Tintri VMstore with Hyper-V Best Practice Guide

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TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER

Tintri VMstore with Hyper-V

Best Practice Guide

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Intended Audience

This document provides best practice guidelines for deploying Tintri VMstore systems in both standalone Hyper-V hosts and Hyper-V clusters in Hyper-V virtualization and private cloud environments. In addition, the paper illustrates the use of VM-level data management services of Tintri VMstore systems to deploy virtual machines using space and performance efficient per-VM clones, protect virtual machines using space efficient snapshots and per-VM replication and restore individual virtual machines in a Hyper-V virtualized data center using Tintri’s SnapVM™, CloneVM™, and ReplicateVM™. Administrators responsible for deploying Tintri VMstores in Hyper-V environments with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) will be able to learn and utilize Tintri’s per VM features to monitor and manage resources at a VM-level.

Introduction

VMstore: Application-aware Storage for Hyper-V

Tintri VMstore is designed from the ground up for virtualized environments and the cloud. Global enterprises have deployed hundreds of thousands of VMs on Tintri storage systems which run Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, SAP, VDI workloads, and business critical applications such as Active Directory, and private cloud deployments.

With native Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) 3.0 implementation, Tintri is optimized for Hyper-V for superior performance and reliability. The purpose built SMB 3.0 stack on Tintri VMstore supports key functionalities including Transparent Failover and High Availability (HA) for running enterprise workloads. Through native integration with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and Hyper-V, Tintri offers VM-level visibility and control, enabling millions of Microsoft customers a dramatically simplified experience to virtualize business-critical Microsoft enterprise applications and desktops and accelerates private cloud deployments. Support for SMB 3.0 functionality such as Offloaded Data Transfers (ODX) allows efficient resource utilization allowing users to experience the efficiency of Tintri per-VM cloning technology directly from SCVMM.

Tintri smart storage is built using industry’s application-aware architecture and FlashFirst™ design, delivering predictable performance, VM-level data management, and the industry’s highest VM density. Tintri VMstore hypervisor agnostic storage platform with application awareness and adaptive learning capabilities are designed to support mixed workloads—server, VDI, and dev & test—concurrently with built-in VM-level quality-of-service (QoS).

VMstore: Robust Integration and Simple Deployment

IT administrators with working knowledge of Hyper-V virtualization can deploy and manage Tintri VMstores with ease. When deploying Tintri VMstores for Hyper-V, the following are the minimum requirements:

 Tintri O/S version 3.1.2.1 or later is required

 Tintri Automation Toolkit version 1.0.3.1 or later is required

 Microsoft’s System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 R2 rollup 3 or later is required when deploying with SCVMM.

 NTP server(s) for reliable time sync

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Tintri VMstore delivers extreme performance, VM density, and a wide variety of powerful data manager features that are seamlessly integrated with Microsoft’s SCVMM. Tintri VMstore is supported with stand-alone Hyper-V nodes and with Hyper-V clusters managed with SCVMM. This best practice guide highlights the following when using Tintri VMstores deployed as a File Server in a Hyper-V environment:

 Basic setup requirements for deploying Tintri VMstore in a Windows Active Directory environment  Architecture overview of a standalone Hyper-V with Tintri VMstore

 Architecture overview of a SCVMM managed two node Hyper-V cluster with Tintri VMstore  Deploy zero-space virtual machines using Tintri’s CloneVM™ feature with Hyper-V

 Using Tintri Snapshot™, CloneVM™, and ReplicateVM™ to protect your hyper-v guests  Restore Hyper-V guest machines using Tintri’s Automation Toolkit

Figure 1-1 shows an example of a Hyper-V deployment with a Tintri VMstore file server. In this example, the Tintri VMstore file server is accessible via SMB share from DC-HyperV (a standalone Hyper-V node) and from a 2 node Hyper-V failover cluster that is managed by a SCVMM 2012 R2 server. Not shown in the

configuration is a SQL 2012 server that was also deployed to host the VMM database for the System Center 2012 server. Review the supported versions of SQL server in the Microsoft System Requirements for VMM database in System Center 2012 for SQL server requirements.

Additionally, figure 1 also shows two file share paths on the Tintri VMstore that were created from Microsoft’s SCVMM server that will be used by the Hyper-V cluster:

 \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\ForClusteredHyperVNodes  \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\Template

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Figure 1-1 – Hyper-V With Tintri VMstore Architecture Overview.

Download and review the latest Tintri SCVMM and Hyper-V Setup Guide. It is Tintri’s recommendation to use the Tintri SCVMM and Hyper-V Setup guide to configure and setup your Microsoft Active Directory

dependencies to deploy a Tintri VMstore for Hyper-V. The setup guide shows detailed Server Message Block (SMB) path, Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) path, and Active Directory paths for the Tintri VMstore in the Microsoft Active Directory ecosystem. The setup guide also provides detailed a process and requirements that need to be completed by each of the stakeholders in the data center to setup SCVMM servers, Hyper-V servers, and Tintri VMstore in the following areas:

 DNS Administration

 Active Directory Administration  VMstore Administration

 Hyper-V Administration

DO: Use the Tintri SCVMM and Hyper-V Setup Guide for setup and configuration of the required dependencies in your Hyper-V environment to successfully deploy your Tintri VMstore. This best practice guide is a supplement to the setup document.

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Consolidated List of Practices

The table below includes the recommended practices in this document. Click the text on any of the recommendations to jump to the section that corresponds to each recommendation for additional information.

DO: Use the Tintri SCVMM and Hyper-V Setup Guide for setup and configuration of the required dependencies in your Hyper-V environment to successfully deploy your Tintri VMstore.

DO: Review Microsoft’s Deploy Windows Offloaded Data Transfers for additional information on ODX DO: Use ping -l 8972 -f IP-address for end-to-end testing in your Hyper-V environment if jumbo frames with MTU size of 9,000 bytes is required.

DO: Review the MSDN blog if you are new to deploying logical networks with SCVMM.

DO: Review the Microsoft technet library source for additional information for configuring network settings on a Hyper-V host in VMM.

DO: Review the online tutorial from Hyper-V Rockstar for configuring networks and logical switches with SCVMM.

DO: Use network tools such as nslookup to verify that the Tintri VMstore’s management and data IP network assignments are accurate. It is also recommended to use ping before and after configuring the Tintri

VMstore management and data network to verify the ip and FQDN assignments.

DO: Use primary and secondary NTP servers to ensure that your Tintri VMstore file server is always synchronized with your SCVMM server and Hyper-V nodes in your Microsoft Hyper-V ecosystem.

DO: Ensure that the protocol selected when configuring your directory services on the Tintri VMstore is set to ‘AD’.

