Booting Windows 2008 directly off iSCSI (diskless system)

[robnicholson]

We use XenServer and StarWind is working perfectly with it. At the moment, we are planning to do this with a Windows 2008 OS:

1. Put the (small) OS C: drive on iSCSI storage within XenServer
2. Mount the (large) data E: drive via iSCSI directly within Windows 2008 itself

It will work fine. However, I'm intruiged about whether one can create a completely diskless environment where some magic comes into play whereby "something" establishes a iSCSI connection to the virtual disk to be used for the C: drive? I'm rather groping in the dark here even for what to Google for

I'm guessing it's something akin to PXE boot to iSCSI? Am I barking up the right tree? There is not really complelling reason to do this as the "C: drive on XenServer storage" works fine.

Cheers, Rob.

[robnicholson]

In fact, as I wrote that I started answering my own question. I know that the XenServer "BIOS" offers PXE and the phrase I'm looking for is "Diskless iSCSI boot"

That took me to this web page and the light is dawning: [ URL removed ]

Cheers, Rob.

[anton (staff)]

Yes, we do fully support PXE based iSCSI boot. We're completing final tests and StarWind with embedded TFTP server, DHCP control, image processing and COW should be released either with V5.7 or just a couple of weeks later. You may wish to take part in Beta program to get hands over pre-release stuff. Your feedback is appreciated.

P.S. Unlike other guys we are 1) all-in-one package and don't require anything else 2) iSCSI boot would be FREE feature. So no extra $$$ money charged and included as fully functional in upgraded Free version.

[jjcrandall]

Anton,

Is StarWind still planning on doing the embedded TFTP stuff with COW? The functionality is very similar to what Citrix offers with their provisioning servers, but the Starwind product is much simpler (and cheaper) to purchase. Having the ability for multiple machines to connect to a single initiator, and each have their own copy-on-write layer on top of the base image would be great.

Thanks,

J

[anton (staff)]

During next few weeks there should be released an updated version of StarWind (V5.9) with built-in custom TFTP and DHCP servers and with some dedicated iSCSI diskless boot options.

No we don't do COW because it is a slow dog. COW requires extra read and write to remove old block to a new location. It's very inefficient so we do ROW (redirect-on-write). It's more complex to implement but does better job from performance point of view.

Anton,

Is StarWind still planning on doing the embedded TFTP stuff with COW? The functionality is very similar to what Citrix offers with their provisioning servers, but the Starwind product is much simpler (and cheaper) to purchase. Having the ability for multiple machines to connect to a single initiator, and each have their own copy-on-write layer on top of the base image would be great.

Thanks,

J

[robnicholson]

Ohh very exciting! We skipped the current version as it didn't add anything new for us but we'll be upgrading to this.

Cheers, Rob.

[robnicholson]

PS. What else is new in v5.9?

[anton (staff)]

Pretty much everything. Starting with N-node network RAID instead of only 2 node mirror and completely new async replication engine based on deduplication.

PS. What else is new in v5.9?

[anton (staff)]

+ VMware ESXi VM backup (in addition to existing Hyper-V VM backup) and ability for network RAID to work on top of deduplicated volumes.

[robnicholson]

Hope Citrix XenServer gets on the list of supported hypervisors soon...

Cheers, Rob

[anton (staff)]

We're certified with Citrix since early 2010 AFAIR. Did I miss anything?

Hope Citrix XenServer gets on the list of supported hypervisors soon...

Cheers, Rob

[robnicholson]

In reference to "+ VMware ESXi VM backup (in addition to existing Hyper-V VM backup)"

The iSCSI target works great with XenServer 5.6. Citrix broke their storage system with XenServer 6 but that's nowt to do with StarWind - it broke with everyone's storage. Nice one Citrix

Cheers, Rob.

[anton (staff)]

Sure. After we'll be done with ESX VM backup we'll proceed with Xen-based one.

Just curious... Why did you went XenServer and not Hyper-V or ESX? FMI.

In reference to "+ VMware ESXi VM backup (in addition to existing Hyper-V VM backup)"

The iSCSI target works great with XenServer 5.6. Citrix broke their storage system with XenServer 6 but that's nowt to do with StarWind - it broke with everyone's storage. Nice one Citrix

Cheers, Rob.

[jjcrandall]

Excellent. even if there wasn't build in TFTP & DHCP options, the COW (ROW) is what I'm looking for...

During next few weeks there should be released an updated version of StarWind (V5.9) with built-in custom TFTP and DHCP servers and with some dedicated iSCSI diskless boot options.

No we don't do COW because it is a slow dog. COW requires extra read and write to remove old block to a new location. It's very inefficient so we do ROW (redirect-on-write). It's more complex to implement but does better job from performance point of view.

Anton,

Is StarWind still planning on doing the embedded TFTP stuff with COW? The functionality is very similar to what Citrix offers with their provisioning servers, but the Starwind product is much simpler (and cheaper) to purchase. Having the ability for multiple machines to connect to a single initiator, and each have their own copy-on-write layer on top of the base image would be great.

Thanks,

J

[anton (staff)]

TFTP and DHCP are already included.

COW and ROW are totally different things. Check out this document, very nice explanation:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/tivol ... -snaptsm1/

Excellent. even if there wasn't build in TFTP & DHCP options, the COW (ROW) is what I'm looking for...

During next few weeks there should be released an updated version of StarWind (V5.9) with built-in custom TFTP and DHCP servers and with some dedicated iSCSI diskless boot options.

No we don't do COW because it is a slow dog. COW requires extra read and write to remove old block to a new location. It's very inefficient so we do ROW (redirect-on-write). It's more complex to implement but does better job from performance point of view.

Anton,

Is StarWind still planning on doing the embedded TFTP stuff with COW? The functionality is very similar to what Citrix offers with their provisioning servers, but the Starwind product is much simpler (and cheaper) to purchase. Having the ability for multiple machines to connect to a single initiator, and each have their own copy-on-write layer on top of the base image would be great.

Thanks,

J