StarWind iSCSI SAN & NAS: Configuring HA Storage for Live Migration

PUBLISHED/UPDATED: October 18th, 2012

This document refers to the previous StarWind Virtual SAN version. To view the document for the current version, please follow this link

INTRODUCTION

Deployment of StarWind High Availability Storage to Hyper-V infrastructure.

CREATING AN HA DEVICE

1. Open a StarWind configuration file.

Note: The default path is C:\Program Files\StarWind Software\StarWind\StarWind.cfg

2. Find the string “<!–<iScsiDiscoveryListInterfaces value=”1″/> –>” and uncomment it (should look as follows: <iScsiDiscoveryListInterfaces value=”1″/>).

3. Restart StarWind Service and repeat the same procedure on another StarWind HA node.

4. Launch StarWind Management Console: Start -> All Programs -> StarWind Software -> StarWind.

Note: The StarWind Console icon appears in the system tray when the Console is running. To open StarWind Management Console, double-click the icon or right-click it and then select Start Management Console from the shortcut menu.

5. Select the server you want to provide with the iSCSI target device from the Console tree. Double-click the host to connect.

Note: If you are prompted to enter login and password, specify “root” and “starwind”, relatively. These are the default login and password, but you can always change them later.

6. After connecting to StarWind Service, you can create devices and targets on the server. Open Add Device Wizard by one of the following ways:

• Select Add Device from the Target menu.
• Select Add Device from the Devices shortcut menu (right-click to open it).

7. Add Device Wizard appears. Please, follow the wizard’s steps to complete creation of a new HA device.

8. Select High Availability Device.

9. Click Next to continue.

10. Click Add to add a new host.

11. Specify partner server parameters. Enter the server IP-address in the Host text field, and if needed specify username and password for StarWind Service in the corresponding text fields.

12. Click Next to continue.

13. In the Target Alias and Target Name text fields, specify corresponding information.

Note: The name must be unique. Under this name the device is declared to the iSCSI initiators that are connected to StarWind Service over an IP network.

14. Click to specify a name and location of an HA virtual disk on the server. If you want to create a new virtual disk, select the Create New checkbox.

15. Click Next to continue.

16. Specify target and virtual disk parameters of the second node.

17. Click Next to continue.

18. Configure data synchronization and Heartbeat channel parameters.

19. Click Next to continue.

20. Specify cache parameters of the HA device.

21. Click Next to continue.

22. Select an initialization method of the HA device.

23. Check whether device parameters are correct. Click Back to make any changes. Click Next to continue.

24. Click Finish to close the wizard.

Follow the similar procedure to create the second HA device that will be used as a Witness disk.

CONFIGURING HYPER-V SERVERS

This document assumes that you already have configured Active Directory and two servers on the domain. It also assumes that you have enabled the Failover Clustering, Multipath I/O features and the Hyper-V role on the both servers. These configurations can be performed using Server Manager (Features and Roles sections).

1. Launch Server Manager, select the Features item and click Add Features. Install Multipath I/O and Failover Clustering features by following the wizard’s instructions.

Note: Restart the server after the installation is completed.

2. Launch Server Manager, select the Server Roles item, and click Add Roles. In the Roles section, select the Hyper-V checkbox and follow the wizard’s instructions.

Note: Restart the server after the installation is completed.

CONNECTING TARGETS

At this stage you need to connect the previously created disks on all of the servers that will be added to the cluster.

1. Launch Microsoft iSCSI Initiator: Start > Administrative Tools > iSCSI Initiator. Navigate to the Discovery tab.

2. Click Discover Portal. In the Discover Target Portal dialog that appears, enter IP addresses of both StarWind HA nodes and click OK.

3. Navigate to the Targets tab. The previously created targets are listed in the Discovered Targets section.

Note: If the created targets are not listed, check the firewall settings on the StarWind Server as well as the list of networks served by the StarWind Server (go to StarWind Management Console -> Configuration -> Network).

