SAN Setup

[mattx]

Our SAN arrived today [ hitachi san 100 ] - now the last time I setup a SAN was over 8 years ago and fiber was the way to connect it. I want to do this via ISCSI and on a different subnet. I setup our current network on a 10.0.0 range and understand I will need to have additional network cards in our servers going into a separate switch etc.

Can anyone point me to a step by step guide or highlight a good book to get on the subject ?

[teejay]

I don't know on the Hitachi SANs, but for the Sun ones there are step by step guides on their website, have found a whitepaper by Micrpsoft which might help Simple SAN White Paper

[mattx]

Thanks - will take a look.

[plexer]

If multihoming domain controller watch out.

[tmcd35]

What version of Windows are you connecting to the SAN? You need to make sure Microsofts iSCSI Initiator is installed and set up. I believe it is built into Windows Server 2008 R2. Other whys it's a free download - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=12cb3c1a-15d6-4585-b385-befd1319f825&displaylang=en

 

there is a user guide doc on the same page.

 

IIRC - you make sure the Hatachi can see/connect to the Windows box via it's iSCSI Initiators unique WWN name. You then attach whichever LUN's on the SAN to that PC's connection on the SAN. Then on the PC side, if all as gone well, you just refresh Disk Management and the LUN will automagically appear like anyother Windows hard drive.

 

When I did it last I was using SANMelody rather than Hatachi so I don't know the exact setting on your SAN box, just the general principal. Also I didn't use any authentication between iSCSI connection. I think you are supposed to use CHAP to authenticate the connection between the PC and the SAN.

[mattx]

If multihoming domain controller watch out.

 

Nothing that complex, single domain on a flat network.

[mattx]

What version of Windows are you connecting to the SAN? You need to make sure Microsofts iSCSI Initiator is installed and set up. I believe it is built into Windows Server 2008 R2. Other whys it's a free download - Download details: Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator Version 2.08

 

there is a user guide doc on the same page.

 

 

 

IIRC - you make sure the Hatachi can see/connect to the Windows box via it's iSCSI Initiators unique WWN name. You then attach whichever LUN's on the SAN to that PC's connection on the SAN. Then on the PC side, if all as gone well, you just refresh Disk Management and the LUN will automagically appear like anyother Windows hard drive.

 

When I did it last I was using SANMelody rather than Hatachi so I don't know the exact setting on your SAN box, just the general principal. Also I didn't use any authentication between iSCSI connection. I think you are supposed to use CHAP to authenticate the connection between the PC and the SAN.

 

Will be Windows server2003 SP2 - my main problem or area in which I will hit a dead end will be the setting up of the other switch which will be on a different subnet - I need advice on setting up this subnet [ on sever2003 ] and then how to setup the rest of the network to know about this etc. The last time I did anything on Subnetting was on a ATM backbone core using VLANS !!

[tmcd35]

If you are using a totally seperate switch and all servers that will be accessing the SAN have a seperate LAN card to connect to that switch then there isn't a great deal to do. Pick a new IP range that doesn't conflict with the rest of your network - I like 172.16.0.0/255.255.255.0 because it's rarely used. Give the SAN and each SAN connected nic an IP in this range. When setting up the NIC's make sure you don't specify any dns or default gateway settings - these should only be set on the server primary nic on the main LAN - and also check in the nic properties that 'Windows Network' is unticked. It's not needed and as Plexar point out above can cause problems and confusion within Windows.

 

Also don't attach any SAN LUN to more than one Windows Server - Windows 2003 doesn't natively support cluster shared volumes and you'll be in for a world of pain.

 

If you are using a switch on your main network to run the SAN over, make sure it supports VLAN's and make sure the ports that the SAN nics connect to from the servers and the Hatachi SAN are all on the same VLAN number. You may want to check the NIC's setting for a VLAN tagging option and make sure they are all set to the same VLAN number as the switch ports.

 

The rest of your network should be accessing the SAN through one of the servers connected to the SAN - perhaps as Windows Folder Shares, or whatever is required.

