topic Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster in Disk Enclosures

P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

Marc_Ban — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:03:08 GMT

I had been lookign at the FC P2000 as a suitable SAN for a small two-node cluster built around Windows Server 2012 and a pair of DL380 G8's. Fairly standard stuff and a lot of HP promo material around highlighting this configuration.

I'd intended to use the cluster to host a couple of highly-available Hyper-V VM's using clustered shared volumes.

Looking at the configuration set through SPOCK, it notes that ...

1) Virtual Hard Disks of type VHDx are not supported.

2) Live Migrations are not supported on firmware TS240. (and of course the supported firmware level for the config set isTS240P004).

Does anyone have any ideas as to when/if HP will upgrade firmware/otherwise remove these limitations?

For me at least, they are a dealbreaker and would seem to now remove HP completely from low-end SAN space consideration.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

Vaxman2 — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:29:45 GMT

HP released new firmware that may fix at least one of your issues

The following issues were fixed in TS250R021:

Alerts indicating that a disk channel has gone into a degraded state have been modified so that the normal reduction of channel speed due to intermittent noise should no longer generate a Warning alert.
Preliminary reporting of a supercap overcharge failing condition was removed.
When the array received a DHCP address from a DHCP server, it responded with a unique hostname, which displayed in the DHCP server. This unique hostname overwrote the hostname supplied by the DHCP server in option 012.
Hyper-V servers could not be migrated to P2000 G3 storage systems. Support for Hyper-V Live Migration has been added.
P2000 G3 storage systems were not discovered by Storage Essentials software.
Controllers were unresponsive to CLI requests for up to 30 minutes after a firmware update.
For SMI-S, inconsistent data was provided for the CIM_AuthorizedPrivilege instance.
SMI-S queries might fail if Small Footprint CIM Broker daemons are restarted after a memory threshold limit is reached. After enabling either SMI-S protocol, the SMI-S service on the array will now consistently start.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

JohnFranklin — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:22:50 GMT

Edit:

Not working.

Still recieving on cluster validation:

Failure. Persistent Reservation not present on Test Disk 0 from node HV01 after successful call to update reservation holder's registration key 0xb.

Test Disk 0 does not support SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations commands needed to support clustered Storage Pools. Some storage devices require specific firmware versions or settings to function properly with failover clusters. Please contact your storage administrator or storage vendor to check the configuration of the storage to allow it to function properly with failover clusters.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

Ultrium_2013 — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:03:52 GMT

Hi,

This will make 6 months I expect a solution to this problem, or maybe, HP wants that one buys the other MUCH more expensive SAN ...

Thx...

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

GustavoAyala — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 19:18:32 GMT

Same problem here.

I can't believe this is not working right away after so much time after Win2012 release.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

mcdavidson — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 14:53:25 GMT

HP basically mis-represented information to me and in turn my client, we were told that the P2000 had full support for Hyper-V 2012, it was not until we where into deployment that we discovered the flaw of no VHDX support and as I have found no way to set the default type to VHDX you either have to manually create your disks and then add them to the server or go through a very painful and tedious edit/conversion process.

Not only this but the lack of knowledge and support around the P2000 (and the servers that were purchased with it) means this is likely the last time I or my company will ever recommend an HP server based solution.

Why pay more when it now appears that you get near the same quality and as good or better support from DELL (which is not what it should be).

So no VHDX support to date.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

Benjamin_Smith — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:41:58 GMT

Hello all,

My name is Benjamin Smith and I am the EMEA Pre-sales lead for the MSA arrays. This post was just brought to my attention by a colleague, so I have logged into the boards for thie first time ever just to clear this up.

1) SPOCK is out of date in regard to VHDx support. It is supported across all P2000 G3 arrays, that is iSCSI, SAS and FC controllers. This support should be eventually added to the streams, but until then please rest assured that it works. In fact, I have a clustered Windows Server 2012 lab utilising an iSCSI P2000 G3, and all my VM's are using the default VHDx file type - note that VHDx is the default. Be aware too that the P2000 G3 supports volumes of up to 64TB, the same maximum as the VHDx format. Assuming you have at least TS250 firmware, then any behaviour different to this is not a failure of the MSA.

2) Live Migrations also work perfectly. I have just demonstrated this to the same colleague who saw a VM migrate without dropping a heartbeat on the same rig - P2000 G3 iSCSI, Windows Server 2012 in a 2 node cluster with disk based witness.

So to be clear, the P2000 G3 TS250 and onward support all features contended in this thread and any problems are most certainly due to configuration errors.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Kind regards,

Ben

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

mcdavidson — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 17:09:49 GMT

Benjamin,

Thank you for logging in to respond this, although it is six months later I applaud your effort. I have to say that I surely hope it is supported as I see multitudes of people using VHDx on various forum posts (many encountering issues with VHDx and Cluster Shared Volumes).

Now my question is, what firmware revision(s) do we need to be on for support of VHDx?

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

David_Tocker — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 08:45:35 GMT

As far as I am aware vhdx does not add any special requirements to the underlying storage subsystem. If it supports SCSI 3 reservations it works with cluster shared volumes. Vhdx and normal vhds are just stored on the CSV. I would make sure you have all the latest drivers etc and have another go.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

mcdavidson — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 17:07:37 GMT

David,

I only ask as I was told quite specifically by HP level three engineers that VHDx files were NOT supported, and that there was an inherrent issue with the way VHDx files were handled by the P2000 and that hopefully those issues would be addressed in future upgrades. So I have a pre-sales engineer that says they are fine and post sales level 3 engineers that say they are not. Someone please set it in stone, yes or no... (preferrably yes!)

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

John Kufrovich — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 14:45:27 GMT

Mcdavidson,

TS240 did not support VHDx. TS250xxx does support VHDx. You can set that into stone.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

mcdavidson — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 21:38:05 GMT

It would be very beneficial if HP could propagate this information to the HP support teams front line on up to engineering.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

John Kufrovich — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 12:23:26 GMT

HP Storage Division maintains a website called SPOCK. It contains all the latest support information for Hp Storage Products. HP support personnel and any passport user can look at it.

http://h20272.www2.hp.com/

Individuals must realize that product support is always in a constant state of change. It is up to them to keep abreast.

Re: P2000 and Server 2012 Cluster

mcdavidson — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 23:52:57 GMT

Your right they do, and when I called in about this subject, this exact forum post was their reference point for saying that the P2000 supported VHDx, this and nothing else...

My confidence is waning as I don't drink koolaid...