EMC VSPEX PRIVATE CLOUD

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EMC VSPEX

Abstract

This document describes the EMC^® VSPEX^® Proven Infrastructure solution for private cloud deployments with Microsoft Hyper-V, EMC VNXe3200™, and EMC Data Protection for up to 200 virtual machines.

January 2015

EMC VSPEX PRIVATE CLOUD

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 200 Virtual Machines

Enabled by EMC VNXe3200 and EMC Data Protection

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2 EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 200 Virtual Machines Enabled by EMC VNXe3200 and EMC Data Protection

Proven Infrastructure Guide

Published January 2015

EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date.

The information is subject to change without notice.

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EMC², EMC, and the EMC logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

For the most up-to-date regulatory document for your product line, go to the technical documentation and advisories section on the EMC Online Support website.

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 200 Virtual Machines

Enabled by EMC VNXe3200 and EMC Data Protection Proven Infrastructure Guide

Part Number H13094.1

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EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 200 Virtual Machines Enabled by EMC VNXe3200 and EMC Data Protection

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Contents

Chapter 1 Executive Summary 13

Introduction ... 14

Target audience ... 14

Document purpose ... 14

Business needs ... 15

Chapter 2 Solution Overview 17 Introduction ... 18

Virtualization ... 18

Compute ... 18

Networking ... 18

Storage ... 19

EMC next-generation VNXe ... 19

EMC Data Protection ... 23

Chapter 3 Solution Technology Overview 25 Overview ... 26

Summary of key components ... 27

Virtualization ... 28

Overview ... 28

Microsoft Hyper-V ... 28

Virtual FC ports ... 28

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager ... 28

High availability with Hyper-V Failover Clustering ... 29

Hyper-V Replica ... 29

Hyper-V snapshot ... 29

Cluster-Aware Updating ... 30

EMC Storage Integrator ... 30

Compute ... 31

Networking ... 32

Overview ... 32

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Storage ... 34

Overview ... 34

EMC VNXe ... 34

EMC VNXe Virtual Provisioning ... 35

Windows Offloaded Data Transfer ... 37

EMC PowerPath ... 38

VNXe FAST Cache ... 38

VNXe FAST VP ... 38

VNXe file shares... 38

ROBO ... 38

Data Protection... 39

Overview ... 39

EMC Avamar deduplication ... 39

EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems ... 39

EMC RecoverPoint ... 39

Other technologies ... 40

EMC XtremCache ... 40

Chapter 4 Solution Architecture Overview 43 Overview ... 44

Solution architecture ... 44

Overview ... 44

Logical architecture ... 44

Key components ... 46

Hardware resources ... 48

Software resources ... 50

Server configuration guidelines ... 50

Overview ... 50

Hyper-V memory virtualization ... 51

Memory configuration guidelines ... 53

Network configuration guidelines ... 53

Overview ... 53

VLAN ... 53

Enabling jumbo frames (iSCSI or SMB only) ... 55

Enabling link aggregation (SMB only) ... 55

Storage configuration guidelines ... 56

Overview ... 56

Hyper-V storage virtualization for VSPEX ... 56

VSPEX storage building blocks... 59

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VSPEX Private Cloud validated maximums ... 60

High availability and failover ... 63

Overview ... 63

Virtualization layer ... 63

Compute layer ... 63

Network layer... 63

Storage layer ... 64

Validation test profile ... 65

Profile characteristics ... 65

EMC Data Protection and configuration guidelines ... 65

Sizing guidelines ... 65

Reference workload ... 66

Overview ... 66

Defining the reference workload ... 66

Applying the reference workload ... 67

Overview ... 67

Example 1: Custom-built application ... 67

Example 2: Point-of-Sale system ... 67

Example 3: Web server ... 68

Example 4: Decision-support database ... 68

Summary of examples ... 68

Implementing the solution ... 69

Overview ... 69

Resource types ... 69

CPU resources ... 70

Memory resources ... 70

Network resources ... 70

Storage resources ... 71

Implementation summary ... 71

Quick assessment of customer environment ... 72

Overview ... 72

CPU requirements ... 72

Memory requirements ... 73

Storage performance requirements ... 73

IOPS ... 73

I/O size ... 73

I/O latency ... 74

Storage capacity requirements ... 74

Determining equivalent reference virtual machines ... 74

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Fine-tuning hardware resources ... 79

EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool ... 81

Chapter 5 VSPEX Configuration Guidelines 83 Overview ... 84

Pre-deployment tasks ... 85

Overview ... 85

Deployment prerequisites ... 85

Customer configuration data ... 86

Preparing switches, connecting network, and configuring switches ... 86

Overview ... 86

Preparing network switches ... 87

Configuring infrastructure network ... 87

Configuring VLANs ... 89

Configuring jumbo frames (iSCSI or SMB only) ... 89

Completing network cabling ... 89

Preparing and configuring storage array ... 90

VNXe configuration for block protocols ... 90

VNXe configuration for file protocols ... 92

FAST VP configuration (optional) ... 98

FAST Cache configuration (optional) ... 100

Installing and configuring Hyper-Vhosts ... 103

Overview ... 103

Installing Windows hosts ... 104

Installing Hyper-V and configuring failover clustering... 104

Configuring Windows host networking ... 104

Installing PowerPath on Windows servers ... 104

Planning virtual machine memory allocations ... 104

Installing and configuring SQL Server database ... 106

Overview ... 106

Creating a virtual machine for Microsoft SQL Server ... 106

Installing Microsoft Windows on the virtual machine ... 106

Installing SQL Server ... 106

Configuring a SQL Server for SCVMM ... 107

System Center Virtual Machine Manager server deployment ... 107

Overview ... 107

Creating a SCVMM host virtual machine... 108

Installing the SCVMM guest OS ... 108

Installing the SCVMM server ... 108

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Installing the SCVMM Management Console ... 108

Installing the SCVMM agent locally on a host ... 109

Adding a Hyper-V cluster into SCVMM ... 109

Adding file share storage to SCVMM (file variant only) ... 109

Creating a virtual machine in SCVMM ... 109

Performing partition alignment, and assigning File Allocation Unite Size ... 109

Creating a template virtual machine ... 109

Deploying virtual machines from the template virtual machine ... 110

Summary ... 110

Chapter 6 Verifying the Solution 111 Overview ... 112

Post-installing checklist ... 113

Deploying and testing a single virtual server ... 113

Verifying the redundancy of the solution components ... 113

Block and File environments ... 113

Chapter 7 System Monitoring 117 Overview ... 118

Key areas to monitor ... 118

Performance baseline ... 118

Servers ... 119

Networking ... 119

Storage ... 120

VNXe resources monitoring guidelines ... 120

Monitoring block storage resources ... 120

Monitoring file storage resources ... 128

Summary ... 132

Appendix A Bill of Materials 133 Bill of materials ... 134

Appendix B Customer Configuration Data Sheet 137 Customer configuration data sheet ... 138

Appendix C Server Resources Component Worksheet 141 Server resources component worksheet ... 142

Appendix D References 143 References ... 144

EMC documentation ... 144

Other documentation ... 144

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Appendix E About VSPEX 145

About VSPEX ... 146

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Figures

Figure 1. Next-generation VNXe with multicore optimization ... 22

Figure 2. EMC Data Protection solutions ... 23

Figure 3. VSPEX Private Cloud components ... 26

Figure 4. Compute layer flexibility ... 31

Figure 5. Example of highly available network design – for block ... 33

Figure 6. Storage pool rebalance progress ... 35

Figure 7. Thin LUN space utilization ... 36

Figure 8. Examining storage pool space utilization... 37

Figure 9. Logical architecture for block storage ... 45

Figure 10. Logical architecture for file storage ... 45

Figure 11. Hypervisor memory consumption ... 52

Figure 12. Required networks for block storage ... 54

Figure 13. Required networks for file storage ... 55

Figure 14. Hyper-V virtual disk types ... 57

Figure 15. Building block for 15 virtual servers... 59

Figure 16. Building block for 125 virtual servers ... 60

Figure 17. Storage layout for 200 virtual machines using VNXe3200 ... 61

Figure 18. Maximum scale levels and entry points of different arrays ... 62

Figure 19. High availability on the virtualization layer ... 63

Figure 20. Redundant power supplies ... 63

Figure 21. Network layer high availability (VNXe) ... 64

Figure 22. VNXe series HA components ... 64

Figure 23. Resource pool flexibility ... 69

Figure 24. Required resource from the reference virtual machine pool ... 75

Figure 25. Aggregate resource requirements – stage 1 ... 77

Figure 26. Pool configuration – stage 1 ... 77

Figure 27. Aggregate resource requirements - stage 2 ... 78

Figure 28. Pool configuration – stage 2 ... 79

Figure 29. Customizing server resources ... 79

Figure 30. Sample Ethernet network architecture - block variant ... 88

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Figure 31. Sample Ethernet network architecture - file variant ... 89