DO: Use ‘verify saved domain join’ feature from the Tintri VMstore UI if there is a need to troubleshooting domain join issues.

DO: It is Tintri’s best practice recommendation to follow Microsoft’s best practice for virtual AD, DNS, and DC virtual machine deployment to ensure that there is no single point of failure in your Windows Hyper-V production environment.

DO: Configure all Hyper-V managers that will access the Tintri VMstore in the Adjust your Tintri’s VMstore’s settings pop-up window.

DO: Set AllowUnencrypted=true in the winrm/config/service of each of the Hyper-V server that will access the Tintri VMstore.

DO: Set RequireSecureNegotiate on each of the Hyper-V server that will access the Tintri VMstore file share. DO: Refer to the Hyper-V and SCVMM Administration section of the Tintri SCVMM and Hyper-V Setup Guide to set all the required parameters on the Hyper-V servers and the SCVMM server.

DO: Use Distributed Key Management (DKM) to store your VMM database encryption keys in Active Directory. Assign a service account for SCVMM that has ‘Full Control’ permission on the container. DO: Use SQL Failover Clustering or AlwaysOn Availability Groups for your SQL Server hosting your VMM database.

DO: Separate the disk storage of the VMM database from the disk used for the Windows host operating system for your SQL server.

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DO: Use SQL failover clustering or SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups for your VMM database.

DO: Set the RequireSecureNegotiate in the registry of the SCVMM server that will access the Tintri VMstore file share.

DO: Create an additional Tintri VMstore file share to host your VM templates and take advantage of Microsoft’s ODX technology and Tintri’s SnapVM and CloneVM features.

NOTE: When adding a Tintri VMstore using the SCVMM Add Storage Devices Wizard, the capacity of a Tintri VMstore is not reported in SCVMM. This is due to the fact that Tintri VMstores are not block storage devices and SCVMM only request for capacity from block storage devices. When creating file shares on Tintri

VMstores, define the logical capacity of your file shares so that you can fully utilize the total effective usable capacity on each of the Tintri VMstore. From the SCVMM File Servers work page, the Tintri VMstore total capacity will be reflected as a cumulative of the files shares that are created on a Tintri VMstore. For each file share on a Tintri VMstore, SCVMM has enforcements on the logical capacity.

DO: Create a Tintri VMstore file share and define a size that is greater than zero and add new file shares as needed using SCVMM

DO: Use the Tintri VMstore dashboard to monitor the performance reserves and physical space for new virtual machine deployments.

DO: Add the SCVMM Run As account to the SCVMM Library Server in order to take advantage of the Tintri VMstore as a template file share.

DO: Use dynamically expanding virtual hard disk for virtual machines deployed in Tintri VMstores.

DO: A Hyper-V Windows virtual machine can be deployed as a file share witness for a new Hyper-V Failover Cluster.

DO: It is Tintri’s recommendation to ensure that all your Hyper-V servers within the same Failover Manager Cluster is up-to-date with Windows updates. Also verify that the Windows updates are patched across the board for all your Hyper-V servers within the Fail0ver Cluster.

DO: It is recommended to to keep the virtual machine hard disk and virtual machine files together for management purposes. For example, copy the virtual machine hard disk into the new virtual machine location in \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\VHD\New2.

DO: The sample script is a guide and does not work as-is in another Hyper-V environment. You can use this guide to write and test your own scripts in your Hyper-V environment.

DO: Review the Microsoft’s virtual machine generations documentation and determine your virtual machine requirements before deploying. The generation type of the virtual machine cannot be changed once it is deployed.

DO: Install the latest integration services on your virtual machines. If using SCVMM VM template, verify that the integration services of the VM is up-to-date before converting the virtual machine into a VM template. The Linux integration services download is available from Microsoft here.

DO: Use Windows PowerShell scripting to deploy more than 1 virtual machine using SCVMM VM templates. The SCVMM sample script is a guide and does not work as-is in another Hyper-V environment. You can use this guide to write and test your own scripts in your Hyper-V environment.

DO: Use Tintri’s PowerShell toolkit to create powerful automated scripts to manage your Hyper-V virtual datacenter. The sample script is a guide and it does not work as-is in another Hyper-V environment. You can use this guide to write and test your own restore scripts in your Hyper-V environment.

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DO: Tintri recommends using the following Microsoft solution to resolve import-vm issue from CLI before another import-vm attempt.

DO: It is Tintri’s recommendation to use the Migrate Storage Wizard in SCVMM and select Automatically place all VHDs with the configuration for the restored virtual machine to simplify the management of the restored virtual machine’s VHDs with the configuration in the DR Hyper-V environment.

DO: If LOG-VCACHE-0028 alert notices appear on the Tintri VMstore, verify that the physical network connections between the Hyper-V servers and the Tintri VMstores are properly cabled and connected. DO: Use the VMstore Performance Dashboard to view the performance of the Hyper-V VMs.

DO: Use the Latency counter to pinpoint the source of latency in the Oracle VM and VMDK files. Note: A Tintri VMstore supports layer2+3 load balancing algorithm.

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Configuring Hyper-V with Tintri VMstore

Networking

Tintri VMstore Network Interfaces

On each Tintri VMstore, there are 2 controllers (active/standby) and every Tintri VMstore is built with redundancy in mind to ensure that your storage for virtualization is always available. Figure 1-2 shows the latest available Tintri VMstore systems networking configuration for the T800 series. Specs shown in the table below are for EACH controller:

Figure 1-2 – Tintri VMstore T800 series.

A Tintri VMstore has the following network port types (see figure 1-3):  Admin network

 Data network

 Replication network. This network type does not appear until a replication network card is present. By default, a highly available Tintri VMstore operates using one active and one standby physical interface for both the admin network and data (storage) network interfaces on each controller. , If a network interface or a controller fails, the available network interface or the standby controller will seamlessly take over. From the Hyper-V manager or the Failover Cluster Manager, virtual machines will keep running and users will not notice any difference in the level of service during a failover on a Tintri VMstore.

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Optionally, LACP can be implemented to make both admin and/or data network interfaces operate active/active. See the Appendix at the bottom of this guide for details on configuring LACP. For additional details on LACP with Tintri VMstore, refer to Appendix A - Tintri VMstore with LACP configuration.

For larger Ethernet maximum transmission unit (MTU) size, Tintri VMstores support an MTU size of 9,000 bytes. If using jumbo frames with MTU size of 9,000 bytes, remember to explicitly configure your physical Ethernet switches and virtual switches to MTU 9,000 bytes. Perform end-to-end tests in your Hyper-V environment to ensure that the MTU size is supported. Use ping -l 8972 -f IP-address and test your Hyper-V environment.

