 SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure 17.1 Product overview 17.1.1 The solution for resource utilization 17.1.2 Architecture overview 17.2 Features of SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure 17.2.1 Quick installation and configuration 17.2.2 Improved user interface 471 472 472 473 473 473 474 Contents vii 17.2.3 Data layout 474 17.2.4 Granular restore options 476 17.2.5 Single wizard for creating backup jobs 478 17.2.6 Trigger scripts during the backup process 479 17.2.7 Working with NFS data stores 479 17.2.8 Other features 479 17.3 VMware ESX Server 480 17.3.1 Architecture 480 17.3.2 Storage options 481 17.3.3 VMware Tools installation and VM alignment 484 17.4 Solution components 484 17.4.1 Data ONTAP 484 17.4.2 VMware Virtual Infrastructure 485 17.4.3 SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure 485 17.5 Installing SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure 487 17.5.1 Preferred practices 487 17.5.2 Installing SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure 487 17.5.3 Installing Virtual Center and SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure on a virtual machine 492 17.5.4 Installing SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure within a virtual machine 492 17.6 Configuring SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure 493 17.6.1 Preferred practices 493 17.6.2 Identifying a vCenter Server 494 17.6.3 Adding N series storage systems 495 17.6.4 Configuring SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure for shared storage 495 17.6.5 Configuring SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure in a clustered environment (MSCS) 496 17.6.6 Confirming SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure high availability 499 17.6.7 Distributed Resource Scheduler implications 499 17.7 SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure in an N series MetroCluster environment 500 17.8 Backup 501 17.8.1 The backup process 502 17.8.2 Types of backup 503 17.8.3 Implications of the backup process 505 17.8.4 Scheduled backups and retention policies 506 17.8.5 Mounting a backup 507 17.9 Recovery 507 17.9.1 Types of recovery 507 17.9.2 Recovery procedures 511 17.9.3 Configuring the disaster recovery standby site 514 17.10 Restore 515 17.10.1 Restore enhancements in SnapManager 2.0 for Virtual Infrastructure 515 17.10.2 Restore process flow 516 17.10.3 Single file restore 517 17.11 Snapshots 520 17.11.1 Snapshot naming 520 17.11.2 VMware snapshots and SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure 520 17.11.3 Serialized snapshots 521 17.11.4 Reducing the number of concurrent VMware snapshots 521 17.11.5 Reducing the amount of disk I/O 521 17.11.6 Eliminating VMware Virtual Center snapshots from the backup process 522 17.12 Scripting 522 17.12.1 Environment variables 523 viii IBM System Storage N series with VMware ESX Server ... IBM WebSphere® implementations with IBM Global Services, and worked as an N series IT Specialist with IBM Global Services Gil has a degree in electrical engineering, with a focus on Digital Signal... available c This model has been withdrawn d The N6000 model series also acts as a gateway with Data ONTAP 7.3 and later 1.2.1 Maximum number of network interfaces Beginning with Data ONTAP 7.3, storage... provide customers with a tremendous amount of versatility because they allow the solution to be populated with Fibre Channel, SAS disk drives, and SATA disk drives An N series populated with Fibre Channel