xenserver 6.1 open e dss v7 iscsi best practice questions

[aluisell]

If the amount of targets does not dictate the amount of paths, and the amount of paths does not dictate the amount of targets, what does it drive the number ot iscsi target? which is the right formula in order to choose the best settings? I know that for performance it's also relevant the number of the spindle, the raid levet etc... I choosed to have hw raid + ssd cache with 6 spindle in raid 10, that should give me enough performance.

Thanks

Andrea

[aluisell]

Hi

I made some further test...
Multipath is enabled on both xenservers and i have made test with 4 different network configuration on xenserver and for different network config in the opene.
i also made some performance test with 4 network bonded in balance rr in opene and 4 bonded in active active on xen.
All test with MPIO activated. Best performance was about 200MB per sec. not 400 as expected.
I can't understand the reason for that.
I noticed that even if i had 4 diff network xen is saying that i have 5 MPIO path/session ? why 5? it seems also to use the management network of Opene. Is that correct?

Can you give me some direction of understanding please?

Thanks

Andrea

I noticed the same behavior after bonding... 2 MPIO path/session and not 1...

[Al-S]

Are you using Xen Tools?
And what is the current DSS build that you are using?

We recommend you to open a support ticket and support us with your system logs files so can check it with more details. Thank you.

[aluisell]

Hi ai-s

I'm using dss v7 6806, currently evaluating version. As i wrote i'm planning to purchase it within 2 weeks if everything will work as expected. I doubt i can open a ticket for evaluation version.


Andrea

[aluisell]

Hi,

I think i was able to make it working properly.

What I did was:

1) in xenserver for each host create 4 network dedicated to the storge ex. 172.10.1.1, 172.10.2.1, 172.10.3.1, 172.10.4.1 and for second host 172.10.1.2---172.10.4.2.
2) doing the same for open-e 172.10.1.10---172.10.4.10 and no team bond at all on both xenservers or open-e
3) put xenserver in maintenance mode and activate support for multipath.
4) edited the file /etc/multipath.conf on both xenserver and added the following as per your pdf/video suggestion on page 59
http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=19285099
device {
vendor "SCST_FIO|SCST_BIO"
product "*"
path_selector "round-robin 0"
path_grouping_policy multibus
rr_min_io 100 }
5) also it's important to follow the instruction on page 61 and add on both xenserver the iptables rules on file /etc/rc.local
in my case was iptables-I INPUT -s 192.168.0.230 -j DROP (exclude the management interface from multipath) otherwise multipath will try to establish also a connection on the management interface of your open-e.
6) go back to xencenter and add your iscsi storage...

Thanks for your suggestion

Andrea

[aluisell]

hi forgot to put the link of the pfd document...

http://www.google.it/url?sa=t&rct=j&...55534169,d.Yms

Hi,

I think i was able to make it working properly.

What I did was:

1) in xenserver for each host create 4 network dedicated to the storge ex. 172.10.1.1, 172.10.2.1, 172.10.3.1, 172.10.4.1 and for second host 172.10.1.2---172.10.4.2.
2) doing the same for open-e 172.10.1.10---172.10.4.10 and no team bond at all on both xenservers or open-e
3) put xenserver in maintenance mode and activate support for multipath.
4) edited the file /etc/multipath.conf on both xenserver and added the following as per your pdf/video suggestion on page 59
http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=19285099
device {
vendor "SCST_FIO|SCST_BIO"
product "*"
path_selector "round-robin 0"
path_grouping_policy multibus
rr_min_io 100 }
5) also it's important to follow the instruction on page 61 and add on both xenserver the iptables rules on file /etc/rc.local
in my case was iptables-I INPUT -s 192.168.0.230 -j DROP (exclude the management interface from multipath) otherwise multipath will try to establish also a connection on the management interface of your open-e.
6) go back to xencenter and add your iscsi storage...

Thanks for your suggestion

Andrea

[Al-S]

Thank you.