DO: In Windows, use ping -l 8972 -f IP-address for end-to-end testing in your Hyper-V environment if jumbo frames with MTU size of 9,000 bytes is required. From Tintri VMstore, use ping –M do –s 8972 ip-address.

NIC teaming is always recommended to minimize the possibility a link or a network interface card (NIC) failure will cause a service outage.

There are many blogs that provide very detailed guidance on how to setup NIC teaming with SCVMM. For example, the following MSDN blog provides detailed screenshot examples in how to setup and deploy logical networks with SCVMM. Additionally, the Microsoft technet library is a great source. One additional online tutorial that really stands out and explains everything that you will want to know about configuring networks and logical switches with SCVMM is the tutorial from Hyper-V Rockstar.

DO: Review the MSDN blog if you are new to deploying logical networks with SCVMM.

DO: Review the Microsoft technet library source for additional information for configuring network settings on a Hyper-V host in Hyper-VMM.

DO: Review the online tutorial from Hyper-V Rockstar for configuring networks and logical switches with SCVMM.

DNS Configuration

When configuring a Tintri VMstore for Hyper-V, there are 2 DNS requirements:

 The Tintri VMstore’s system hostname for VMstore management mapped to the admin IP address. The Tintri VMstore hostname must have a DNS A record that resolves to the admin IP.

 The Tintri VMstore’s 10GigE data network mapped to a unique IP address that is separate from the admin IP address assignment

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Figure 2-1 – nslookup from the SCVMM or the Hyper-V nodes to verify FQDN and forward IP lookups for the Tintri VMstore.

DO: Use network tools such as nslookup to verify that the Tintri VMstore’s management and data IP network assignments are accurate. You can also use nslookup and ping before and after configuring the Tintri VMstore management and data network to verify the ip and FQDN assignments.

Active Directory Configuration

In a Microsoft Active Directory (AD) ecosystem, it is a requirement that all hosts’ clocks be kept synchronized within a few minutes (no more than 5 minutes). Therefore, it is Tintri’s recommendation that NTP be used to keep the VMstores clocks synchronized with other network hosts.

Figure 2-2 shows the Tintri VMstore User Interface (UI) pop-up window to set the date and time services. Configure the primary NTP and secondary NTP servers for redundancy. This ensures that the Tintri VMstore is always up-to-date and available as a file server.

Figure 2-2 – Tintri VMstore Date and Time Setting using NTP servers

When configuring your active directory services on the Tintri VMstore, ensure that the protocol selected is

AD, save your configuration when completed (see figure 2-3). The save process should attempt to join the

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Figure 2-3 – Saving active directory services configuration on the Tintri VMstore.

If the Tintri VMstore date and time services is not synchronized with your Active Directory services, the attempt to join the Tintri VMstore to the AD domain will fail with an error message similar to the following in figure 2-4.

Figure 2-4 – Tintri VMstore fails to join AD because of time sync issues.

NOTE: An updated pop-up window will show an accurate clock skew error.

Use the Tintri VMstore UI to your advantage; it is feature rich with statistics and alerts that will help you when deploying a Tintri VMstore for Hyper-V. Troubleshooting virtualization resources with Tintri VMstore as a Hyper-V file server is simpler and easier in comparison with other traditional LUN storage for a virtualized data center as Tintri VMstores are built, from the ground up, with virtualization in mind.

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Figure 2-5 – Adding new Group object into Active Directory for Tintri VMstores.

Validating Tintri VMstore successfully joins the Active Directory Domain

With the correct FQDN and IP address assignment for the Tintri VMstore management and data network interface, the Tintri VMstore UI should show the following success when ‘verify saved domain join’ is executed and joined to the AD domain (see figure 2-6).

Figure 2-6 – Tintri VMstore verified successful join to the DCAD2.local domain.

DO: Use primary and secondary NTP servers to ensure that your Tintri VMstore file server is always synchronized with your SCVMM server and Hyper-V nodes in your Microsoft Hyper-V ecosystem.

DO: Ensure that the protocol selected when configuring your directory services on the Tintri VMstore is set to ‘AD’. DO: Use ‘verify saved domain join’ feature from the Tintri VMstore UI if there is a need to troubleshooting domain join issues.

It is very important that your Microsoft Hyper-V server dependencies are built with no single point of failure. For example, SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups, Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Groups and Hyper-V servers are all dependent on DNS, Active Directory and the Domain Controllers. It is Tintri’s best practice recommendation to follow Microsoft’s best practice for virtual AD, DNS, and DC virtual machine deployment to ensure that there is no single point of failure in your Windows production environment. DO: It is Tintri’s best practice recommendation to follow Microsoft’s best practice for virtual AD, DNS, and DC virtual machine deployment to ensure that there is no single point of failure in your Windows Hyper-V production

environment.

Hyper-V Server Configuration with Tintri VMstore

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that will access the Tintri VMstore must be configured in the ‘Hypervisor managers’ section. Figure 2-7 shows a failure that could occur when Tintri’s hypervisor test fails a Hyper-V manager log in test.

Figure 2-7 – ‘Test hypervisor managers’ failed to login to Hyper-V server.

A possible cause for the http response code: [500] failure is the parameter ‘AllowUnencrypted=true’ was not set in the winrm/config/services on the Hyper-V server. This parameter is required on each of the Hyper-V server and the SCVMM host that will access the Tintri VMstore file shares. Refer to the Hyper-V and SCVMM Administration section of the Tintri SCVMM and Hyper-V Setup Guide to setup the Hyper-V host. You could also execute ‘winrm get winrm/config/service’ to verify if the AllowUnencrypted parameter has been configured on the Hyper-V server (see figure 2-8 – Reviewing the Hyper-V server winrm settings).

Figure 2-8 – Reviewing the Hyper-V server winrm settings

Figure 2-9 shows another possible http response code: [401] failure that could occur. This failure is due to the lack of group membership for the server. The fix for response code: [401] is to ensure that the group

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Figure 2-9 – ‘Test hypervisor managers’ failed to login to the Hyper-V server.

The registry setting on each of the Hyper-V server and SCVMM host must also include the

RequireSecureNegotiate parameter (see figure 2-10). It is important that the registry parameter is set correctly with TYPE: REG_DWORD and in the correct location. Access to the Tintri VMstore will fail with permission denied if this registry parameter is not set on the Hyper-V server and the SCVMM server that will access the Tintri VMstore.