[mattx]

If you are using a totally seperate switch and all servers that will be accessing the SAN have a seperate LAN card to connect to that switch then there isn't a great deal to do. Pick a new IP range that doesn't conflict with the rest of your network - I like 172.16.0.0/255.255.255.0 because it's rarely used. Give the SAN and each SAN connected nic an IP in this range. When setting up the NIC's make sure you don't specify any dns or default gateway settings - these should only be set on the server primary nic on the main LAN - and also check in the nic properties that 'Windows Network' is unticked. It's not needed and as Plexar point out above can cause problems and confusion within Windows.

 

Also don't attach any SAN LUN to more than one Windows Server - Windows 2003 doesn't natively support cluster shared volumes and you'll be in for a world of pain.

 

If you are using a switch on your main network to run the SAN over, make sure it supports VLAN's and make sure the ports that the SAN nics connect to from the servers and the Hatachi SAN are all on the same VLAN number. You may want to check the NIC's setting for a VLAN tagging option and make sure they are all set to the same VLAN number as the switch ports.

 

The rest of your network should be accessing the SAN through one of the servers connected to the SAN - perhaps as Windows Folder Shares, or whatever is required.

 

Thanks for the advice so far, this is great and the info is the stuff I needed. I have a rather old 2003 server which is nothing more than a BDC running WSUS and that's it. Does this have to be connected to the SAN or can I leave this off as all it's really doing is dishing out updates and authenticating logons. Or will this have to be connected too ?

I have have plans on turning this into a Virtual Server at some point along with a few others so don't want to connect it unless I really have to.

[tmcd35]

You only need to connect any computer to a SAN if you need to allocate hard drive space, a LUN, from the SAN to that computer. If the WSUS server doesn't need any more hard drive space, if you are not planning to allocate it any space on the SAN, then it doesn't need connecting up.

 

The best way to think of it is like this - A LUN on the SAN is the equivilent to a SCSI/SAS/SATA/IDE hard drive that you plug directly into a computer/server. A computer/server is given direct access to the SAN only if they are in need of an additional hard drive and you want to allocate that extra hard drives worth of space from the total storage available within the SAN.

 

For every other server/computer they access resources stored on the SAN via shares, databases, etc, hosted on one of the servers that are directly connected to the SAN.

 

You mention Virtual Servers, What virtualisation tech are you looking at or using?

[mattx]

You only need to connect any computer to a SAN if you need to allocate hard drive space, a LUN, from the SAN to that computer. If the WSUS server doesn't need any more hard drive space, if you are not planning to allocate it any space on the SAN, then it doesn't need connecting up.

 

The best way to think of it is like this - A LUN on the SAN is the equivilent to a SCSI/SAS/SATA/IDE hard drive that you plug directly into a computer/server. A computer/server is given direct access to the SAN only if they are in need of an additional hard drive and you want to allocate that extra hard drives worth of space from the total storage available within the SAN.

 

For every other server/computer they access resources stored on the SAN via shares, databases, etc, hosted on one of the servers that are directly connected to the SAN.

 

You mention Virtual Servers, What virtualisation tech are you looking at or using?

 

Most probably going down the VMware route [ ESXi ] - I have done a few things on it already on a test setup - and we will end up getting a better SAN too to run the VMs off - at the moment because of costs etc we are addressing our storage problems first [ lack of ] and then will hit the virtual route next year. Plus as it's only me doing this I can't do everything.

[tmcd35]

I set ESX 3 up on a SAN and I found it quiet painless. The disk file format ESX formats SAN LUN's with is natively cluster aware - infact VWare designed the datastore file format especially with this in mind - so you can connect ESX LUNs on the SAN to as meny ESX hosts has you have connected to the SAN Network. This means that all ESX hosts will see all the VM Images stored on all the LUN's. Makes migrating VM's from one server to another a doddle. Lit. just stop the VM on one server and press play on another. If only Windows Cluster Volumes worked with more than just Hyper-V and were as easy to set up!

[mattx]

If I go down the seperate switch / subnet route [ which I think I will ] - then what Subnet does the managed switch need to be on, the new one for the SAN or the exisiting one for the domain ?

[ful56_uk]

Our San switches our on the same rang as our sans which is different to our main network. We have the 100's. Each controller with an ip on the same range as the switches then got iscsi targets on separte nics to our esx host then just add them to our vms

[tmcd35]

Ouch!

 

let's start with some simplification - do you need a managed switch?