Figure 32. Configure NAS Server Address ... 95

Figure 33. Configure NAS Server type ... 96

Figure 34. Fast VP tab ... 98

Figure 35. Scheduled Fast VP relocation ... 99

Figure 36. Fast VP Relocation Schedule ... 99

Figure 37. Create Fast Cache ... 101

Figure 38. Advanced tab in the Create Storage Pool dialog box ... 102

Figure 39. Settings tab in the Storage Pool Properties dialog box ... 103

Figure 40. Storage Pool Alert settings... 121

Figure 41. Storage Pool Snapshot settings ... 122

Figure 42. Storage Pools panel ... 122

Figure 43. LUN Properties dialog box ... 123

Figure 44. System Panel ... 124

Figure 45. System Health panel ... 124

Figure 46. IOPS on the LUNs ... 125

Figure 47. IOPS on the drives ... 126

Figure 48. Latency on the LUNs ... 127

Figure 49. SP CPU Utilization... 128

Figure 50. VNXe file statistics ... 129

Figure 51. System Capacity panel ... 129

Figure 52. File Systems panel ... 130

Figure 53. File System Capacity panel ... 131

Figure 54. System Performance panel displaying file metrics ... 132

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Tables

Table 1. VNXe customer benefits ... 34

Table 2. Solution hardware ... 48

Table 3. Solution software ... 50

Table 4. Hardware resources for compute layer ... 51

Table 5. Hardware resources for network ... 53

Table 6. Hardware resources for storage ... 56

Table 7. Number of disks required for different number of virtual machines ... 60

Table 8. Profile characteristics ... 65

Table 9. Virtual machine characteristics... 66

Table 10. Blank worksheet row ... 72

Table 11. Reference virtual machine resources ... 74

Table 12. Example worksheet row ... 75

Table 13. Example applications – stage 1 ... 76

Table 14. Example applications - stage 2 ... 77

Table 15. Server resource component totals ... 80

Table 16. Deployment process overview ... 84

Table 17. Tasks for pre-deployment ... 85

Table 18. Deployment prerequisites checklist ... 85

Table 19. Tasks for switch and network configuration ... 87

Table 20. Tasks for VNXe configuration for block protocols ... 90

Table 21. Storage allocation table for block ... 92

Table 22. Tasks for storage configuration for file protocols ... 92

Table 23. Storage allocation table for file ... 97

Table 24. Tasks for server installation ... 103

Table 25. Tasks for SQL Server database setup ... 106

Table 26. Tasks for SCVMM configuration ... 107

Table 27. Tasks for testing the installation ... 112

Table 28. Rules of thumb for drive performance ... 126

Table 29. Best practice for performance monitoring ... 128 Table 30. List of components used in the VSPEX solution for 200 virtual machines134

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Table 31. Common server information ... 138

Table 32. Hyper-V server information ... 138

Table 33. Array information ... 139

Table 34. Network infrastructure information ... 139

Table 35. VLAN information ... 139

Table 36. Service accounts ... 139

Table 37. Blank worksheet for determining server resources ... 142

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Chapter 1 Executive Summary

This chapter presents the following topics:

Introduction ... 14

Target audience ... 14

Document purpose ... 14

Business needs ... 15

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Introduction

EMC^® VSPEX^® validated and modular architectures are built with proven superior technologies to create complete virtualization solutions. These solutions enable you to make an informed decision at the hypervisor, compute, backup, storage, and networking layers. VSPEX helps to reduce virtualization planning and configuration burdens. When embarking on server virtualization, virtual desktop deployment, or IT consolidation, VSPEX accelerates your IT transformation by enabling faster

deployments, expanded choices, greater efficiency, and lower risk.

This document is a comprehensive guide to the technical aspects of this solution.

Server capacity is provided in generic terms for required minimums of CPU, memory, and network interfaces; the customer is free to select the server and networking hardware that meet or exceed the stated minimums.

Target audience

The readers of this document should have the necessary training and background to install and configure a VSPEX computing solution based on Microsoft Hyper-V as a hypervisor, EMC VNX^® series storage systems, and associated infrastructure as required by this implementation. External references are provided where applicable, and the readers should be familiar with these documents.

Readers should also be familiar with the infrastructure and database security policies of the customer’s environment.

Individuals focusing on selling and sizing a VSPEX end-user computing solution for Microsoft Hyper-V private cloud infrastructure must pay particular attention to the first four chapters of this document. After the purchase, implementers of the solution should focus on the configuration guidelines in Chapter 5, the solution validation in Chapter 6, and the appropriate references and appendices.

Document purpose

This proven infrastructure guide includes an initial introduction to the VSPEX architecture, an explanation of how to modify the architecture for specific

engagements, and instructions on how to effectively deploy and monitor the system.