Figure 2-10 – RequireSecureNegotiate set in the registry of the Hyper-V server

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Figure 2-11 – Test hypervisor managers completes successfully for all Hyper-V managers

Standalone Hyper-V Server configuration with Tintri VMstore

A Tintri VMstore file share can be presented to a Hyper-V server as:  UNC mount path on a standalone Hyper-V server (see figure 2-12)

Figure 2-12 – Standalone Hyper-V host default folder points to a Tintri VMstore UNC path

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Figure 2-13 –Tintri VMstore mapped to network drive Z: on the standalone Hyper-V server

Figure 2-13 shows the Tintri VMstore UNC data path, \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\VHD, mapped to drive Z:\ on the Hyper-V server. The Hyper-V manager settings is updated to reference drive map Z:\ for the virtual machine hard disks and the virtual machine configuration files on the Hyper-V server. Although using mapped drives are supported, do not use mapped network drive in the Hyper-V Settings Window with Tintri VMstores. Tintri recommends using the UNC path as shown in figure 2-12 so that the standalone Hyper-V server is accessing the Tintri VMstore file share. Using a mapped network drive in the Hyper-V Settings Window can lead to errors as a mapped network drive can be inadvertently dropped or manually remapped.

DO: Configure all Hyper-V servers that will access the Tintri VMstore in the Adjust your Tintri’s VMstore’s settings pop-up window.

DO: Set AllowUnencrypted=true in the winrm/config/service of each of the Hyper-V server that will access the Tintri VMstore.

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DO NOT: Use mapped network drive for the Virtual Hard Disks and Virtual Machines in the Hyper-V Settings Window on standalone Hyper-V servers. A mapped network drive can be inadvertantly dropped or manually remapped. A remapped network drive could lead to Hyper-V virtual machine errors.

DO: Set RequireSecureNegotiate on each of the Hyper-V server that will access the Tintri VMstore file share.

DO: Refer to the Hyper-V and SCVMM Administration section of the Tintri SCVMM and Hyper-V Setup Guide to set all the required parameters on the Hyper-V servers and the SCVMM server.

SCVMM Configuration with Tintri VMstore

When installing SCVMM, review Microsoft’s System Center Getting Started Guide for preparing your SCVMM 2012 R2 environment. In addition, when deploying your SQL server for the Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) database, it is Microsoft’s recommendation to separate the disk storage of the VMM database from the disk used for the Windows host operating system. This best practice process helps to improve the performance of the VMM database. Figure 2-14 shows how the VMM database and transaction log directories are deployed on different disks in a SQL 2012 server for improved database performance. An SQL AOAG can be deployed on a Tintri VMstore for the VMM database. To ensure your VMM database is highly available, it is Microsoft’s recommendation to use SQL failover clustering or AlwaysOn Availability Groups. It is Tintri’s best practice recommendation to deploy your VMM database and the SQL transaction logs using separate virtual hard disks to improve database performance.

Figure 2-14 – VMM database and the SQL transaction log are deployed in separate disks for performance purposes.

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Figure 2-15 – Use DKM to store your VMM database encryption keys.

DO: Use Distributed Key Management (DKM) to store your VMM database encryption keys in Active Directory. Assign a service account for SCVMM that has ‘Full Control’ permission on the container.

For additional information on SCVMM requirements and installation, refer to the Microsoft System Center Technical Documentation Library. The Microsoft System Center Getting Started guide provides detailed procedures in preparing and setting up your System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager.

DO: Use SQL Failover Clustering or AlwaysOn Availability Groups for your SQL Server hosting your VMM database. DO: Separate the disk storage of the VMM database from the disk used for the Windows host operating system for your SQL server.

DO: Deploy your VMM database and the SQL transaction logs with separate virtual hard disks to improve database performance.

DO: Use SQL failover clustering or SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups for your VMM database.

DO: Set the RequireSecureNegotiate in the registry of the SCVMM server that will access the Tintri VMstore file share.

Adding a Tintri VMstore Storage Device in SCVMM

In a Hyper-V cluster managed by SCVMM, a Tintri VMstore file share is presented as:  A file server managed within SCVMM (see figure 2-16)

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To add a Tintri VMstore file share, a Tintri VMstore file server must be configured into the Hyper-V cluster managed by SCVMM from the Storage pane under the Fabric workspace. Figure 2-17 shows how to add a Tintri VMstore file server from SCVMM.

Figure 2-17 –SCVMM: Add Storage Device Wizard

In the Specify Discovery Scope, select the protocol and the FQDN of the Tintri VMstore (see figure 2-18). Select Next to continue. Complete the Add Storage Device Wizard to configure your Tintri VMstore as a file server.

Figure 2-18 –SCVMM: Specify Discovery Scope

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Figure 2-18 (a) –Registration of storage provider failed with ID: 26263

When adding a Tintri VMstore using the SCVMM Add Storage Devices Wizard, the capacity of a Tintri VMstore is not reported in SCVMM. This is due to the fact that Tintri VMstores are not block storage devices and SCVMM only request for capacity from block storage devices. When creating file shares on Tintri VMstores, define the logical capacity of your file shares so that you can fully utilize the total effective usable capacity on each of the Tintri VMstore. From the SCVMM File Servers work page, the Tintri VMstore total capacity will be reflected as a cumulative of the files shares that are created on a Tintri VMstore. For each file share on a Tintri VMstore, SCVMM has enforcements on the logical capacity. Create a file share and define a size that is greater than zero and add new file shares as needed. Use the Tintri VMstore dashboard to monitor the performance reserves and physical space for new virtual machine deployments.

When a Tintri VMstore has been added as a file server in SCVMM, use the SCVMM Fabric workspace to create a file share from the Tintri VMstore (see figure 2-19).

Figure 2-19 –SCVMM: Create File Share

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A Tintri VMstore file share is now available to the SCVMM managed Hyper-V Cluster. It is Tintri’s

recommendation to create an additional Tintri VMstore file share that will hold VM templates (see figure 2-21). A VM template file share hosted on a Tintri VMstore will allow SCVMM to utilize ODX and take advantage of Tintri’s CloneVM feature. Tintri’s CloneVM feature can deploy virtual machines from VM templates quickly and efficiently with zero-space clones.

Figure 2-21 – Tintri VMstore template file share

DO: Create an additional Tintri VMstore file share to host your VM templates and take advantage of Microsoft’s ODX technology and Tintri’s SnapVM and CloneVM features.

NOTE: When adding a Tintri VMstore using the SCVMM Add Storage Devices Wizard, the capacity of a Tintri VMstore is not reported in SCVMM. This is due to the fact that Tintri VMstores are not block storage devices and SCVMM only request for capacity from block storage devices. When creating file shares on Tintri VMstores, define the logical capacity of your file shares so that you can fully utilize the total effective usable capacity on each of the Tintri VMstore. From the SCVMM File Servers work page, the Tintri VMstore total capacity will be reflected as a cumulative of the files shares that are created on a Tintri VMstore. For each file share on a Tintri VMstore, SCVMM has enforcements on the logical capacity.

