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IBM System Storage N series with VMware vSphere 4.1

Author Christian Prediger Appel , Roland Tretau
Release Date: 2012/02/01
ISBN: 0738436461
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Book Description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides a basic introduction to the IBM System Storage® N series, virtualization, and VMware. It explains how to use the N series with VMware vSphere 4 environments and the benefits of doing so. Examples are given on how to install and set up VMware ESXi server with the N series.

This edition includes information about the Virtual Storage Console (VSC), which is another N series software product that works with VMware. VSC provides local backup and recovery capability. You have the option to replicate backups to a remote storage system by using SnapMirror relationships. Backups can be performed on individual virtual machines or on datastores with the option of updating the SnapMirror relationship as part of the backup on a per job basis. Similarly, restores can be performed at a data-store level or individual virtual machine level.

IBM System Storage N series in conjunction with VMware vSphere 4 helps complete the virtualization hierarchy by providing both a server and storage virtualization solution. Although this configuration can further assist with other areas of virtualization, networks, and applications, these areas of virtualization are not covered in detail in this book.

Table of Contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Figures
  3. Tables
  4. Examples
  5. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  6. 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
  7. Summary of changes
    1. February 2012, Third Edition
  8. Chapter 1. Introduction to IBM System Storage N series
    1. 1.1 Unified storage
    2. 1.2 Product overview
    3. 1.3 High availability as a cloud foundation
    4. 1.4 N series software features
    5. 1.5 IBM System Storage N series Gateways
    6. 1.6 N series disk shelf technology
    7. 1.7 Hardware summary
      1. 1.7.1 N3000 series
      2. 1.7.2 N6000 series
      3. 1.7.3 N7000 series
      4. 1.7.4 At a glance
    8. 1.8 Additional N series resources
  9. Chapter 2. Introduction to virtualization
    1. 2.1 Advantages of virtualization
    2. 2.2 Storage virtualization
    3. 2.3 Network virtualization
    4. 2.4 Application virtualization
    5. 2.5 Server virtualization
      1. 2.5.1 VMware vSphere
      2. 2.5.2 Implementation example
  10. Chapter 3. Benefits of N series with VMware vSphere 4.1
    1. 3.1 Increased protection with RAID-DP
    2. 3.2 Cloning virtual machines
    3. 3.3 Multiprotocol capability for storing files on iSCSI, SAN, or NFS volumes
    4. 3.4 N series LUNs for VMWare host boot
    5. 3.5 N series LUNs for VMFS datastores
    6. 3.6 Using N series LUNs for Raw Device Mappings
    7. 3.7 Growing VMFS datastores
    8. 3.8 Backup and recovery of virtual infrastructure (SnapVault, Snapshot, SnapMirror)
    9. 3.9 Using N series deduplication with VMware
    10. 3.10 Coupling deduplication and compression
  11. Chapter 4. Planning for an N series and VMware vSphere 4.1
    1. 4.1 Planning requirements
      1. 4.1.1 Compatibility and support
      2. 4.1.2 Data ONTAP
      3. 4.1.3 VMware vSphere 4.1
    2. 4.2 Overview of solution sizing
      1. 4.2.1 VMware ESXi Server sizing
      2. 4.2.2 N series sizing
    3. 4.3 Planning for the virtualized solution
      1. 4.3.1 Storage delivering options
      2. 4.3.2 N series storage configuration
    4. 4.4 Configuration limits and guidance
      1. 4.4.1 N series volume options
      2. 4.4.2 RDMs and VMFS datastores
      3. 4.4.3 LUN sizing for VMFS datastores
    5. 4.5 Storage connectivity
      1. 4.5.1 Fibre Channel connectivity
      2. 4.5.2 IP SAN connectivity through iSCSI
      3. 4.5.3 NFS connectivity
    6. 4.6 Networking for IP storage
      1. 4.6.1 Design principles
      2. 4.6.2 Network design for storage on VMware vSphere 4.1
      3. 4.6.3 Network configuration options for the N series storage system
