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Thread: Question about Best Practice Active-Active

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
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    Germany
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    Default Question about Best Practice Active-Active

    Hello,

    at the moment I setup my first V7 Active/Active iSCSI cluster.
    Here is how I did it... What do you think? Is this best practice? Any errors?


    NODE1
    2 iSCSI Targets, each with 2 Logical Volumes
    Target 1: vmfs01 (2x 600 GB Volume)
    Target 2: vmfs02 (2x 2000 GB Volume)

    NODE2
    2 iSCSI Targets, each with 1 Logical Volume
    Target 3: server01 (1x 2500 GB Volume)
    Target 4: server02 (1x 1500 GB Volume)

    Each with 4 Virtual IP addresses and 3x balance-rr bond for the Storage Replication.


    I connect iSCSI Target 1 and 2 to my ESXi Servers and I connect Target 3 and Target 4 to physical Windows 2008 Servers.


    Why this way ????

    VMware: We only setup 600 GB VMFS Datastores but in this location we have one big fileserver. We don't need much performance, that's the reason why a VM is ok.
    iSCSI Target 1 with the 2x 600 GB is the regular VMFS datastore for all Virtual Machines.
    iSCSI Target 2 with the 2x 2000 GB is VMFS datastore, too - contain only the data disk of the virtual fileserver.
    Benefit: If I have to add more diskspace to the fileserver I can remove iSCSI Target 2 from the cluster without the need to shutdown all Virtual Machines.

    Windows Servers: Each server have his own iSCSI Target with only one LUN. So Server 1 never can access the disk of Server 2 by mistake and vice versa.
    Second Benefit: If I have to add more diskspace to Server 1 I can keep Server 2 running.



    Everythink ok?
    Any comments?
    Best Practice?



    Thanks. :-)

    Bye Manuel
    There are only 10 types of people in the world:
    Those who understand binary, and those who don't

  2. #2

    Default

    I would look to use MPIO for the VIP NICs and not use Bonding. MPIO will give you multiple streams for the I/O's where bonding will give you only 1 stream and you still get path failover with MPIO.


    You can directly connect the single designated NIC for the Volume Replication to save on the switch port.

    For the VMware I would set the iSCSI Target values that I have listed below and also set in VMware's initiator settings as well. Do this before connecting your VM's. For Windows the defaults
    are ok.

    1. From the console, press CTRL+ALT+W,
    2. Select Tuning options -> iSCSI daemon options -> Target options,
    3. Select the target in question,


    maxRecvDataSegmentLen=262144
    MaxBurstLength= 1048576
    Maxxmitdatasegment=262144
    FirstBurstLength=65536
    DataDigest=None
    maxoutstandingr2t=8
    InitialR2T=No
    ImmediateData=Yes
    headerDigest=None
    (deprecated)Wthreads=8
    All the best,

    Todd Maxwell


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  3. #3

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    nova17.de,

    true storage fail over is best achieved with VMWare Storage DRS, the Open-E servers are just big boxes.

    the ideal method, is to create identical iscsi luns on each server, so both "nodes" have identical volumes & replicated tasks for active/active.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Germany
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    Default

    Hello Todd,
    I use MPIO for the VIP NICs - I only use a balance-rr Bond for the Storage Replication NICs:

    4 NICs with VIPs presenting iSCSI -- VMware/Win2008 connected with MPIO
    3 NICs as balance-rr bond for Storage Replication -- all cables connected directly 1:1 without a Switch inbetween.


    About your iSCSI Target Options: At the moment we're running ESX4 but we're planning the upgrade to V5.x. Are these settings optimized for VMware in general?



    Hello Alex,
    yes I use the Open-E only as a big box, same iSCSI configuration on each side.



    Thank you.
    Bye, Manuel
    There are only 10 types of people in the world:
    Those who understand binary, and those who don't

  5. #5

    Default

    I would still set these settings for the ESX 4.x as well.
    All the best,

    Todd Maxwell


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  6. #6
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    Default

    Hi Todd,

    I changed the values. Can you explain in in 2-3 short words what these settings do?
    Or how much this will improve the performance?

    Thank you
    Manuel
    There are only 10 types of people in the world:
    Those who understand binary, and those who don't

  7. #7

    Default

    These are the recommended VMware iSCSI target settings, the performance increase is very difficult to give an exact number but if you test with the defaults to these settings you should see an increase.
    All the best,

    Todd Maxwell


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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Ljubljana
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    Post

    ...not to open new thread:

    We are planning to combine two separate DSS7 iSCSI targets:
    - one for VMWare ESXi initiators with parameters (recomended above)
    maxRecvDataSegmentLen=262144
    MaxBurstLength= 1048576
    Maxxmitdatasegment=262144
    FirstBurstLength=65536
    DataDigest=None
    maxoutstandingr2t=8
    InitialR2T=No
    ImmediateData=Yes
    headerDigest=None
    (deprecated)Wthreads=8


    - and another one for native Win initiators (cluster of 2x Server2008R2)

    Is it better to use default parameters on Win and adjust particular target on DSS7?
    DelayBetweenReconnect=5
    EnableNOPOut=0
    ErrorRecoveryLevel=2
    FirstBurstLength=#00010000=65536
    ImmediateData=1
    InitialR2T=0
    IPSecConfigTimeout=#0000003c=60
    LinkDownTime=#0000000f=15
    MaxBurstLength=#00040000=262144
    MaxConnectionRetries=#ffffffff
    MaxPendingRequests=#000000ff
    MaxRecvDataSegmentLength=#00010000=65536
    MaxRequestHoldTime=#0000003c=60
    MaxTransferLength=#00040000=262144
    NetworkReadyRetryCount=#0000000a=10
    PortalRetryCount=#00000005=5
    SrbTimeoutDelta=#0000000f=15
    TCPConnectTime=#0000000f=15
    TCPDisconnectTime=#0000000f=15
    WMIRequestTimeout=#0000001e=30


    or adjust "VMWare recomend" parameters to Windows iSCSI initiator?

    Thank you for the answer!
    Toni
    Last edited by Toni Bizjak; 03-29-2014 at 11:27 AM.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    GA
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    935

    Default

    If you change target values, you will also need to adjust windows initiator.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Posts
    202

    Default

    Why not create multiple iscsi targets, then the targets for windows initiator set them according the windows settings and the targets for vmware set them to match vmware. The settings in open-e are per target and not global I believe

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