How To Build An Ec Vnx Private Cloud For A Hypervisor On A Server With A Hyperconverged Network (Vmx)

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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 VNX^® Series, and EMC Powered Backup for up to 1,000 virtual machines.

April 2014

EMC VSPEX PRIVATE CLOUD

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines

Enabled by EMC VNX Series and EMC Powered Backup

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2 EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 1,000 Virtual MachinesEnabled by EMC VNX Series and EMC Powered Backup Proven Infrastructure Guide

Published April 2014

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

The information is subject to change without notice.

The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

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 1,000 Virtual Machines Enabled by EMC VNX Series and EMC Powered Backup Proven Infrastructure Guide

Part Number H12075.2

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Contents

Chapter 1 Executive Summary 15

Introduction ... 16

Target audience ... 16

Document purpose ... 16

Business needs ... 17

Chapter 2 Solution Overview 19 Introduction ... 20

Virtualization ... 20

Compute ... 20

Network ... 20

Storage ... 21

EMC VNX Series ... 22

EMC backup and recovery ... 28

Chapter 3 Solution Technology Overview 31 Overview ... 32

Summary of key components ... 33

Virtualization ... 34

Overview ... 34

Microsoft Hyper-V ... 34

Virtual Fibre Channel ports ... 34

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager ... 34

High availability with Hyper-V Failover Clustering ... 35

Hyper-V Replica ... 35

Hyper-V snapshot ... 36

Cluster-Aware Updating ... 36

EMC Storage Integrator ... 36

Compute ... 37

Network ... 39

Overview ... 39

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4 EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines Enabled by EMC VNX Series and EMC Powered Backup Proven Infrastructure Guide