    7. 4.7 Increasing storage utilization
      1. 4.7.1 N series deduplication
      2. 4.7.2 Storage thin provisioning
      3. 4.7.3 Elements of thin provisioning
    8. 4.8 Snapshots
    9. 4.9 N series FlexShare
    10. 4.10 Licensing
      1. 4.10.1 VMware licensing
      2. 4.10.2 N series licensing
  12. Chapter 5. Installing the VMware ESXi 4.1 using N series storage
    1. 5.1 Pre-installation tasks
    2. 5.2 Boot options for VMware ESXi Servers
    3. 5.3 Preparing N series for the VMware ESXi Server
      1. 5.3.1 Preparing N series LUNs for the ESXi boot from SAN
      2. 5.3.2 Zoning a LUN in the SAN switch
      3. 5.3.3 Configuring Fibre Channel HBA for boot from SAN
    4. 5.4 Installing the ESXi operating system
  13. Chapter 6. Installing and configuring VMware vCenter 4.1
    1. 6.1 VMware vCenter 4.1 overview
    2. 6.2 Installing VMware vCenter 4.1
    3. 6.3 Basic administration with VMware vCenter
      1. 6.3.1 Creating a datacenter
      2. 6.3.2 Creating a cluster
      3. 6.3.3 Adding hosts to a cluster
      4. 6.3.4 Templates
  14. Chapter 7. Deploying LUNs on N series for VMware vSphere 4.1
    1. 7.1 Preparing N series LUNs for VMware vSphere
    2. 7.2 Setting up thin provisioning
      1. 7.2.1 Enabling volume-level thin provisioning
      2. 7.2.2 Creating a thin provisioned LUN on N series systems
      3. 7.2.3 Creating an initiator group on N series systems
      4. 7.2.4 Creating a non-thin provisioned LUN on N series systems
      5. 7.2.5 Adding licenses to N series systems
    3. 7.3 Presenting LUNs to an ESXi server over Fibre Channel
    4. 7.4 Using N series LUNs for Raw Device Mapping
      1. 7.4.1 RDM compatibility mode
      2. 7.4.2 Attaching an RDM disk device to a virtual machine
    5. 7.5 Creating a VMKernel portgroup on VMware vSphere 4.1
    6. 7.6 Presenting LUNs to VMware ESXi Server over iSCSI protocol
    7. 7.7 Presenting an iSCSI LUN directly to a virtual machine
    8. 7.8 NFS volumes on VMware vSphere 4.1
      1. 7.8.1 Overview of NFS
      2. 7.8.2 Setting up an NFS volume on N series
      3. 7.8.3 NFS datastore limits and options
    9. 7.9 Partition alignment
      1. 7.9.1 Creating an aligned partition on a Windows guest OS
      2. 7.9.2 Realigning existing partitions
    10. 7.10 Advanced guest operating system I/O configurations
      1. 7.10.1 Setting SCSI time-out values for N series failover events
      2. 7.10.2 Modifying the SCSI time-out value for RHEL4 (Kernel 2.6) guests
    11. 7.11 Monitoring and management
      1. 7.11.1 Monitoring storage utilization with Operations Manager
      2. 7.11.2 Setting up notifications in Operations Manager
    12. 7.12 Storage growth management
      1. 7.12.1 Growing VMFS volumes
      2. 7.12.2 Growing a virtual disk
      3. 7.12.3 Growing an RDM
      4. 7.12.4 Expanding the guest file system (NTFS or EXT3)
  15. Chapter 8. N series cloning
    1. 8.1 VMware and N series cloning technologies
      1. 8.1.1 Provisioning new servers
      2. 8.1.2 Cloning individual virtual machines
    2. 8.2 Cloning guests within a datastore
    3. 8.3 Cloning an entire datastore
    4. 8.4 Adding a virtual machine to the inventory
    5. 8.5 Cloning VMware ESXi servers
  16. Chapter 9. Configuring snapshots
    1. 9.1 Storage considerations
    2. 9.2 Using VMware snapshots
    3. 9.3 Integrating VMware and N series snapshots as a solution
      1. 9.3.1 Taking a snapshot
      2. 9.3.2 Scheduling snapshots
  17. Chapter 10. Recovery options
    1. 10.1 Restoring a volume
    2. 10.2 Restoring data from a cloned volume, as with FlexClone
      1. 10.2.1 Creating a clone
      2. 10.2.2 Configuring the cloned LUN to be accessed
    3. 10.3 Recovering an entire virtual machine
      1. 10.3.1 Copying data into the original guest datastore
      2. 10.3.2 Recovering the RDM from Snapshot copy
      3. 10.3.3 Recovering virtual machines from an NFS Snapshot copy
    4. 10.4 Recovering files within a guest
      1. 10.4.1 Creating a temporary recovery guest
      2. 10.4.2 Connecting the cloned virtual disk to the temporary guest
