Inspired by Chris Wahls blog post “Building a New Network Design for the Lab”, I want to describe how my lab network designs looks like.
The requirements My lab is separated from my home network, and it’s focused on the needs of a lab. A detailed overview about my lab can be found here. My lab is a lab and therefore I divided it into a lab, and an infrastructure part.
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.
The first part of this (short) blog series covered the basics of VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) with HP 3PAR Peer Persistence. This, the second, part will cover the basic tasks to configure Peer Persistence. Please note that this blog post relies on the features and supported configurations of 3PAR OS 3.1.3! This is essential to know, because 3.1.3 got some important enhancements in respect of 3PAR Remote Copy.
Sometimes the easy jobs seems to be the hardest. Especially if you have to deal with high-quality software… As part of a project I had to install and configure a HP StoreOnce 4500 appliance in combination with HP Data Protector 8.12 and a StoreEver MSL2024 G3 tape-library. No big deal - until I hit the part, when I had to install HP StoreOnce Enterprise Manager v1.3 (SEM) on the new backup server.
The title of this blog post mentions two terms that have to be explained. First, a VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (or VMware vMSC) is a configuration of a VMware vSphere cluster, that is based on a a stretched storage cluster. Secondly, 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.
On the HP Discover in June 2013 (I wrote 2014, sorry for that typo). HP has announced the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7450 All-Flash Array. To optimize the StoreServ platform for all-flash workloads, HP made some changes to the hardware of the nodes. The 7450 uses 8-core Intel Xeon CPUs instead 6-core 1.8 Ghz CPUs, the cache was doubled from 64GB to 128GB and they added some changes to the 3PAR OS: HP added additional cache flush queues to separate the flushing of cache for rotating rust and SSD devices.
The developtment of the Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF) goes back to H3C, a joint venture between Huawai and 3COM. With the acquisition of 3COM by HP, IRF capable products were integrated into the HP Networking product portfolio.
What is IRF? IRF is a software-based solution to connect multiple switches together and create a logical switching devices. The idea behind IRF is to create a logical device with one control and multiple data planes.
I’m a bit late, but HP released a new version of their HP Service Pack for ProLiant in June 2014. This version of the SPP supersedes the version 2014.02.0(B). This release adds support for HPs new 20 GbE adapter
HP FlexFabric 20Gb 2-port 630FLB Adapter HP FlexFabric 20Gb 2-port 630M Adapter and contains new firmware (v4.20b) for HP BladeSystem c-Class Virtual Connect, 4/8Gb 20-port and 8Gb 24-port FC components. HP also added the following firmware and software components to this release:
Yesterday I received the following tweet:
@vMario156 Yes, this was stated in an older version of the best practice guide. 1 IO is currently best practice, not only for 3PAR.
— Patrick Terlisten (@PTerlisten) June 5, 2014 Later Craig Kilborn joined the conversation and I decided to clarify this 100 or 1 IOPS myth the next morning.
@Craig_Kilborn @vMario156 I check this tomorrow at the office. I don't know why this was changed, but it has changed from 100 to 1 IO.
One of the tasks that I finish before I present the first Virtual Volumes (VV) to hosts is to discuss the need of a custom SATP claimrule with the customer. Requirement for a custom claimrule is usually, that the active and optimized path should be switched after each IO and not after 1000 IOs. Duncan Epping wrote a nice blog post some years ago. I recommend to read it.
Some basics The Storage Array Type Plug-In (SATP) is responsable for array-specific operations, like health monitoring of physical paths, reporting of path state changes and path failover.