The VSPEX private cloud architecture provides the customer with a modern system capable of hosting many virtual machines at a consistent performance level. This solution runs on the Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization layer backed by the highly available VNX family of storage. The compute and network components, which are defined by the VSPEX partners, are laid out to be redundant and sufficiently powerful to handle the processing and data needs of the virtual machine environment.

The 200 virtual machine Hyper-V Private Cloud solution described in this document is based on the EMC VNXe3200^™ and on a defined reference workload. Since not every virtual machine has the same requirements, this document contains methods and

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15 guidance to adjust your system to be cost-effective when deployed. For larger environments, solutions for up to 1,000 virtual machines based on the EMC VNX series are described in the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines Proven Infrastructure Guide.

A private cloud architecture is a complex system offering. This document facilitates its setup by providing up-front software and hardware material lists, step-by-step sizing guidance and worksheets, and verified deployment steps. After the last component has been installed, validation tests and monitoring instructions ensure that your customer’s system is running correctly. Following the instructions in this document ensures an efficient and expedited journey to the cloud.

Business needs

Business applications are moving into consolidated compute, network, and storage environments. EMC VSPEX private cloud solutions use Microsoft Hyper-V to reduce the complexity of configuring every component of a traditional deployment model.

The complexity of integration management is reduced while maintaining the

application design flexibility and implementation options. Administration is unified, while process separation can be adequately controlled and monitored. The business needs for the VSPEX private cloud solutions for Microsoft Hyper-V are:

 Providing an end-to-end virtualization solution to effectively utilize the capabilities of the unified infrastructure components.

 Providing a VSPEX private cloud solution for Microsoft Hyper-V to efficiently virtualize up to 200 virtual machines for varied customer use cases.

 Providing a reliable, flexible, and scalable reference design.

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Chapter 2 Solution Overview

Introduction ... 18

Virtualization ... 18

Compute ... 18

Networking ... 18

Storage ... 19

EMC Data Protection ... 23

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Introduction

The EMC VSPEX private cloud solution for Microsoft Hyper-V provides a complete system architecture capable of supporting up to 200 virtual machines with a redundant server or network topology and highly available storage. The core components that make up this particular solution are virtualization, compute, networking, storage, and EMC Data Protection.

Virtualization

Microsoft Hyper-V is a key virtualization platform in the industry. For years, Hyper-V has provided flexibility and cost savings to end users by consolidating large, inefficient server farms into nimble, reliable cloud infrastructures.

Features such as Live Migration, which enables a virtual machine to move between different servers with no disruption to the guest operating system, and Dynamic Optimization, which performs Live Migrations automatically to balance loads, make Hyper-V a solid business choice.

With the release of Windows Server 2012 R2, a Microsoft virtualized environment can host virtual machines with up to 64 virtual CPUs and 1 TB of virtual random access memory (RAM).

Compute

VSPEX provides the flexibility to design and implement the customer’s choice of server components. The infrastructure must conform to the following attributes:

 Sufficient cores and memory to support the required number and types of virtual machines

 Sufficient network connections to enable redundant connectivity to the system switches

 Excess capacity to withstand a server failure and failover within the environment

Networking

VSPEX provides the flexibility to design and implement the customer’s choice of network components. The infrastructure must conform to the following attributes:

 Redundant network links for the hosts, switches, and storage

 Traffic isolation based on industry-accepted best practices

 Support for link aggregation

 A minimum backplane capacity of 96 Gb/s non-blocking for IP network switches

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 IP network switches used to implement this reference architecture must have a minimum non-blocking backplane capacity which is sufficient for the target number of virtual machines and their associated workloads. Enterprise-class switches with advanced features such as Quality of Service are highly

recommended.

Storage

The EMC VNXe^® storage series provides both file and block access with a broad feature set, which makes it an ideal choice for any private cloud implementation.

VNXe storage includes the following components, sized for the stated reference architecture workload:

 I/O ports (for block and file): Provide host connectivity to the array, which supports CIFS/ Server Message Block (SMB), Network File System (NFS), Fibre Channel (FC), and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI).

 Storage processors – The compute components of the storage array, used for all aspects of data moving into, out of, and between arrays. Unlike the VNX family, which requires external processing units known as Data Movers to provide file services, the VNXe contains integrated code that provides file services to hosts.

 Disk drives – Disk spindles and solid state drives (SSDs) that contain the host or application data and their enclosures

The 200 virtual machine Hyper-V Private Cloud solution described in this document is based on the VNXe3200storage array. The VNXe3200 can support a maximum of 150 drives.