4. Add the targets one by one: select each target and click Connect.

5. In the Connect to Target dialog select Add this connection to the list of Favorite Targets and Enable multi-path checkboxes. Click Advanced.

6. Select Microsoft iSCSI Initiator in the Local adapter text field. In the Target portal IP select the portal IP.

7. Click OK.

8. Select the same target and again click Connect. Perform the actions described in the items 5-6 of this section, except that you should specify another IP address as a target portal IP.

9. Click OK. Take the same actions to connect other targets.

10. Open the MPIO manager: Start -> Administrative Tools -> MPIO.

11. Go to the Discover Multi-Paths tab. Select the Add support for iSCSI devices checkbox and click Add. When prompted to restart the server, click Yes to proceed.

12. Launch Server Manager and go to the Disk Management section. Bring new disks online (select Online from the shortcut menu of the disk) and initialize them.

Two new clean disks are displayed in the Server Manager window.

To create the partitions and format the new disks:

1. Right-click each of the disks and select New Simple Volume.

2. Create partitions by following the wizard’s instructions. The Server Manager window should look as follows.

The same actions need to be done on the other servers as well, except that creating partitions will no longer be necessary.

The Server Manager window should look as follows.

CREATING A CLUSTER

To validate a cluster:

1. Open Server Manager. Expand the Features item on the Console tree and select the Failover Cluster Manager item.

2. Before creating a cluster, verify whether your servers are suitable for building a cluster: click Validate a Configuration in the Actions section. As validation is completed you are returned to the Failover Cluster Manager window.

To create a cluster:

1. Click the Create a Cluster item in the Actions section.

2. Specify servers to be included into the cluster.

3. Click Next to continue.

4. Specify a cluster name.

Note: If cluster servers get IP addresses over DHCP, the cluster gets its IP address over DHCP as well. If the IP addresses are set statically, you need to set a cluster IP address manually as well.

5. Click Next to continue.

6. The process of creating a cluster begins. After creation of the cluster is completed, a report with additional information is displayed.

7. Click Finish to close the wizard.

After these actions, the Failover Cluster Manager window should look as follows.

ENABLING CLUSTER SHARED VOLUMES

To enable Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) which is necessary to work with Hyper-V virtual machines, take the following steps:

1. Right-click the needed cluster and select Enable Cluster Shared Volumes.

2. A dialog appears with information about CSV and its purposes. Look through the information.

Note: Use the CSV feature for its intended purpose only.

3. Click OK.

4. The Cluster Shared Volumes item is displayed in the Actions section. Right-click this item and select Add storage.

5. Specify the disk to be added in the Add Storage dialog.

6. Click OK.

7. The Server Manager window should look as follows.

CREATING A HIGHLY AVAILABLE VIRTUAL MACHINE

To create an HA virtual machine:

1. Launch Server Manager.

2. Right-click Services and applications and go to Virtual Machines -> New Virtual Machine -> (host name).

3. Specify a name and location of the virtual machine.

4. Click Next to continue.

5. Define memory size to allocate to the virtual machine.

6. Click Next to continue.

7. Specify a necessary network connection option or leave the default parameters unchanged.

8. Click Next to continue.

9. Specify name, size, and location of the virtual disk.

10. Click Next to continue.

11. Specify installation options of the operating system or leave the default parameters unchanged.

12. Click Next to continue.

13. Make sure that all of the parameters are correct. Click Previous to make any changes.

14. Click Finish.

15. Right-click the added virtual machine and select Start virtual machines. The Server Manager window should look as follows.

16. Check whether the virtual machine is running and operating successfully.

LIVE MIGRATION OF A VIRTUAL MACHINE

To live migrate a virtual machine to another node:

1. Launch Server Manager.

2. Right-click the needed VM and go to Live migrate virtual machine to another node -> (host name).

Server Manager should look as follows.