DO: Create a Tintri VMstore file share and define a size that is greater than zero and add new file shares as needed using

SCVMM

DO: Use the Tintri VMstore dashboard to monitor the performance reserves and physical space for new virtual machine

deployments.

When adding a template file share, make sure that the SCVMM Library Server uses the SCVMM Run As credential. If the SCVMM Library Server does not have the library management credential, any attempts to add the Tintri VMstore files share to the SCVMM Library Server will fail with the following error as shown in figure 2-22.

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To resolve the SCVMM Library Server management credential, update the SCVMM Library management credential for the Library Server (see figure 2-23).

Figure 2-23 – SCVMM Library Server updated with the Library management credential using the SCVMM Run As account.

DO: Add the SCVMM Run As account to the SCVMM Library Server in order to take advantage of the Tintri VMstore as a template file share.

Tintri’s space and performance provide effcient way to deploy virtual machines . Clones take up zero

additional space when deployed and share all the data and metadata with the snapshot from which they are created. Figure 2-24 shows a 20GB VM (with a single dynamically expanding virtual disk) deployed in seconds using Tintri’s SnapVM and CloneVM features. Tintri recommends using dynamically expanding virtual hard disks to deploy Hyper-V virtual machines on Tintri VMstores.

Figure 2-24 – A 20GB VM (dynamic disk) deployed in seconds using Microsoft’s ODX and Tintri’s SnapVM and CloneVM features.

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Figure 2-25 – A Windows File Share Server Witness for Hyper-V Cluster Quorum management.

DO: Use dynamically expanding virtual hard disk for virtual machines deployed in Tintri VMstores.

DO: A Hyper-V Windows virtual machine can be deployed as a file share witness for a new Hyper-V Failover Cluster. The virtual machine should be a highly available machine within the Hyper-V Failover Cluster.

DO: It is Tintri’s recommendation to ensure that all your Hyper-V servers within the same Failover Manager Cluster is up-to-date with Windows updates. Also verify that the Windows updates are patched across the board for all your Hyper-V servers within the Fail0ver Cluster.

Deploying Virtual Machines

Deploying virtual machines in a standalone Hyper-V server

When deploying virtual machines in a standalone Hyper-V environment, a virtualization administrator can take advantage of Tintri’s SnapVM and CloneVM features with Microsoft’s ODX. For example, if we have the following Tintri VMstore UNC share \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\VHD and the file share is accessible from the standalone Hyper-V server using the UNC path, the Hyper-V administrator can deploy a Windows virtual machine with the following supported methods:

a) Use Tintri’s SnapVM and CloneVM to deploy a virtual machine

b) Create a virtual machine from the Hyper-V server and attach a virtual hard disk

Use Tintri’s SnapVM and CloneVM to deploy a virtual machine.

This method requires the following steps:

1. Deploy a virtual machine image in the Tintri SMB share with Windows sysprep. Install the latest Windows integration services on the virtual machine. Select generalize and shutdown the virtual machine (see figure 3-1). This is your virtual machine template.

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2. From the Tintri VMstore UI, use SnapVM to create a crash consistent Tintri snapshot of the virtual machine (see figure 3-2).

Figure 3-2 – Tintri SnapVM

3. Use Tintri’s PowerShell toolkit (version 1.0.3.1 or later) to restore the virtual machine snapshot into the Tintri VMstore SMB share and use the rename-vm option to rename the restored virtual machine. Start the virtual machine and complete your sysprep configuration to deploy the new virtual machine. Figure 3-3 shows a sample script of how to use Tintri’s PowerShell toolkit with Microsoft’s import-vm command. The sample script is a guide and does not work as-is in another Hyper-V environment. The script below (see Appendix B – Deploy a Windows VM using Tintri’s PowerShell toolkit on a Hyper-V server) is provided as is and require customization based on environmental needs. It is strongly recommended that you test and customize the scripts for use in in your Hyper-V environment.

Figure 3-3 – Deploy a Windows VM using Tintri’s PowerShell toolkit on a Hyper-V server

4. A new virtual machine is successfully deployed in your standalone Hyper-V environment (see figure 3-4).

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Create a virtual machine from the Hyper-V Manager and attach a virtual hard disk.

This method requires the following steps:

1. Deploy a virtual machine image on the Tintri VMstore SMB share with Windows sysprep. Install the latest Windows Integration Services on your virtual machine. Select generalize and shutdown the virtual machine. This is your virtual machine template.

2. Deploy a new virtual machine using the Hyper-V manager wizard (see figure 3-5) and use a Tintri VMstore SMB share location. Select Attach a virtual hard disk later. In this example, the new virtual machine is deployed in \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\VHD\New2.

Figure 3-5 – Deploy a new virtual machine and attach a virtual disk later

3. When the new virtual machine is created. Copy the virtual machine hard disk from the virtual machine template location to the new location in the Tintri SMB share. It is recommended to keep the virtual machine hard disks and virtual machine files together for management purposes. For example, copy the virtual machine hard disk into

\\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\VHD\New2.

DO: It is recommended to keep the virtual machine hard disk and virtual machine files together for management purposes. For example, if the virtual machines files are located in the UNC path \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyper-v\VHD\New2, you can copy the virtual machine hard disk into \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\VHD\New2 from the standalone Hyper-V server.

DO: The sample script is a guide and does not work as-is in another Hyper-V environment. You can use this guide to write and test your own scripts in your Hyper-V environment.

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Figure 3-6 – Attach an existing virtual machine disk to the new virtual machine from Hyper-V manager

5. Select the copied virtual hard disk and attach it to the new virtual machine.

Figure 3-7 – Select the copied virtual hard disk and attach it to the new virtual machine

6. A new virtual machine is successfully created. Start the virtual machine and complete the Windows sysprep process and deploy the virtual machine.

Figure 3-8 – A new virtual machine is deployed in the standalone Hyper-V server

Tintri VMstores support generation 1 and generation 2 virtual machines. However, there are differences in Hyper-V supported features with generation 1 and generation 2 virtual machines. Review Microsoft’s virtual machine generations documentation for additional information. When a virtual machine is deployed, the generation type of the virtual machine cannot be changed. In addition, before performing sysprep on a virtual machine, it is Tintri’s recommendation to verify that the integration services is installed on your virtual machine. The linux integration services download is available from Microsoft here.

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Deploying virtual machines using SCVMM VM templates

If a Hyper-V Failover Cluster is managed by SCVMM, a Hyper-V Administrator can take advantage of SCVMM’s VM template. The use of VM templates is also supported with Tintri VMstores. This requires creating a file share on the Tintri VMstore that will be used as your SCVMM template repository. To take advantage of Microsoft’s ODX technology with Tintri VMstores, the VM template must be on a Tintri VMstore that is accessible by the Hyper-V nodes in the Failover Cluster and by the SCVMM server. Refer to the SCVMM

Configuration with Tintri VMstore section of this document for details on how to add a Tintri VMstore file

server and create file shares from the SCVMM server.