The VNXe series supports a wide range of business-class features that are ideal for the private cloud environment, including:

 EMC Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP^™)

 EMC FAST Cache

 Thin provisioning

 Snapshots or checkpoints

 File-level retention

 Quota management

Features and enhancements

EMC now offers customers even greater performance and choice than before with the inclusion of the next generation of VNXe Unified Storage into the VSPEX family of Proven Infrastructures. The next-generation VNXe, led by the VNXe3200, offers a hybrid, unified storage system for VSPEX customers who need to centralize and simplify storage when transforming their IT.

EMC next-

generation VNXe

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Customers who need to virtualize up to 200 virtual machines with VSPEX Private Cloud solutions will now see the benefits that the new Multicore (MCx) VNXe3200 brings. The new architecture distributes all data services across all the system’s cores more evenly. Cache management and backend RAID management processes scale linearly and benefit greatly from the latest Intel multicore CPUs. Simply put, I/O operations in VSPEX run faster and more efficiently than ever before with the new VNXe3200.

The VNXe3200 is ushering in a profoundly new experience for small and medium- sized VSPEX customers as it delivers performance and scale at a lower price. The VNXe3200 is a significantly more powerful system than the previous VNXe series and ships with many enterprise-like features and capabilities such as auto-tiering, file deduplication, and compression, which add to the simplicity, efficiency, and flexibility of the VSPEX Private Cloud solution.

EMC FAST Cache and FAST VP, features that have in the past been exclusive to the VNX, are now available to VSPEX customers with VNXe3200 storage. FAST Cache dynamically extends the storage system’s existing read/write caching capacity to increase system-wide performance and more cost effectively deliver performance to your virtual machines. FAST Cache uses high-performing flash drives that are positioned between the primary cache (DRAM-based) and the hard disk drives. This feature boosts the performance of highly transactional applications and virtual desktops by keeping hot data in the cache, so can deliver performance for your frequently accessed data.

VNXe3200 FAST Cache and FAST VP auto-tiering lowers the total cost of ownership through policy-based movement of your data to the right storage type. Doing so maximizes the cost investment and speed benefit of flash drives across the system intelligently while leveraging the capacity of less-costly spinning drives. This avoids over-purchasing and exhaustive manual configuration.

The EMC VNXe flash-optimized unified storage platform delivers innovation and enterprise capabilities for file, block, and object storage in a single, scalable, and easy-to-use solution. Ideal for mixed workloads in physical or virtual environments, The VNXe combines powerful and flexible hardware with advanced efficiency, management, and protection software to meet the demanding needs of today’s virtualized application environments.

VNXe includes many features and enhancements designed and built upon the success of the next generation VNX family. These features and enhancements include:

 More capacity with multicore optimization with Multicore Cache, Multicore RAID, and Multicore FAST Cache (MCx)

 Greater efficiency with a flash-optimized hybrid array

 Easier administration and deployment by increasing productivity with a new Unisphere element manager

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21 Flash-optimized hybrid array

VNXe is a flash-optimized hybrid array that provides automated tiering to deliver the best performance for your critical data, while intelligently moving less frequently accessed data to lower-cost disks.

In this hybrid approach, a small percentage of flash drives in the overall system can provide a high percentage of the overall IOPS. A flash-optimized VNXe takes full advantage of the low latency of flash to deliver cost-saving optimization and high performance scalability. The EMC Fully Automated Storage Tiering Suite (FAST Cache and FAST VP) tiers both block and file data across heterogeneous drives and migrates the most active data to the flash drives, ensuring that customers never have to make concessions for cost or performance.

Data is typically used most frequently at the time it is created; therefore new data is first stored on flash drives for the best performance. As that data ages and becomes less active over time, FAST VP moves the data from high-performance to high-capacity drives automatically, based on customer-defined policies. EMC has enhanced this functionality with four times better granularity and with new FAST VP flash drives based on enterprise multi-level cell (eMLC) technology to lower the cost per gigabyte.

FAST Cache dynamically absorbs unpredicted spikes in system workloads. All VSPEX use cases benefit from the increased efficiency.

Note: This reference architecture does not make use of FAST Cache or FAST VP. Lab testing has demonstrated performance increases of approximately 10 – 20%, depending upon protocol using the VSPEX workload.

VSPEX Proven Infrastructures deliver private cloud, end-user computing, and virtualized application solutions. With VNXe, customers can realize an even greater return on their investment. VNXe provides out-of-band, file-based deduplication that can dramatically lower the costs of the flash tier.

