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Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

 
Dudki01
Frequent Visitor

Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

Greeting!

I'm planning to build  HA cluster on Windows  Hyper-v  with  storage clusterization.  2 server nodes +  dedicated DC  and  2 SAN nodes with  data sync and automatic failover ,  which is why i'm considering   HPE SV3200 now. 

I've never had an expirience with  HP storage and can now use only   manuals and google to get some  basic  view.

Could i ask you to clarify some details?

1. AFAIU i need to use quorum witness  inside my Managment Group.  The  Entity "Cluster"  would be created with  creation of  MG or vice-versa?

2. AFAIU  i can have only one quorum witnessin MG,  and it cannot be placed inside the LUN  of my SV3200, so i cannot cluster the  VM which  would serve as  NFS share.  Did i get it right,  if my share fails  with server cluster node where it is located,  there would be no reaction from my Network RAID cluster untill it's node  loss each other?  If my share disappears i just can create the new and configure  MG to use it with no downtime?  

3. I consider FC8 storage with no FC switches.  So basiccally i just need a shared storage for my hyper-v cluster,  majority of my LC cables from  both  server nodes will be connected to  SV3200_1 node controllers,  could a put the second  SV3200_2 in standby mode awaiting for  failover OR IO activivty will be occuring  simultaneously on  both nodes? So, will i see all  my physical  LUNs on  managment console or it will be a virtual LUNs with  2 physical behind each?

 

9 REPLIES 9
CalvinZito
HPE Blogger

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

I don't understand some of your questions but will make a few comments. 

For a single StoreVirtual 3200, no external quorum witness or failover manager is used. Quorum is managed internally with hardware locking that prevents split-brain. Quorum for a scale-out StoreVirtual 3200 is also managed by the controllers so no external quorum witness is needed. 

You only need a quorum witness with the StoreVirtual 3200 when you have a scale-out multi-site cluster. And because of the way quorum witness works, you would only have one for a multi-site cluster.  

I have a blog post with a ChalkTalk that gives an overview of the StoreVirtual 3200.  When we announced the new features, we said that the StoreVirtual OS 13.5 (version that will have scale-out) will be available in this calendar quarter.  I'm sure that as we get closer to release 13.5, we'll have technical documentation so stay tuned. 

Dudki01
Frequent Visitor

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

Hi! Thank you  for your answer.

So, i have the User Guide  where i can read:

"Using an NFS file share to contain the Quorum Witness file in a two-system management group,
the Quorum Witness provides automatic failover to ensure system availability..."

"A management group is a collection of one or more storage systems. It is the container within
which you cluster storage systems and create volumes for storage. Creating a management group
is the first step in creating HP StoreVirtual storage."

You wrote me:

"You only need a quorum witness with the StoreVirtual 3200 when you have a scale-out multi-site cluster"

In my head  the scale-out multi-site cluster is not just a two  SV3200 in one rack with direct/ over FC-switch/ over 1Gbs switch connection to each other , right?  You refer that  scheme as "scale-out StoreVirtual 3200" that has no need on quorum  to be in sync and work as 2-nodes hardware cluster?

Sorry for troubles with comprehension, it's probably because of my English :)

 

 

CalvinZito
HPE Blogger

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

Sounds like your looking at a StoreVirtual Users Guide for either the VSA or the StoreVirtual 4000.  This is different from the StoreVirtual 3200. The StoreVirtual 3200 is a dual controller array.  The StoreVirtual 4000 and StoreVirtual VSA are based on an architecture where each node only has a single controller and you get HA by scaling-out.  In the case of a 2 node StoreVirtual 4000 or VSA, you have to have a quorum witness.  This can be either a lightweight VM or now we also support an NFS share.  

 

The StoreVirtual 3200 is NOT the same - so the manual you're looking at is not the right one.  Again, you don't need a quorum witness with the StoreVirtual 3200 unless you are doing a multi-site stretched cluster.  

 

I hope that clears up the confusion... thanks for explaining. 

Bart_Heungens
Honored Contributor

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

I want to add following information:

 

You mention that you want a FC Fibre Channel network? Then StoreVirtual VSA is no option since it supports only iSCSI. So you will need to go to the SV3200 which exist with FC controllers.

Know that at this moment no Direct Attach is supported. So you will always need FC switches between servers and SV3200.

If it is only 2 servers you might want to choose for iSCSI since you can choose rather cheap 2920 switches that has 4 x 10Gb ports, enough for 2 servers and the SV3200.

SV3200 is high available since it has 2 build-in controllers in 1 cage. We don't talk about nodes. Nodes are in the VSA and the old P4000 world (where you needed at least 2 in a cluster). In the SC3200 we don't talk about a cluster but about a Storage Pool. Just to be clear...

I have a blog article explaining completely the deployment and configuration of the SV3200, maybe it might help understanding the system and the information needed to configure

http://www.bitcon.be/how-to-initial-deployment-and-configuration-of-hpe-storevirtual-3200/

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Dudki01
Frequent Visitor

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

HPEStorageGuy, you  were  definetly right, i  couldn't  see a direct statement  in manual, but only SV4xxx systems  mentioned there, no SV3xxx.

It clears,  yes,  thanks a lot.

 So...... SV3200 is just a regular  HA  storage  array in one cage with all components doubled. It couldn't  be added  to MG. Like  many other SAN arrays in market.  

SV4xxx are single-controller systems  with  sync replication  over 1g or 10g link and  auto failover by  Quorum or FOM,  but they stiil may be installed in  one rack and used in  single cluster of VM managed by  Vshpere or  Hyper-v, it's not necessary to  use them is in multi-site topology?  

 

 

Dudki01
Frequent Visitor

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

>Know that at this moment no Direct Attach is supported. So you will always need FC switches between servers and SV3200.

Thanks  ypu for this notice and for the link.  Strange limitation by the way.   :-|

 

Dudki01
Frequent Visitor

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

Guys,  one more question in this topic if you don't mind.

The storage  vendor  with whom we cooperated  before  told me recently  that  their arrays  would go to offline mode after power loss if this  loss caused  at least one disk in array to fail. Despite  Raid's e.g. RAID6 could  tolerate the fail of 2 disks  we'll still get non-accessible data  before admin's coming for manual operations.   This is not the way we understand fault tolerance or high availability, so  i want to ask  -  how HPE arrays react on such events? Would they also be waiting  for admin  or smth else there?

 

 

CalvinZito
HPE Blogger

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.

@Dudki01

Apologies as I missed your follow on question. I don't know why an array would go offline due to a drive failure.  RAID protects from a drive failure (with RAID 5) and other RAID 6 and some implementations of RAID 10 protect from multiple drive failures so I have no idea why an array would go offline in the case you described. 

Jin226
Frequent Visitor

Re: Basic design question for 2 storage system HA configuration.


@Dudki01 wrote:

>Know that at this moment no Direct Attach is supported. So you will always need FC switches between servers and SV3200.

Thanks  ypu for this notice and for the link.  Strange limitation by the way.   :-|

 


Does it mean no DIrect Attach support for iSCSI too for SV3200?