From the SCVMM manager UI, you can deploy virtual machines from VM templates. The creation of a new virtual machine will utilize ODX to offload the process to the Tintri VMstore. Figure 3-9 shows the Hyper-V Cluster managed by SCVMM and how to create virtual machine.

Figure 3-9 – Create virtual machine from SCVMM Administrator

Continue with the SCVMM Create Virtual Machine Wizard, select a VM template that is on the Tintri VMstore file share. For example, Dom1Template in figure 3-10 resides on the following Tintri VMstore SMB share that is accessible from the SCVMM manager and the Hyper-V nodes within the Failover Cluster:

\\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\Template. Complete the Create Virtual Machine Wizard to deploy a virtual machine using a VM template.

Figure 3-10 – Dom1Template VM template resides in: \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\Template.

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Figure 3-11 – Virtual machines deployed using Microsoft’s ODX technology and Tintri’s zero-space CloneVM feature.

To deploy more than 1 virtual machine in a SCVMM environment, Windows PowerShell scripting is required. Figure 3-12 is a sample script. The following script is a guide and it does not work as-is in another Hyper-V environment. The script below is provided as-is (see Appendix C – Sample script to deploy multiple virtual machine using Microsoft’s ODX technology and Tintri’s zero-space CloneVM feature) and require

customization based on environmental needs. It is strongly recommended that you customize the scripts for use in in your Hyper-V environment.

Figure 3-12 – Sample script to deploy multiple virtual machines using Microsoft’s ODX technology and Tintri’s zero-space CloneVM

feature.

DO: Use Windows PowerShell scripting to deploy more than 1 virtual machine using SCVMM VM templates. The SCVMM sample script is a guide and does not work as-is in another Hyper-V environment. You can use this guide to write and test your own scripts in your Hyper-V environment.

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Figure 3-13 – Tintri VMstore UI shows the Clone Count column in Snapshots field.

Using Tintri VMstore SnapVM, CloneVM, and ReplicateVM to protect your

virtual machines

Any virtual machines deployed in a Tintri VMstore can be protected with Tintri’s SnapVM, CloneVM, and ReplicateVM features. System wide default settings can be used to protect all the virtual machines deployed on a VMstore. Adjust your VMstores’ settings (see figure 4-1).

Figure 4-1 – Tintri VMstore protection settings.

However, no two virtual machine systems may require the same schedule and protection. To protect a virtual machine with different protection requirements, right click on the virtual machine and select Protect (see figure 4-2). Tintri VMstores allow each VM to be protected using separate protection policies. This gives a virtualization administrator the added flexibility and granularity in protecting virtual machines with

different requirements. In the Protect window, a virtualization administrator can determine the local and remote retention policies of the snapshot on a per virtual machine basis.

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Recovering Virtual Machines from Tintri VMstores

To restore your Hyper-V virtual machines, Windows PowerShell and Tintri Automation Toolkit version 1.0.3.1 or later is required. The Tintri Automation Toolkit must be installed on the Hyper-V server that has access to the Tintri VMstore. To restore a virtual machine into a standalone Hyper-V environment, you must write a restore script that utilizes Tintri PowerShell commands and Windows Hyper-V import-vm command. Figure 4-3 is a sample script. The script below is provided as is (see Appendix B) and require customization based on environmental needs. It is strongly recommended that you customize and test the scripts for use in in your Hyper-V environment.

Figure 4-3 – Restore-tintrivm script using Windows PowerShell and Tintri’s PowerShell Toolkit.

When attempting to restore a virtual machine that is fully configured with virtual switches and network definitions into a different Hyper-V environment, the import-vm from CLI could fail with the following error (see figure 4-4):

Figure 4-4 – import-vm failed

The configuration error could be caused by a failure to find the original Ethernet switch definition in the new DR Hyper-V environment. Tintri recommends using the following Microsoft solution to resolve the issue from CLI before another import-vm attempt.

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DO: Review the Microsoft import-vm documentation for additional parameter details.

DO: Tintri recommends using the following Microsoft import-vm documentation to resolve import-vm issue from CLI before another import-vm attempt.

If the import-vm is attempted from the Hyper-V Manager UI (see figure 4-5), the Hyper-V Administrator can manually update the connection and import the virtual machine into the DR Hyper-V environment.

Figure 4-5 – import-vm failed from Hyper-V Manager UI

To restore a virtual machine into a Hyper-V Failover Cluster, you must install the Tintri PowerShell Toolkit on the Hyper-V nodes in the Hyper-V Cluster. Installing the Tintri PowerShell Toolkit on the Hyper-V nodes will allow the Hyper-V Administrator to run Tintri PowerShell Toolkit from any of the Hyper-V nodes. When a virtual machine is restored from the Hyper-V server, the virtual machine will show up in SCVMM with Unsupported VM Configuration (see figure 4-6). The virtual hard disk path must be updated from the Hyper-V server before the virtual machine can be started in a SCVMM environment.

Figure 4-6 – Restored VM shows up in SCVMM as Unsupported VM Configuration

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Figure 4-7 – Remove ‘hyperv’ path from the virtual hard disk of the restored virtual machine

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From the SCVMM manager, refresh the virtual machines on the Hyper-V node in the Hyper-V Cluster (see figure 4-9).

Figure 4-9 – Refresh Virtual Machines on the Hyper-V node from SCVMM

The restored virtual machine should show up in the VMs and Services of the SCVMM virtual machine view. It is Tintri’s recommendation to use the Migrate Storage Wizard in SCVMM and select Automatically place all VHDs with the configuration for the restored virtual machine to simplify the management of the restored virtual machine’s VHDs with the configuration in the DR Hyper-V environment (see figure 4-9).

Figure 4-9 – Migrate Storage Wizard

DO: It is Tintri’s recommendation to use the Migrate Storage Wizard in SCVMM and select Automatically place all VHDs with the configuration for the restored virtual machine to simplify the management of the restored virtual machine’s VHDs with the configuration in the DR Hyper-V environment.

Virtual Machine Visibility and Troubleshooting Virtual Resources

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Figure 5-1 – Tintri VMstore virtual machine visibility

Additionally, the Tintri VMstore Alerts are very useful. For example, figure 5-2 shows alerts when Hyper-V Servers are disconnected from the Tintri VMstore for more than 10 minutes. It is recommended to review the physical network connections if LOG-VCACHE-0028 notices are present. Ensure that the network

connections between the Hyper-V servers and Tintri VMstores are properly connected.