VNXe Intel MCx Code Path Optimization

The advent of flash technology has been a catalyst in totally changing the requirements of VNXe storage systems. EMC redesigned the midrange storage platform to efficiently optimize multicore CPUs to provide the highest performing storage system at the lowest cost in the market.

MCx distributes all VNXe data services across all cores, as shown in Figure 1. The VNXe series with MCx has dramatically improved the file performance for

transactional applications like databases or virtual machines over network-attached storage (NAS).

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Figure 1. Next-generation VNXe with multicore optimization

Multicore Cache

The cache is the most valuable asset in the storage subsystem; its efficient use is key to the overall efficiency of the platform in handling variable and changing workloads.

The cache engine has been modularized to take advantage of all the cores available in the system.

Multicore RAID

Another important part of the MCx redesign is the handling of I/O to the permanent back-end storage—hard disk drives (HDDs) and SSDs. Greatly increased performance improvements in VNXe come from the modularization of the back-end data

management processing, which enables MCx to seamlessly scale across all processors.

VNXe performance

Performance enhancements

VNXe storage, enabled with the MCx architecture, is optimized for FLASH 1^st and provides unprecedented overall performance, optimizing for transaction performance (cost per IOPS), bandwidth performance (cost per GB/s) with low latency, and

providing optimal capacity efficiency (cost per GB).

VNXe provides the following performance improvements:

 Up to four times more file transactions when compared with dual controller arrays

 Increased file performance for transactional applications by up to three times, with a 60 percent better response time

 Up to four times more Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server OLTP transactions

 Up to six times more virtual machines Virtualization Management

EMC Storage Integrator

EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) is targeted towards the Windows and Application administrator. ESI is easy to use, delivers end-to end monitoring, and is hypervisor

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23 agnostic. Administrators can provision in both virtual and physical environments for a Windows platform, and troubleshoot by viewing the topology of an application from the underlying hypervisor to the storage.

Microsoft Hyper-V

With Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft provides Hyper-V 3.0, an enhanced

hypervisor for private cloud that can run on NAS protocols for simplified connectivity.

Offloaded Data Transfer

The Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) feature of Windows Server 2012 R2 enables data transfers during copy operations to be offloaded to the storage array, freeing up host cycles. For example, using ODX for a live migration of a SQL Server virtual machine doubled performance, decreased migration time by 50 percent, reduced CPU on the host server by 20 percent, and eliminated network traffic.

EMC Data Protection

EMC Data Protection solutions, EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain, deliver the protection and confidence needed to accelerate the deployment of VSPEX Private Clouds.

Optimized for virtual environments, EMC Data Protection reduces backup times by 90 percent and increases recovery speeds by 30 times, even offering virtual machines instant access for worry-free protection. EMC backup appliances add another layer of assurance with end-to-end verification and self-healing to ensure successful

recoveries.

Our solutions also deliver big saving. With industry-leading deduplication, you can reduce backup storage by 10 to 30 times, backup management time by 81 percent, and WAN bandwidth by 99 percent for efficient disaster recovery, delivering a seven- month payback period on average. You will be able to scale storage easily and efficiently as your environment grows.

Figure 2. EMC Data Protection solutions

EMC Data Protection solutions used in this VSPEX solution include the EMC Avamar deduplication software and system, and the EMC Data Domain deduplication storage system.

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Chapter 3 Solution Technology Overview

Overview ... 26 Summary of key components ... 27 Virtualization ... 28 Compute ... 31 Networking ... 32 Storage ... 34 Data Protection ... 39 Other technologies ... 40

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Overview

This solution uses the VNXe array and Microsoft Hyper-V to provide storage and server hardware consolidation in a VSPEX Private Cloud. The new virtualized

infrastructure is centrally managed, to provide efficient deployment and management of a scalable number of virtual machines and associated shared storage.

Figure 3 depicts the solution components.

Figure 3. VSPEX Private Cloud components

The following sections describe the components in detail.

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Summary of key components

This section briefly describes the key components of this solution.

 Virtualization

The virtualization layer decouples the physical implementation of resources from the applications that use them. The application’s view of the available resources is no longer directly tied to the hardware. This enables many key features in the private cloud concept.

 Compute

The compute layer provides memory and processing resources for the virtualization layer software, and for the applications running in the private cloud. The VSPEX program defines the minimum amount of required compute layer resources, and enables the customer to implement the solution by using any server hardware that meets these requirements.

 Network

The network layer connects the users of the private cloud to the resources in the cloud, and the storage layer to the compute layer. The VSPEX program defines the minimum number of required network ports, provides general guidance on network architecture, and enables the customer to implement the solution by using any network hardware that meets these requirements.

