BladeSystem - General
1748209 Members
2830 Online
108759 Solutions
New Discussion юеВ

Hyper-V Live Migration and the SAS BL Switch

 
ajacks
New Member

Hyper-V Live Migration and the SAS BL Switch

Hello тАУ We are looking for some insight on the following: We are planning to purchase and deploy our first c7000 with a SAS BL switch and Storage. Prior to this we used Dell Blade Centers and the MD3000i (iSCSI). In reviewing the performance marks it appears the SAS BL Switch with a MSA2000 is faster than most iSCSI solutions. In addition the MSA2000 cost less than the iSCSI solution. Sound great except we are planning on deploying "Live Migration" within Hyper-V R2. What I have read leads me to believe this is only supported using iSCSI and FC. This of course makes since most DAS solutions are physically attached to one server, except with the SAS BL switch you can share the storage solution with any server you want....so does it work or does anyone know if HP has plans to support this? I spoke with sales and they are not sure and I'm not willing to purchase a solution without knowing it is going to work. Thanks -AJ
2 REPLIES 2
chopper3
Frequent Advisor

Hyper-V Live Migration and the SAS BL Switch

I can't speak for unreleased MS code but the key reason why they support iSCSI and FC is that they both allow arbitrated block-level access - i.e. they can all safely share the same raw disks. The BL SAS switch/MSA2000sa combo CAN allow for multiple blades to share the same disks but I'm unaware of whether there are W2K8 drivers/FS-code to allow them to work on the same disks at the same time. If I were you I'd ask Symantec if their 'Storage Foundation for Windows v5.x' would help with this, it's very flexible but a bit spendy. As for performance, yes the MSA2000sa is VERY quick indeed, far far faster than the iSCSI equivalent . That said I'm a big fan of FC so would suggest either the MSA2000fc or a low-end EVA 4400 (which can actually work out to be cheaper than the MSA!), that way you've got a 'proper' storage unit that'll work fine for now and great with VMWare when you tire of Hyper-V :)
Raymond Fong
New Member

Hyper-V Live Migration and the SAS BL Switch

Hi, Would like to post a query here, I read that MSA2000 only allowed for 'shared' disk among blade, but, MDS600 allows for dynamic 'zoning' of disk to blade. Would you be able to elaborate on pro and cons?