 

Let's see, you'd probably get away with an IP on your standard range and linking the managed switch to your standard LAN. I'd say to do it properly the managed switch would need to support VLAN's so you have the SAN traffic on one VLAN seperate from the uplink port for switch management on no VLAN. So the only traffic going along the uplink port between a standard infrastructure switch and the SAN switch is management traffic.

 

I can't, yet, see a way of making it work using an IP in the SAN range.

[mattx]

Ouch!

 

let's start with some simplification - do you need a managed switch?

 

Let's see, you'd probably get away with an IP on your standard range and linking the managed switch to your standard LAN. I'd say to do it properly the managed switch would need to support VLAN's so you have the SAN traffic on one VLAN seperate from the uplink port for switch management on no VLAN. So the only traffic going along the uplink port between a standard infrastructure switch and the SAN switch is management traffic.

 

I can't, yet, see a way of making it work using an IP in the SAN range.

 

The managed switch will be the same as our current switches I up-graded two years ago - which are HP 800's which I know support VLANS - I'll only need an 8 port one to start with but may get a 24 one just in case some more equipment wants to connect to the SAN at a later date - [ 2008 servers as like you said 2003 doesn't support cluster shared volumes ] We have a LAMP server and I have a few FreeNAS boxes on the network so may try and connect those too. Plus I may try and run a Virtual Server off it just to see how it performs - this particular SANs HDs don't spin that quick so may not be up to the task of running a Virtual Server.

[m25man]

So you bought a Hitachi SAN never mind, we held out and got the Equallogic PS-4000e.

 

Whilst deliberating as to what to buy into I found the Dell Tech website full of great info and Training Videos, these PDF's were extremely useful for explaining how it all works.

 

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/powervault-md3000-md3000i-planning.pdf

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/powervault-md3000-md3000i-implementation.pdf

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/powervault-md3000-md3000i-protection.pdf

[mattx]

Certainly was not my choice but the NM went with it because of the 'cost......'

'Don't shoot the messenger as the saying goes.... ;-) '

Thanks for the links btw.

[xenonive]

I've got a hitachi sms 100 san and i found it easy to setup with the quick install guide , you need a windows machine to install the software that comes with it , this allows you to create , size and name the drives. once you have done the drive setup you can connect an ESXi server to it and with vsphere client (free to download) configure the storage target. you don't need a managed switch. i've got my server direct connected to one of the ports on the SAN , you can use all four ports ie 3 direct connected servers and one connection to network to allow use of vsphere client , if you want to connect more you will need a managed switch.

 

on the server i used a 192.168 range for the direct connection with fixed IP , on the network port I've just allowed it to use DHCP and all seems to be happy at moment.

[mattx]

I've got a hitachi sms 100 san and i found it easy to setup with the quick install guide , you need a windows machine to install the software that comes with it , this allows you to create , size and name the drives. once you have done the drive setup you can connect an ESXi server to it and with vsphere client (free to download) configure the storage target. you don't need a managed switch. i've got my server direct connected to one of the ports on the SAN , you can use all four ports ie 3 direct connected servers and one connection to network to allow use of vsphere client , if you want to connect more you will need a managed switch.

 

on the server i used a 192.168 range for the direct connection with fixed IP , on the network port I've just allowed it to use DHCP and all seems to be happy at moment.

 

I'm not impressed with the documentation at all - it's a mess and all over the place.

I was hoping there would be a few diagrams of various setups within a LAN enviroment etc but all there is 2, and even those are useless to me. It would be nice to have diagrams with examples of IP ranges instead of the a picture of the SAN with lines coming out of it not showing even what ports they are connected to !! I'll make up my own I think.

[bossman]

@mattx:

 

Would this be what you are looking for:

 

Hitachi SMS100 | NAS | ZDNet UK

[bossman]

@mattx:

 

Also here:

Hitachi SMS100 how to configure - Google Search

[bossman]

@mattx:

 

Forget last post matt just watched it and it is just a sales video

[mattx]

@mattx:

 

Would this be what you are looking for:

 

Hitachi SMS100 | NAS | ZDNet UK

 

Thanks for that - found what I needed in the Planning Your Deployment guide - [ WHICH WAS NOT ON THE CD HITACHI PLEASE NOTE !! ]