 Storage

The storage layer is critical for the implementation of the private cloud. With multiple hosts accessing shared data, many of the use cases defined in the private cloud can be implemented. The EMC VNXe storage used in this solution provides high-performance data storage while maintaining high availability.

 Data Protection

The backup and recovery components of the solution provide data protection when the data in the primary system is deleted, damaged, or unusable.

Solution architecture provides details on all the components that make up the reference architecture.

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Virtualization

The virtualization layer is a key component of any server virtualization or private cloud solution. It decouples the application resource requirements from the underlying physical resources that serve them. This enables greater flexibility in the application layer by eliminating hardware downtime for maintenance, and allows the system to physically change without affecting the hosted applications. In a server virtualization or private cloud use case, it enables multiple independent virtual machines to share the same physical hardware, rather than being directly implemented on dedicated hardware.

Microsoft Hyper-V is a Windows Server role that was introduced in Windows Server 2008. Hyper-V virtualizes computer hardware resources, such as CPU, memory, storage, and networking. This transformation creates fully functional virtual machines that run their own operating systems and applications like physical computers.

Hyper-V works with Failover Clustering and Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) to provide high availability in a virtualized infrastructure. Live migration and live storage

migration enable seamless movement of virtual machines or virtual machines files between Hyper-V servers or storage systems transparently and with minimal performance impact.

Windows Server 2012 R2 provides virtual FC ports within a Hyper-V guest operating system. The virtual FC port uses the standard N-port ID virtualization (NPIV) process to address the virtual machine WWNs within the Hyper-V host’s physical host bus adapter (HBA). This provides virtual machines with direct access to external storage arrays over FC, enables clustering of guest operating systems over FC, and offers an important new storage option for the hosted servers in the virtual infrastructure.

Virtual FC in Hyper-V guest operating systems also supports related features, such as virtual SANs, live migration, and multipath I/O (MPIO).

Prerequisites for virtual FC include:

 One or more installations of Windows Server 2012 R2 with the Hyper-V role

 One or more FC HBAs installed on the server, each with an appropriate HBA driver that supports virtual FC

 NPIV-enabled SAN

Virtual machines using the virtual FC adapter must use Windows Server 2008,

Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 as the guest operating system.

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) is a centralized

management platform for the virtualized data center. SCVMM allows administrators to configure and manage the virtualized host, networking, and storage resources, and to create and deploy virtual machines and services to private clouds. SCVMM

simplifies provisioning, management, and monitoring in the Hyper-V environment.

Overview

Microsoft Hyper-V

Virtual FC ports

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

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29 The Windows Server 2012 Failover Clustering feature provides high-availability in Hyper-V. High availability is impacted by both planned and unplanned downtime, and Failover Clustering significantly increases the availability of virtual machines during planned and unplanned downtimes. Configure Windows Server 2012 Failover Clustering on the Hyper-V host to monitor virtual machine health, and migrate virtual machines between cluster nodes. The advantages of this configuration are:

 Enables migration of virtual machines to a different cluster node if the cluster node where they reside must be updated, changed, or rebooted.

 Allows other members of the Windows Failover Cluster to take ownership of the virtual machines if the cluster node where they reside suffers a failure or significant degradation.

 Minimizes downtime due to virtual machine failures. Windows Server Failover Cluster detects virtual machine failures and automatically takes steps to recover the failed virtual machine. This allows the virtual machine to be restarted on the same host server, or migrated to a different host server.

Hyper-V Replica was introduced in Windows Server 2012 to provide asynchronous virtual machine replication over the network from one Hyper-V host at a primary site to another Hyper-V host at a replica site. Hyper-V replicas protect business

applications in the Hyper-V environment from downtime associated with an outage at a single site.

Hyper-V Replica tracks the write operations on the primary virtual machine and replicates the changes to the replica server over the network with HTTP and HTTPS.

The amount of network bandwidth required is based on the transfer schedule and data change rate.

If the primary Hyper-V host fails, you can manually fail over the production virtual machines to the Hyper-V hosts at the replica site. Manual failover brings the virtual machines back to a consistent point from which they can be accessed with minimal impact on the business. After recovery, the primary site can receive changes from the replica site. You can perform a planned failback to manually revert the virtual

machines back to the Hyper-V host at the primary site.

A Hyper-V snapshot creates a consistent point-in-time view of a virtual machine.

Snapshots function as source for backups or other use cases. Virtual machines do not have to be running to take a snapshot. Snapshots are completely transparent to the applications running on the virtual machine. The snapshot saves the point-in-time status of the virtual machine, and enables users to revert the virtual machine to a previous point-in-time if necessary.