Storage ... 41

Overview ... 41

EMC VNX series ... 41

EMC VNX Snapshots ... 42

EMC VNX SnapSure ... 43

EMC VNX Virtual Provisioning... 43

Windows Offloaded Data Transfer ... 48

EMC PowerPath ... 49

EMC FAST Cache ... 49

VNX file shares ... 49

ROBO ... 49

SMB 3.0 features ... 50

Overview ... 50

SMB versions and negotiations ... 50

VNX and VNXe storage support ... 50

SMB 3.0 VHD/VHDX storage support ... 51

SMB 3.0 Continuous Availability ... 51

SMB Multichannel ... 53

SMB 3.0 Copy Offload ... 55

SMB 3.0 BranchCache ... 56

SMB 3.0 Remote VSS ... 57

SMB 3.0 encryption ... 58

SMB 3.0 PowerShell cmdlets ... 60

SMB 3.0 Directory Leasing ... 63

Summary of feature defaults ... 65

Backup and recovery ... 65

Overview ... 65

EMC Avamar deduplication ... 65

EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems ... 65

VMware vSphere data protection ... 65

Continuous availability ... 66

EMC RecoverPoint ... 66

EMC VNX Replicator ... 67

Other technologies ... 68

EMC XtremCache ... 68

Chapter 4 Solution Architecture Overview 71 Overview ... 72

Solution architecture ... 72

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Overview ... 72

Logical architecture ... 73

Key components ... 74

Hardware resources ... 76

Software resources ... 81

Server configuration guidelines ... 82

Overview ... 82

Ivy Bridge Updates ... 82

Hyper-V memory virtualization ... 85

Memory configuration guidelines ... 86

Network configuration guidelines ... 87

Overview ... 87

VLAN... 87

Enable jumbo frames (iSCSI, FCoE, or SMB only) ... 89

Link aggregation (SMB only) ... 90

Storage configuration guidelines ... 90

Overview ... 90

Hyper-V storage virtualization for VSPEX ... 93

VSPEX storage building blocks ... 95

VSPEX private cloud validated maximums ... 96

High-availability and failover ... 105

Overview ... 105

Virtualization layer ... 105

Compute layer ... 105

Network layer ... 106

Storage layer ... 106

Validation test profile ... 107

Profile characteristics ... 107

Backup and recovery configuration guidelines ... 108

Sizing guidelines ... 108

Reference workload ... 108

Overview ... 108

Defining the reference workload ... 108

Applying the reference workload ... 109

Overview ... 109

Example 1: Custom-built application ... 109

Example 2: Point-of-Sale system ... 110

Example 3: Web server ... 110

Example 4: Decision-support database ... 110

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Summary of examples ... 111

Implementing the solution ... 111

Overview ... 111

Resource types ... 111

CPU resources ... 111

Memory resources ... 112

Network resources ... 112

Storage resources ... 113

Implementation summary ... 113

Quick assessment of customer environment ... 114

Overview ... 114

CPU requirements ... 114

Memory requirements ... 115

Storage performance requirements ... 115

IOPS ... 115

I/O size ... 115

I/O latency ... 116

Storage capacity requirements ... 116

Determining equivalent reference virtual machines ... 116

Fine-tuning hardware resources ... 123

EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool ... 126

Chapter 5 VSPEX Configuration Guidelines 127 Overview ... 128

Pre-deployment tasks ... 129

Overview ... 129

Deployment prerequisites ... 129

Customer configuration data ... 130

Prepare switches, connect network, and configure switches ... 131

Overview ... 131

Prepare network switches ... 131

Configure infrastructure network ... 131

Configure VLANs ... 133

Configure jumbo frames (iSCSI or SMB only) ... 133

Complete network cabling ... 134

Prepare and configure storage array ... 134

VNX configuration for block protocols ... 134

VNX configuration for file protocols ... 137

FAST VP configuration ... 146

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FAST Cache configuration ... 148

Install and configure Hyper-Vhosts ... 151

Overview ... 151

Install Windows hosts ... 151

Install Hyper-V and configure failover clustering ... 151

Configure Windows host networking ... 152

Install PowerPath on Windows servers ... 152

Plan virtual machine memory allocations ... 152

Install and configure SQL Server database ... 153

Overview ... 153

Create a virtual machine for Microsoft SQL Server ... 153

Install Microsoft Windows on the virtual machine ... 153

Install SQL Server ... 153

Configure a SQL Server for SCVMM ... 154

System Center Virtual Machine Manager server deployment ... 154

Overview ... 154

Create a SCVMM host virtual machine ... 155

Install the SCVMM guest OS ... 155

Install the SCVMM server ... 155

Install the SCVMM Management Console ... 156

Install the SCVMM agent locally on a host ... 156

Add a Hyper-V cluster into SCVMM ... 156

Add file share storage to SCVMM (file variant only) ... 156

Create a virtual machine in SCVMM ... 156

Perform partition alignment, and assign File Allocation Unite Size ... 156

Create a template virtual machine ... 156

Deploy virtual machines from the template virtual machine ... 157

Summary ... 157

Chapter 6 Verifying the Solution 159 Overview ... 160

Post-install checklist ... 161

Deploy and test a single virtual server ... 161

Verify the redundancy of the solution components ... 161

Block environments ... 161

File environments ... 162

Chapter 7 System Monitoring 163 Overview ... 164

Key areas to monitor ... 164

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Performance baseline ... 164

Servers ... 165

Networking ... 165

Storage ... 165

VNX resources monitoring guidelines ... 166

Monitoring block storage resources ... 166

Monitoring file storage resources ... 174

Summary ... 179

Chapter 8 Validation with Microsoft Fast Track v3 181 Overview ... 182

Business case for validation ... 182

Process requirements ... 183

Step 1: Core prerequisites ... 183

Step 2: Select the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure platform ... 183

Step 3: Define additional Microsoft Hyper-V Fast Track Program components .... 183