Figure 5-2 – Log VCACHE alerts with severity: notice

DO: If LOG-VCACHE-0028 alert notices appear on the Tintri VMstore, verify that the physical network connections between the Hyper-V servers and the Tintri VMstores are properly cabled and connected.

Performance Analysis

The Tintri VMstore is the first storage product designed to support virtual machines (VMs) without forcing the administrator to deal with low-level storage details. A single VMstore has the ability to support up to 1000 VMs and 3000 virtual hard disks (VHD/VHDX). With this level of performance density it is critically important to be able to view both the overall performance of the system and to be able to drill down into the performance details of individual Virtual Machines.

Tintri’s goal is to simplify the deployment and management of Virtual Machines and to that end the VMstore provides several ways to view the performance of the system.

1. The Performance Dashboard provides a graphical view of the overall performance of the system, including IOPS, Throughput, Latency, Performance Reserves and Physical Space consumed. 2. The Virtual Machines (VMs) tab provides performance details for individual VMs, including IOPS,

MBps, Reserves, Latency, and much more.

3. The Virtual Machines (Virtual Disks) tab provides performance details on the VHDs in each VM. 4. The Virtual Machines (Snapshots) tab provides space and creation details for individual snapshots,

including the Source VM, Created Date, Change MB, Cloned Count, and Hypervisor Type.

The system gathers performance statistics every 10 seconds, physical space information every 10 minutes, and keeps the data for seven days. When you first load a graph, statistics from the latest collection are displayed, thereafter the statistics are captured every 10 seconds.

The Virtual Machines tab provides the most granular view of resources and entities on the VMstore. By reviewing the VM and virtual hard disk (VHD/VHDX) performance data provided by the Virtual Machines tab you can easily access latency data that will help you pinpoint the source of performance issues experience by the Hyper-V VM.

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Tintri VMstore Performance Dashboard

The Dashboard is designed to help you draw quick conclusions about your VMstore’s health, identify problems, and help you make informed resource management decisions. The system-wide performance graphs include a Performance Reserves gauge, a Physical Space gauge, and individual counters for IOPS, Throughput, Latency and Flash Hit Rate (see figure 6-1).

VMstore Performance counters

The VMstore performance counters, displayed at the top of the VMstore Dashboard, provide an average rate of operations for the system. Clicking on an individual counter will open a graph of Realtime and Historic trends for that performance counter. Realtime counters are based on 10-second averages, and historical data is averaged over 10-minute intervals.

The performance reserves gauge

The performance reserves gauge shows the headroom available on the VMstore, expressed as a percentage of all performance resources available in the VMstore. By design, the VMstore automatically allocates reserves to a virtual disk based on its observed I/O characteristics. Such self-tuning ensures that all VMs get the performance resources needed to maintain optimum performance.

The physical space capacity gauge

The space capacity gauge breaks down the types of data being stored in the VMstore. Live data is an

accounting of the data consumed by individual VMs. The Snapshots portion of the gauge indicates the space consumed by Tintri snapshots. The Other section of the gauge shows space consumed by descriptors, logs, config files, and VMs that are not included in the vCenter inventory. Provisioned calculates the space you have promised to the VMs, and is expressed as a percentage of the system total.

The “days till full” counter

The VMstore estimates the number of days till full, based on space usage trends.

Performance reserves changers

Performance reserves changers lists the VMs that are experiencing the largest change in performance for the last week.

Space changers

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Figure 6-1 – Tintri VMstore Dashboard

Virtual Machines Tab

The Virtual Machines tab provides the most granular view of resources and entities on the VMstore. By reviewing VM and VHD performance data provided by the Tintri VMstore you can easily pinpoint the source of VM performance issues. For example, the Virtual Machines Tab displays performance of individual VMs and VMDKs and includes counters for IOPS, MBps, Performance Reserves, Latency, and Flash Hit Rates. These counters are useful to understanding the performance profile of individual VMs on the Tintri VMstore. Figure 6-2 shows an example of a Hyper-V virtual machine when it is powered down, followed by power up and then running IOMeter test as it ramps up with RealTime statistics.

IOPS Graph

The IOPS Graph displays the read and write IOPS served by the specific VM or VMDK.

MBps Graph

The MBps Graph displays the read and write IOPS served by the specific VM or VMDK.

Latency Graph

The Latency counter is of particular interest as it offers an end-to-end breakdown of the source of latency for individual VMs and virtual hard disks.

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Network - If you see a lot of yellow in the latency breakdown, the network may have congestion issues or be misconfigured. Examine the network switch, DNS, or logical network configuration. Look for rogue scripts or applications that may be using up bandwidth.

Storage - If you see a lot of blue in the latency breakdown, this shows that data is being stored and read from flash on the VMstore. This is the operational latency of the VMstore.

Disk - If you see a lot of orange in the latency breakdown, then data is not being read from the working set in flash, but is being read from the second performance tier, which stores cold data.

DO: Use the Latency counter to pinpoint the source of latency in the Oracle VM and VMDK files.

Figure 6-2 – Tintri VMstore Virtual Machine view of a Hyper-V VM when it was shut down, powered up, and IOMeter running with Realtime statistics.

Conclusion

Tintri support for Hyper-V and SCVMM based virtualization and private cloud deployments allows

administrators to leverage Tintri’s native per virtual machine data management capabilities in standalone Hyper-V deployments and Failover Cluster Manager deployments on Tintri VMstore systems.

The Tintri VMstore’s feature rich UI provides a virtualized data center administrator the tools to effectively and efficiently monitor, manage and troubleshoot virtual machines. The ability to visualize performance bottlenecks across all layers of the infrastructure, the ability to track performance and capacity utilization on a per virtual machine and per virtual disk basis, gives a data center administrator the tools necessary to simplify and scale virtualization environments and private cloud deployments.

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References

Tintri References



Tintri SCVMM and Hyper-V Setup Guide

Microsoft References



Microsoft’s System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 R2 Rollup 3+



Microsoft’s Offload Data Transfer



Microsoft’s System requirements for VMM database in System Center 2012



Microsoft’s Group type and Scope usage in Windows



Microsoft’s best practice for virtual AD, DNS, and DC virtual machine deployment



Microsoft’s System Center Getting Started Guide



Microsoft’s System Center Technical Documentation Library



Microsoft technet - configuring Hyper-V host properties in VMM



Microsoft’s Import-VM documentation



Microsoft’s Linux Integration Services download



Microsoft’s virtual machine generations



Microsoft Naming Conventions in AD

Additional References



Hyper-V Rockstar - configuring logical networks and switches



MSDN blog - building a teamed virtual switch



Arista Networks configuration guide

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Appendix A – Tintri VMstore with LACP Configuration

Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)

Tintri VMstores also support Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) but to deploy LACP, the physical switches connecting Tintri VMstores and Hyper-V hosts must support it and is setup for it. The team in the Windows/Hyper-V server must also be setup for LACP.