Note: Snapshots require additional storage space. The amount of additional storage space depends on the frequency of data change on the virtual machine and the number of snapshots being retained.

High availability with Hyper-V Failover Clustering

Hyper-V Replica

Hyper-V snapshot

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Cluster-Aware Updating (CAU) was introduced in Windows Server 2012. It provides a way of updating cluster nodes with little or no disruption. CAU transparently performs the following tasks during the update process:

1. Puts one cluster node into maintenance mode and takes it offline (virtual machines are live-migrated to other cluster nodes).

2. Installs the updates.

3. Performs a restart if necessary.

4. Brings the node back online (migrated virtual machines are moved back to the original node).

5. Updates the next node in the cluster.

The node managing the update process is called the Orchestrator. The Orchestrator can work in a couple of different modes:

 Self-updating mode: The Orchestrator runs on the cluster node being updated.

 Remote-updating mode: The Orchestrator runs on a standalone Windows operating system, and remotely manages the cluster update.

CAU is integrated with Windows Server Update Service (WSUS). PowerShell allows automation of the CAU process.

EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) is an agentless, free plug-in that enables application- aware storage provisioning for Microsoft Windows Server applications, Hyper-V, VMware, and Xen Server environments. Administrators can provision block and file storage for Microsoft Windows or Microsoft SharePoint sites by using wizards in ESI.

ESI supports the following functions:

 Provisioning, formatting, and presenting drives to Windows servers

 Provisioning new cluster disks, and automatically adding them to the cluster

 Provisioning shared CIFS storage, and mounting it to Windows servers

 Provisioning SharePoint storage, sites, and databases in a single wizard Cluster-Aware

Updating

EMC Storage Integrator

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31

Compute

The choice of a server platform for a VSPEX infrastructure is not only based on the technical requirements of the environment, but on the supportability of the platform, existing relationships with the server provider, advanced performance, management features, and many other factors. For this reason, VSPEX solutions are designed to run on a wide variety of server platforms. Instead of requiring a specific number of servers with a specific set of requirements, VSPEX documents the minimum

requirements for the number of processor cores, and the amount of RAM. This can be implemented with two or twenty servers, and still be considered the same VSPEX solution.

In the example shown in Figure 4, the compute layer requirements for a specific implementation are 25 processor cores and 200 GB of RAM. One customer might want to implement this by using white-box servers containing 16 processor cores, and 64 GB of RAM, while another customer chooses a higher-end server with 20 processor cores and 144 GB of RAM.

Figure 4. Compute layer flexibility

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The first customer needs four of the chosen servers, while the other customer needs two.

Note: To enable high-availability at the compute layer, each customer needs one additional server to ensure that the system has enough capability to maintain business operations when a server fails.

Use the following best practices in the compute layer:

 Use several identical, or at least compatible, servers. VSPEX implements hypervisor level high-availability technologies, which may require similar instruction sets on the underlying physical hardware. By implementing VSPEX on identical server units, you can minimize compatibility problems in this area.

 If you implement high availability at the hypervisor layer, the largest virtual machine you can create is constrained by the smallest physical server in the environment.

 Implement the available high-availability features in the virtualization layer, and ensure that the compute layer has sufficient resources to accommodate at least single server failures. This enables the implementation of minimal- downtime upgrades and tolerance for single unit failures.

Within the boundaries of these recommendations and best practices, the compute layer for VSPEX can be flexible to meet your specific needs. Ensure that there are sufficient processor cores, and RAM per core to meet the needs of the target environment.

Networking

The infrastructure network requires redundant network links for each Hyper-V host, the storage array, the switch interconnect ports, and the switch uplink ports. This configuration provides both redundancy and additional network bandwidth. This is a required configuration regardless of whether the network infrastructure for the solution already exists, or you are deploying it alongside other components of the solution. Figure 5 depicts an example of this highly available network topology.

Overview

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33 Figure 5. Example of highly available network design – for block

This validated solution uses virtual local area networks (VLANs) to segregate network traffic of various types to improve throughput, manageability, application separation, high availability, and security.

For blocks, EMC unified storage platforms provide network high availability or redundancy by two ports per storage processor. If a link is lost on the storage processor front end port, the link fails over to another port. All network traffic is distributed across the active links.

For files, EMC unified storage platforms provide network high availability or

redundancy by using link aggregation. Link aggregation enables multiple active (MAC) Ethernet connections to appear as a single link with a single MAC address, and potentially multiple IP addresses. In this solution, Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) is configured on the VNXe array, combining multiple Ethernet ports into a single virtual device. If a link is lost on the Ethernet port, the link fails over to another port. All network traffic is distributed across the active links.