Step 4: Build a detailed bill of materials ... 184

Step 5: Test the environment ... 185

Step 6: Document and publish the solution ... 185

Additional resources ... 185

Appendix A Bill of Materials 187 Bill of materials ... 188

Appendix B Customer Configuration Data Sheet 197 Customer configuration data sheet ... 198

Appendix C Server Resources Component Worksheet 201 Server resources component worksheet ... 202

Appendix D References 203 References ... 204

EMC documentation ... 204

Other documentation... 204

Appendix E About VSPEX 207 About VSPEX ... 208

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Figures

Figure 1. Next-Generation VNX with multicore optimization... 23

Figure 2. Active/active processors increase performance, resiliency, and efficiency ... 24

Figure 3. New Unisphere Management Suite ... 25

Figure 4. Storage Processor utilization using Windows deduplication ... 26

Figure 5. Disk IOPS using Windows deduplication ... 27

Figure 6. Disk latency using Windows deduplication ... 27

Figure 7. Deduplication efficiency using VNX deduplication ... 28

Figure 8. Deduplication efficiency using Windows Server 2012 R2 deduplication28 Figure 9. EMC backup and recovery solutions ... 29

Figure 10. VSPEX private cloud components ... 32

Figure 11. Compute layer flexibility ... 37

Figure 12. Example of highly available network design – for block ... 39

Figure 13. Example of highly available network design – for file ... 40

Figure 14. Storage pool rebalance progress ... 44

Figure 15. Thin LUN space utilization ... 45

Figure 16. Examining storage pool space utilization... 46

Figure 17. Defining storage pool utilization thresholds ... 47

Figure 18. Defining automated notifications - for block ... 47

Figure 19. SMB 3.0 baseline performance comparison point ... 51

Figure 20. SMB 3.0 Continuous Availability ... 52

Figure 21. CA – application performance ... 53

Figure 22. SMB Multichannel fault tolerance ... 54

Figure 23. Multichannel network throughput... 55

Figure 24. Copy Offload ... 55

Figure 25. Enabling the Encrypt Data parameter ... 59

Figure 26. Enabling encryption: Client CPU utilization ... 60

Figure 27. Enabling encryption: Data Mover CPU utilization ... 60

Figure 28. PowerShell execution of Show Shares ... 62

Figure 29. PowerShell execution of Get-SmbServerConfiguration ... 63

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Figure 30. SMB 3.0 Directory Leasing ... 64

