HP 3PAR Peer Persistence for Microsoft Windows Servers and Hyper-V
Some days ago I wrote two blog posts (part I and part II) about VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) with HP 3PAR Peer Persistence. Because I wrote about it in the first of the two blog posts, allow me to take a short description, what Peer Persistence is and what it does, from that blog post:
HP 3PAR Peer Persistence adds functionalities to HP 3PAR Remote Copy software and HP 3PAR OS, that two 3PAR storage systems form a nearly continuous storage system. HP 3PAR Peer Persistence allows you, to create a VMware vMSC configuration and to achieve a new quality of availability and reliability.
You can transfer the concept of a Metro Storage Cluster to Microsoft Hyper-V. There is nothing VMWare specific in that concept.
With the GA of 3PAR OS 3.2.1 in September 2014, HP announced a lot of new features. The most frequently mentioned feature is Adaptive Flash Cache. If you’re interested in more details about Adaptive Flash Cache you will like the AFC Deep dive on 3pardude.com. A little lost is the newly added support for Peer Persistence with Hyper-V. This section is taken from the release notes of 3PAR OS 3.2.1:
3PAR Peer Persistence Software supports Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 and Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 Server and Hyper-V, in addition to the existing support for VMware. HP 3PAR Peer Persistence software enables HP 3PAR StoreServ systems located at metropolitan distances to act as peers to each other, presenting a nearly continuous storage system to hosts and servers connected to them. This capability allows to configure a high availability solution between two sites or data centers where failover and failback remains completely transparent to the hosts and applications running on those hosts.
3PAR Peer Persistence with Microsoft Windows Server and Hyper-V
Currently supported are Windows Server 2008 R2 and Server 2012 R2 and the corresponding versions of Hyper-V. This table summarizes the currently supported environments.
| HP 3PAR OS | Host OS | Host connectivity | Remote Copy connectivity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.2.1 | Windows Server 2008 R2 | FC, FCoE, iSCSI | RCIP, RCFC |
| 3.2.1 | Windows Server 2012 R2 | FC, FCoE, iSCSI | RCIP, RCFC |
At first glance, it seems that Microsoft Windows Server and Hyper-V support more options in terms of Host and Remote Copy Connectivity. This is not true! With 3PAR OS 3.2.1, HP added the support for FCoE and iSCSI host connectivity, as well as the support for RCIP for VMware. At this point, there is no winner. Check HP SPOCK for the latest support statements.
With 3PAR OS 3.2.1 a new host persona (Host Persona 15) was added for Microsoft Windows Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012 and 2012 R2. This host persona must be used in Peer Persistence configurations. This is comparable to Host Persona 11 for ESXi. The setup and requirements for VMware and Hyper-V are similar. For a transparent failover a Quorum Witness is needed and it has to be deployed onto a Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V host (not 2008, 2008 R2 or 2012!). Peer Persistence operates in the same manner as with VMware: The Virtual Volumes (VV) are grouped into Remote Copy Groups (RCG), mirrored synchronously between a source and destination storage system. Source and destination volume share the same WWN. They are presented using the same LUN ID and the paths to the destination storage are marked as standby. Check part I of my Peer Persistence blog series for more detailed information about how Peer Persistence works.
Final words
It was only a question of time until HP releases the support for Hyper-V with Peer Persistence. I would have assumed that HP makes more fuss about it, but AFC seems to be the killer feature in 3PAR OS 3.2.1. I’m quite sure that there are some companies out there that have waited eagerly for the support of Hyper-V with Peer Persistence. If you have any further questions about Peer Persistence with Hyper-V, don’t hesitate to contact me.