      3. 10.4.3 Copying the files to the target guest
      4. 10.4.4 Disconnecting the cloned disk from the temporary guest
      5. 10.4.5 Removing the cloned LUN
  18. Chapter 11. Backup and recovery to a separate system
    1. 11.1 Licensing the SnapVault locations
    2. 11.2 Setting up the primary storage
    3. 11.3 Creating a Qtree
    4. 11.4 Setting up auxiliary storage
    5. 11.5 Configuring SnapVault
      1. 11.5.1 Running the CLI
      2. 11.5.2 Setting permissions
      3. 11.5.3 Performing an initial SnapVault transfer
      4. 11.5.4 Configuring the schedule
      5. 11.5.5 Scripting a schedule
    6. 11.6 Taping backups from the SnapVault secondary system
    7. 11.7 Restoring SnapVault snapshots
      1. 11.7.1 Preparation
      2. 11.7.2 Restoring the Qtree
      3. 11.7.3 Restoring a previous backup
      4. 11.7.4 Mapping the LUN
      5. 11.7.5 Mounting a restored image in the VMware host
  19. Chapter 12. High availability and disaster recovery
    1. 12.1 High availability
      1. 12.1.1 N series node failures
      2. 12.1.2 VMware host failures
    2. 12.2 Disaster recovery options
    3. 12.3 Setting up disaster recovery
      1. 12.3.1 Setting up the primary storage
      2. 12.3.2 Licensing SnapMirror
      3. 12.3.3 Setting permissions
      4. 12.3.4 Configuring the volume mirror
      5. 12.3.5 Starting a mirror
    4. 12.4 Recovering from a disaster
      1. 12.4.1 Breaking the mirror
      2. 12.4.2 Mapping the LUNs and rescanning VMware hosts
      3. 12.4.3 Starting virtual machines
    5. 12.5 Returning to production
      1. 12.5.1 Replicating data from disaster recovery to the production site
      2. 12.5.2 Preventing access and performing a final update
      3. 12.5.3 Splitting the mirror
      4. 12.5.4 Re-establishing the mirror from the production to disaster recovery site
      5. 12.5.5 Configuring VMware hosts and virtual machines on the production site
    6. 12.6 Disaster recovery testing
  20. Chapter 13. Deduplication with VMware vSphere 4.1
    1. 13.1 A-SIS deduplication overview
    2. 13.2 Storage consumption on virtualized environments
    3. 13.3 When to run deduplication
    4. 13.4 The effect of snapshots in deduplicated volumes
    5. 13.5 Enabling deduplication on a volume
      1. 13.5.1 Setting up deduplication on a volume
      2. 13.5.2 Deduplication results
      3. 13.5.3 Deduplication of LUNs
  21. Chapter 14. Virtual Storage Console
    1. 14.1 Introduction to the Virtual Storage Console
      1. 14.1.1 License requirements
      2. 14.1.2 Architecture overview
      3. 14.1.3 Monitoring and host configuration
      4. 14.1.4 Provisioning and Cloning
    2. 14.2 Installing the Virtual Storage Console 2.0
      1. 14.2.1 Basic installation
      2. 14.2.2 Upgrading the VSC
    3. 14.3 Adding storage controllers to the VSC
    4. 14.4 Optimal storage settings for ESX/ESXi hosts
    5. 14.5 SnapMirror integration
      1. 14.5.1 SnapMirror destinations
      2. 14.5.2 SnapMirror and deduplication
    6. 14.6 VSC in an N series MetroCluster environment
    7. 14.7 Backup and recovery
      1. 14.7.1 Data layout
      2. 14.7.2 Backup and recovery requirements
      3. 14.7.3 Single wizard for creating backup jobs
      4. 14.7.4 Granular restore options
      5. 14.7.5 Other features
    8. 14.8 Provisioning and Cloning
      1. 14.8.1 Features and functions
      2. 14.8.2 Provision datastores
      3. 14.8.3 Managing deduplication
      4. 14.8.4 Cloning virtual machines
    9. 14.9 SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure commands
    10. 14.10 Scripting
  22. Appendix A. Hot backup Snapshot script
  23. Appendix B. Sample scripts for VSC
    1. Sample environment variables
    2. Displaying environment variables during the backup phases
    3. SnapVault script for SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure
  24. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks publications
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. Help from IBM
  25. Back cover
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