Figure 31. Logical architecture for block storage ... 73

Figure 32. Logical architecture for file storage ... 74

Figure 33. Ivy Bridge processor guidance ... 82

Figure 34. Hypervisor memory consumption ... 85

Figure 35. Required networks for block storage ... 88

Figure 36. Required networks for file storage ... 89

Figure 37. Hyper-V virtual disk types ... 93

Figure 38. Building block for 13 virtual servers ... 95

Figure 39. Building block for 125 virtual servers ... 96

Figure 40. Storage layout for 200 virtual machines using VNX 5200 ... 98

Figure 41. Storage layout for 300 virtual machines using VNX5400 ... 99

Figure 42. Storage layout for 600 virtual machines using VNX5600 ... 101

Figure 43. Storage layout for 1,000 virtual machines using VNX5800... 103

Figure 44. Maximum scale levels and entry points of different arrays ... 104

Figure 45. High availability at the virtualization layer ... 105

Figure 46. Redundant power supplies ... 105

Figure 47. Network layer high availability (VNX) – block variant ... 106

Figure 48. Network layer high availability (VNX) – file variant ... 106

Figure 49. VNX series HA components... 107

Figure 50. Resource pool flexibility ... 111

Figure 51. Required resource from the reference virtual machine pool ... 117

Figure 52. Aggregate resource requirements – stage 1 ... 119

Figure 53. Pool configuration – stage 1 ... 119

Figure 54. Aggregate resource requirements - stage 2 ... 121

Figure 56. Aggregate resource requirements for stage 3 ... 123

Figure 58. Customizing server resources ... 124

Figure 59. Sample Ethernet network architecture - block variant ... 132

Figure 60. Sample Ethernet network architecture - file variant ... 133

Figure 61. Network Settings for File dialog box ... 139

Figure 62. The Create Interface dialog box... 140

Figure 63. The Create CIFS Server dialog box ... 141

Figure 64. The Create File System dialog box... 144

Figure 65. The File System Properties dialog box ... 145

Figure 66. The Create File Share dialog box ... 146

Figure 67. The Storage Pool Properties dialog box ... 147

Figure 68. Manage Auto-Tiering dialog box ... 147

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Figure 69. The Storage System Properties dialog box ... 148

Figure 70. The Create FAST Cache dialog box ... 149

Figure 71. Advanced tab in the Create Storage Pool dialog ... 150

Figure 72. Advanced tab in the Storage Pool Properties dialog ... 150

Figure 73. Storage Pool Alerts area ... 167

Figure 74. Storage Pools panel ... 168

Figure 75. LUN Properties dialog box ... 169

Figure 76. Monitoring and Alerts panel ... 170

Figure 77. IOPS on the LUNs ... 171

Figure 78. IOPS on the disks ... 172

Figure 79. Latency on the LUNs ... 172

Figure 80. SP utilization ... 174

Figure 81. Data Mover statistics ... 175

Figure 82. Front-end Data Mover network statistics ... 175

Figure 83. Storage Pools for File panel ... 176

Figure 84. File Systems panel ... 176

Figure 85. File System Properties window ... 177

Figure 86. File System I/O Statistics window ... 178

Figure 87. CIFS Statistics window ... 179

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Tables

Table 1. VNX customer benefits ... 41

Table 2. Thresholds and settings under VNX OE Block Release 33 ... 48

Table 3. SMB dialect used between client and server ... 50

Table 4. Storage migration improvement with Copy Offload ... 56

Table 5. Microsoft PowerShell cmdlets ... 61

Table 6. EMC-provided PowerShell cmdlets ... 61

Table 7. Default status of SMB 3.0 features ... 65

Table 8. Solution hardware ... 76

Table 9. Solution software ... 81

Table 10. Hardware resources for compute layer ... 83

Table 11. Hardware resources for network ... 87

Table 12. Hardware resources for storage ... 91

Table 13. Number of disks required for different number of virtual machines ... 96

Table 14. Profile characteristics ... 107

Table 15. Virtual machine characteristics... 109

Table 16. Blank worksheet row ... 114

Table 17. Reference virtual machine resources ... 116

Table 18. Example worksheet row ... 117

Table 19. Example applications – stage 1 ... 118

Table 20. Example applications - stage 2 ... 120

Table 21. Example applications - stage 3 ... 121

Table 22. Server resource component totals ... 124

Table 23. Deployment process overview ... 128

Table 24. Tasks for pre-deployment ... 129

Table 25. Deployment prerequisites checklist ... 129

Table 26. Tasks for switch and network configuration ... 131

Table 27. Tasks for VNX configuration for block protocols ... 134

Table 28. Storage allocation table for block ... 136

Table 29. Tasks for storage configuration for file protocols ... 137

Table 30. Storage allocation table for file ... 142

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Table 31. Tasks for server installation ... 151

Table 32. Tasks for SQL Server database setup ... 153

Table 33. Tasks for SCVMM configuration ... 154

Table 34. Hyper-V Fast Track component classification ... 183

Table 35. List of components used in the VSPEX solution for 200 virtual machines ... 188

Table 38. List of components used in the VSPEX solution for 1,000 virtual machines ... 194

Table 39. Common server information ... 198

Table 40. Hyper-V server information ... 198

Table 41. Array information ... 199

Table 42. Network infrastructure information ... 199

Table 43. VLAN information ... 200

Table 44. Service accounts ... 200

Table 45. Blank worksheet for determining server resources ... 202

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Chapter 1 Executive Summary

This chapter presents the following topics:

Introduction ... 16

Target audience ... 16

Document purpose ... 16

Business needs ... 17

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Introduction

Validated EMC^® VSPEX^® modular architectures are built with proven superior

technologies to create complete virtualization solutions. These solutions enable you to make an informed decision in 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 existing installation.