LACP provides a process to negotiate a set of active ports for link aggregation while also supporting switch redundancy. In addition, with Tintri VMstores, LACP can be used to ensure Tintri VMstore NICs are connected correctly. For example, if physical NICs are not connected on the correct ports on 2 switches, the LACP trunk between 2 physical switches in dynamic mode will not become active. LACP also provides the following benefits:

 Provides network redundancy with load-balancing  Increases bandwidth

With regards to a Tintri VMstore, the recommended use of LACP with a Tintri VMstore is for the purpose of network redundancy across 2 network switches. Additionally, creating a port-channel that contains a Tintri VMstore Controller A AND Controller B in the same port-channel is NOT supported (see figure 7-1).

Figure 7-1 - Unsupported Tintri VMstore port-channel configuration.

A Tintri VMstore also supports a maximum of 2 NIC ports per bond. For example, on a Tintri T820 that has 4x 1GigE ports; two port-channels consisting of 2 NIC ports per bond are configurable. A port-channel that has 4x 1GigE is not configurable.

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Figure 7-2 - Tintri VMstore with LACP enabled on Data network.

Tintri VMstores do not support mixing Ethernet link speeds in a bond. In addition, all ports in a bond should have identical configuration, such as the same types of cable and SFP+.

Additional requirements:

 Ensure full-duplex mode is enabled.

 Ensure switch ports in the port channel have LACP enabled. LACP with a Tintri VMstore is supported with the following configurations:

 Tintri VMstore with LACP enabled on two network switches. Figure 7-3 displays an example of a Tintri VMstore network port from Controller A configured with LACP on port-channel 1 on network switch A. This configuration ensures that if a network switch fails or Controller A fails, a Tintri VMstore is still available through network switch B and Controller B. The LACP configuration in figure 7-3 also keeps full bandwidth available.

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 Tintri VMstore with LACP enabled, network ports distributed on Network switch A and Network switch B (see figure 7-4).

Figure 7-4 - Tintri VMstore with LACP enabled, network ports distributed on Network switch A and Network Switch B.

A LACP configuration such as figure 7-4 leads to half peak bandwidth in the event of a switch failure. In addition, there is no Tintri VMstore controller failover in the event of a switch failure. Additionally, to support this LACP configuration, the switches that are used must also support such a configuration.

Note: A Tintri VMstore supports layer2+3 load balancing algorithm.

With this particular configuration, it is important to review a switch vendors configuration guide for support of MLAG or ISL, refer to the switch vendor’s documentation to verify if MLAG or ISL is supported with the installed network switches that will be used to deploy LACP with Tintri VMstores.

As an example, the Arista Networks Configuration Guide provides detailed information on configuring MLAG with Arista Networks switches. As another example, you can get details on configuring vPC between two Cisco 5000 series switches at Cisco Nexus 5000 switches. Please refer to your switch vendor’s documentation for specific details for setting up your environment.

However, due to the complexities that can be associated with configuring LACP, it is our best recommendation to use LACP only for the purpose of network switch redundancy.

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Appendix B – Sample script to deploy a Windows VM using Tintri’s PowerShell

ToolKit

####################################################

#Connect to Tintri VMstore and get vm snapshot

####################################################

$server = connect-tintriserver -server hqtm-t820.dcad2.local

$vm = get-tintrivm -name tintri-1

#$vm = get-tintrivm -name W8gen1

write-output "vmname" $vm

####################################################

#Restore VM to a SMB share on Tintri VMstore

####################################################

del \\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\restore

restore-tintrivm -vm $vm -destinationdirectory "hyperv\restore" -uselatestsnapshot -tintriserver $server

$vmDestPath = "\\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\newfileshare"

#$vmDestPath = "\\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\ForClusteredHyperVNodes"

#$vmDestPath = "\\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\VHD\RESTORE"

write-output "dest" $vmDestPath

$vmSourcePath = "\\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\hyperv\restore"

write-output "source" $vmsourcepath

##################################################################

#There is a slight race condition, hence the wait for 5 seconds

#before attempting to get the xml file

##################################################################

Start-sleep -Seconds 5

$xmlfile = Get-ChildItem $vmSourcePath\* -Include *.xml

write-output "xmlfile" $xmlfile

$vmfile = $vmsourcepath + "\" + $xmlfile.Name

write-output "vmfile" $vmfile

#$vmDestPath = "\\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\newfileshare"

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#Use Microsoft powershell importedvm to restore VM to Tintri SMB share on the hyper-v node

#As an option, use –generatenewid in the import-vm command to create a new id for the virtual machine and use rename-vm command to rename a new virtual machine created.

###########################################################################################

$importedvm = importvm path $vmfile vhdsourcepath $vmsourcepath copy vhddestinationpath $vmdestpath -SmartPagingFilePath $vmdestpath -snapshotfilepath $vmdestpath -virtualmachinepath $vmdestpath

Start-sleep -Seconds 3

#Rename the restored virtual machine

$random = get-random

Rename-VM -VM $importedvm -NewName ("NewRestoredVM-" + $random)

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Appendix C – Sample script to deploy multiple virtual machine using

Microsoft’s ODX technology and Tintri’s zero-space CloneVM feature

##############################################################################

#Connect to SCVMM

##############################################################################

$SCVMM = get-scvmmserver -computername localhost -connectas "Administrator"

####################################################

#Request for user input for:

# 1) number of VM to create

# 2) which hyper-v node cluster to create in

# 3) which template to use within SCVMM

####################################################

[int]$vmcount = read-host "Provide the number of vms to create"

$vmname = read-host "Provide the Win8 guest vm name"

$vmhostname = read-host "Provide the hyper-V node name"

$vmtemplate =read-host "Provide the vm template name"

write-output $vmtemplate

$total = 1

##############################################################################

#While loop to create new VMs using specified parameters

##############################################################################

while ($total -le $vmcount)

{

$computername = "$vmname-" + $total

new-scvirtualmachine -name $computername -vmtemplate "Win8template" -vmhost $vmhostname -path

\\hqtm-t820data.dcad2.local\ForClusteredHyperVNodes\ -computername $computername -HardwareProfile "Gen1" -startvm -HighlyAvailable 1 -returnimmediately

#Start-Sleep -m 100

$total++

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Tintri, Tintri VMstore, the Tintri Logo and FlashFirst are trademarks or registered trademarks of Tintri, Inc. All other trademarks or service marks are the property of their respective holders and are hereby acknowledged. © 2014 Tintri, Inc. All rights reserved. 140904T10122

Tintri VMstore with Hyper-V Best Practice Guide