LUN magic and management on an EVA8000 -- can I?

[mujzeptu]

We currently have an EVA8000... we may soon be getting an XP 20000.

Anyway, we run a testing environment. We want testers on desktop pcs to be able to iSCSI boot a vmware image from the SAN. If a tester needs a different OS, or language, or flavor, etc, we need them to be able to quickly move to another OS.

I am wondering if the EVA8000 (or XP) can help with its own features or software? Could we do something where we have tons of LUNs ready with the bootable images, but use snapshots or snapclones to immediately deploy the new LUN they need over an existing one? Could we use our SAN with other arrays, a VLS6500, etc to leverage this?

I am looking for any ideas or thoughts on how the array and SAN at a hardware level (or any level) could help this...

The core issue is we have ~200 OS's. We have 100 test clients. Thats about 20,000 LUNs and OS's because we cannot share the LUNs/images between clients.

Obviously we cannot easily have 20k LUNs, but we have a threshold to work with. We dont always NEED 20k different bootable LUNs up, we could get away with the 255 LUN max. Because of this however, thats about 50 clients running at the same time with 5 luns each. If the tester now needs a different OS than whats on his own 5 luns, we need a fast, easy way of re-deploying another image/LUN so he can easily boot off of it.

So, any suggestions or thoughts?

[Steven Clementi · Accepted solution]

I've used Business Copy before (via the snapclone feature) to deploy multiple boot from SAN virtual disks for a client.

Simply create your template on a virtual disk, clone it to have your "master" and you can then deploy a clone form that master whenever you need it.

You would obvioulsy need to set your master up properly... like in a Windows world... i'd sysprep the system after setting it up the first time and let it shut down. After the shutdown, grab your clone and you are all set. Whenever you deploy that clone, it will regen your name/security id's, etc upon first boot.

I am use you use this to do other OS's as well. The client I did this with was doing Linux on they blades that were all Boot from SAN. iSCSi booting is a little different, but the basic soncept is the same.


Steven

[mujzeptu]

Please sum up how you deploy multiple boot from SAN vdisks?

Is it a GUI you can drag and drop a 10GB image to and it takes seconds, minutes, hours?? How does snapclones work as in where is the data stored?

You say clone, im assuming thats the snapclone you make. So you now have the master, does no one access or use the master snapclone, you just replicate it out to other LUNS as necessary? Does the master image untouched always stay on the array? WHere are the master images stored, and how much time does it take to roll out the master image to other LUNs?


Also, we've looked at using vmware workstation on a local OS to boot all the SAN images. Is there built in HP software that allows you to boot from an iSCSI device? Or does this require 3rd party software?

[IBaltay]

Hi,
Here is some usefull documentation:
a) EVA & iSCSI
http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01519273/c01519273.pdf

b) EVA Business copy (snapshots, snapclones, mirrorclones)
http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01375088/c01375088.pdf

[IBaltay]

One additional on the snapclones/snapshots/mirrorclones:
http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01491168/c01491168.pdf

[Steven Clementi]

Wow, thatâ s a lot to coverâ ¦ Letâ s start:


â Please sum up how you deploy multiple boot from SAN vdisks?
Is it a GUI you can drag and drop a 10GB image to and it takes seconds, minutes, hours??â

In the case of an EVA, with Command View EVA Management software (Management GUI), you can simply click a vdisk and create a clone in seconds. The process does not take long since we are talking about minimal data, 2 or 3 or maybe 4 or 5 GBâ s total for the base OS.

â How does snapclones work as in where is the data stored?â

The data is stored as a vdisk on the array. There are other options, software based that can do some of this as well.


â You say clone, im assuming thats the snapclone you make.â â Yes

â So you now have the master, does no one access or use the master snapclone, you just replicate it out to other LUNS as necessary?â â Correct

â Does the master image untouched always stay on the array?â â Yes

â WHere are the master images stored, and how much time does it take to roll out the master image to other LUNs?â â As a vdisk on the array. It takes minutes to clone a 5 to 10GB vdisk.


â Also, we've looked at using vmware workstation on a local OS to boot all the SAN images. Is there built in HP software that allows you to boot from an iSCSI device?â

First, you would need an iSCSI gateway for the storage Array. The EVA has a few options, but the one that comes to mind is the â HP StorageWorks EVA iSCSI Connectivity Option http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/evaiscsiconnect/index.html â

Second, if vmware workstation supports allowing a vm to boot fro ma disk that is presented to the â hostâ via iSCSI, then all you need is support on your OS for iSCSI

â Or does this require 3rd party software?â â For the Windows OS, you can use the Microsoft iSCSI initiator. It is a free download.


So, in summaryâ ¦
You can effectively create several â masterâ images that get stored as vdisks. In the Command View GUI use the snapclone feature to deploy the master to a new vdisk for use on a system. Use the Command View GUI to â presentâ the disk to the iSCSI host. On the host, configure the vmguest to boot from the newly presented vdisk.


Another Option:

Donâ t use the â boot from SANâ method (even though technicallyâ ¦ you are booting a vm from a SAN Disk)â ¦

Set up 1 system with lets say 100GB Storage. Create all of your virtual machines that you can possibly think of. (Increase the size of the disk accordingly). Snapclone the disk and save as a â masterâ . Now, you can deploy 1 disk with ALL of your osâ s 100 times, or more... depending on your total storage available. Each host would have ALL OSâ s available to it if needed. The vmguests will already be created and not need to go through any pre-boot changes (like a syspreped image).

You can also do 2 or 3 master luns that have different subsets of OSâ s pre-created on them. 1 for Windows, 1 for Linux, etc.


Steven

[Steven Clementi]

OMG... the forums NEEDZ a Spell Checker.

Sorry for all the garbage. Apparently, the forums do not like backwards ".

[Uwe Zessin]

> with the 255 LUN max.

The EVA8000 supports up to 1024 virtual disks (whether that is practical, I don't know - CV-EVA becomes quite slow after about 350 vdisks). The 255 LUN max. is a restriction on presenting to a single host. A different host can be presented 255 other virtual disks.


> Apparently, the forums do not like backwards ".

I like the [Preview>>>] button - just left from [Submit>>]