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 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 environments for 200, 300, 600, and 1,000 virtual machines are based on a defined reference workload. Since not every virtual machine has the same

requirements, this document contains methods and guidance to adjust your system to be cost-effective when deployed. For smaller environments, solutions for up to 100 virtual machines based on the EMC VNXe^® series are described in the EMC VSPEX

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17 Private Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V for up to 125 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 using Microsoft Hyper-V 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 architectures are:

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

 Provide a VSPEX private cloud solution for Microsoft Hyper-V to efficiently virtualize up to 1,000 virtual machines for varied customer use cases.

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

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Chapter 2 Solution Overview

Introduction ... 20

Virtualization ... 20

Compute... 20

Network ... 20

Storage ... 21

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Introduction

The EMC VSPEX private cloud for Microsoft Hyper-V provides complete system architecture capable of supporting up to 1,000 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, backup, storage, and networking.

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

Network

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

 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

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21 switches with advanced features such as Quality of Service are highly

recommended.

Storage

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

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

 Host adapter ports (For block) – Provide host connectivity through fabric to the array

 Storage processors – The compute components of the storage array, which are used for all aspects of data moving into, out of, and between arrays

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

 Data Movers (For file)– Front-end appliances that provide file services to hosts (optional if CIFS services are provided)

Note: The term Data Mover refers to a VNX hardware component, which has a CPU, memory, and I/O ports. It enables Common Internet File System (CIFS-SMB) and Network File System (NFS) protocols on the VNX.

The Microsoft Hyper-V private cloud solutions for 200, 300, 600, and 1,000 virtual machines described in this document are based on the EMC VNX5200™,

VNX5400™, EMC VNX5600™ and the EMC VNX5800™ storage arrays respectively.

The VNX5200 array can support a maximum of 125 drives, the VNX5400 array can support a maximum of 250 drives, the VNX5600 can host up to 500 drives, and the VNX5800 can host up to 750 drives.

The VNX 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

 File-level data deduplication and compression

 Block deduplication

 Thin provisioning

 Replication

 Snapshots or checkpoints

 File-level retention

 Quota management

 Block compression

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Features and Enhancements

The EMC VNX 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, VNX combines powerful and flexible hardware with advanced efficiency,

management, and protection software to meet the demanding needs of today’s virtualized application environments.

VNX includes many features and enhancements designed and built upon the first generation’s success. These features and enhancements include:

 More capacity with multicore optimization through the use of Multicore Cache, Multicore RAID, and Multicore FAST Cache (MCx)

 Greater efficiency with a flash-optimized hybrid array

 Better protection by increasing application availability with active/active storage processors

 Easier administration and deployment by increasing productivity with a new Unisphere Management Suite

VSPEX is built with the next generation of VNX to deliver even greater efficiency, performance, and scale than ever before.

Flash-optimized hybrid array

VNX is a flash-optimized hybrid array that provides automated tiering to deliver the best performance to 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 VNX 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

promotes 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 solid-state disks (SSDs) based on enterprise multi-level cell (eMLC) technology to lower the cost per gigabyte. FAST Cache assists performance by dynamically absorbing unpredicted spikes in system workloads. All VSPEX use cases benefit from the increased efficiency.

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

EMC VNX Series

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23 VNX Intel MCx Code Path Optimization

The advent of flash technology has been a catalyst in totally changing the

requirements of midrange 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 VNX data services across all cores—up to 32, as shown in Figure 1.

The VNX series with MCx has dramatically improved the file performance for

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

Figure 1. Next-Generation VNX 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 VNX come from the modularization of the back-end data

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

VNX performance

Performance enhancements

VNX 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).

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VNX 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 Active/active array storage processors

The new VNX architecture provides active/active array storage processors, as shown in Figure 2, which eliminate application timeouts during path failover since both paths are actively serving I/O.

Figure 2. Active/active processors increase performance, resiliency, and efficiency Load balancing is also improved and applications can achieve an up to two times improvement in performance. Active/active for block is ideal for applications that require the highest levels of availability and performance, but do not require tiering or efficiency services like compression or deduplication.

With this VNX release, VSPEX customers can use virtual Data Movers (VDMs) and VNX Replicator to perform automated and high-speed file system migrations between systems. This process migrates all snaps and settings automatically, and enables the clients to continue operation during the migration.

Note: The active/active processors are only available for RAID logical unit numbers (LUNs), not for pool LUNs.

Unisphere Management Suite

The new Unisphere Management Suite extends Unisphere’s easy-to-use, interface to include VNX Monitoring and Reporting for validating performance and anticipating capacity requirements. As shown in Figure 3, the suite also includes Unisphere

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25 Remote for centrally managing up to thousands of VNX and VNXe systems with new support for XtremCache products.

Figure 3. New Unisphere Management Suite

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 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, 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 Microsoft Hyper-V 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 Hyper-V server by 20 percent, and eliminated network traffic.

Block deduplication

Native block deduplication was introduced in Windows Server 2012, and the R2 release contained minor improvements to the offering. It is important to understand the impact of using OS-based deduplication on overall VSPEX performance and this becomes critical if array-based deduplication is enabled. Lab testing has created the following guidance:

 If deduplication is enabled, either within the array or within the OS, FAST Cache significantly reduces the overhead impact and minimizes impact on latency; it is considered a best-practice to enable FAST Cache if deduplication is enabled within a VSPEX environment.

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 VNX array based deduplication provided significantly better deduplication results (~2x improvement in space savings) and proved beneficial to a wider range of workloads than OS-based deduplication.

 Do not enable OS-based and VNX array-based deduplication on the same LUNs

 Ensure that the allocation unit size matches the I/O size of the workload.

Failure to do so may result in non-optimal deduplication savings.

 Windows deduplication will not start if the LUN contains less than 64 GB of data.

 Windows deduplication consumes both host and storage array resources and requires monitoring to ensure other storage services on the array are not adversely affected. The following three figures show SP resources consumption values, IOPS, and latency when implementing Windows deduplication.

Figure 4. Storage processor utilization using Windows deduplication

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27 Figure 5. Disk IOPS using Windows deduplication

Figure 6. Disk latency using Windows deduplication

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Figure 7. Deduplication efficiency using VNX deduplication

Figure 8. Deduplication efficiency using Windows Server 2012 R2 deduplication

EMC backup and recovery solutions, EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain, deliver the protection confidence needed to accelerate the deployment of VSPEX private clouds.

Optimized for virtual environments, EMC backup and recovery 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.

EMC backup and recovery

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29 Figure 9. EMC backup and recovery solutions

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

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Chapter 3 Solution Technology Overview

Overview ... 32 Summary of key components ... 33 Virtualization ... 34 Compute... 37 Network ... 39 Storage ... 41 SMB 3.0 features ... 50 Backup and recovery ... 65 Continous availability ... 66 Other technologies ... 68

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Overview

This solution uses the VNX 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 10 depicts the solution components.

Figure 10. VSPEX private cloud components

The following sections describe the components in more 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 VNX used in this solution provides high-performance data storage while maintaining high availability.

 Backup and recovery

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 mimimal performance impact.

Windows Server 2012 provides virtual Fibre Channel (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 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 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 Fibre Channel ports

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

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35 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.

High availability with Hyper-V Failover Clustering

Hyper-V Replica

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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.

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 Hyper-V snapshot

Cluster-Aware Updating

EMC Storage Integrator