InfoScale™ 9.0 Virtualization Guide - Linux

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)
Platform: Linux
  1. Section I. Overview of InfoScale solutions used in Linux virtualization
    1. Overview of supported products and technologies
      1.  
        Overview of the InfoScale Virtualization Guide
      2. About InfoScale support for Linux virtualization environments
        1.  
          About SmartIO in the Linux virtualized environment
        2.  
          About the SmartPool feature
      3. About KVM technology
        1.  
          Kernel-based Virtual Machine Terminology
        2.  
          VirtIO disk drives
      4. About InfoScale deployments in OpenShift Virtualization environments
        1.  
          Configuring iSCSI for OpenShift VMs
      5.  
        About InfoScale deployments in OpenStack environments
      6.  
        Virtualization use cases addressed by InfoScale
      7.  
        About virtual-to-virtual (in-guest) clustering and failover
  2. Section II. Implementing a basic KVM environment
    1. Getting started with basic KVM
      1.  
        Creating and launching a kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) host
      2.  
        RHEL-based KVM installation and usage
      3.  
        Setting up a kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) guest
      4.  
        About setting up KVM with InfoScale solutions
      5. InfoScale solutions configuration options for the kernel-based virtual machines environment
        1.  
          Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the KVM guest virtualized machine
        2.  
          DMP in the KVM host
        3.  
          SF in the virtualized guest machine
        4.  
          Enabling I/O fencing in KVM guests
        5.  
          SFCFSHA in the KVM host
        6.  
          DMP in the KVM host and guest virtual machine
        7.  
          DMP in the KVM host and SFHA in the KVM guest virtual machine
        8.  
          VCS in the KVM host
        9.  
          VCS in the guest
        10.  
          VCS in a cluster across virtual machine guests and physical machines
      6.  
        Installing InfoScale in a KVM environment
      7. Installing and configuring VCS in a kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) environment
        1.  
          How VCS manages virtual machine guests
    2. Configuring KVM resources
      1.  
        About KVM resources
      2. Configuring storage
        1.  
          Consistent storage mapping in the KVM environment
        2. Mapping devices to the guest
          1.  
            Mapping DMP meta-devices
          2.  
            Consistent naming across KVM Hosts
          3.  
            Mapping devices using paths
          4.  
            Mapping devices using volumes
          5.  
            Mapping devices using the virtio-scsi interface
        3.  
          Resizing devices
      3. Configuring networking
        1. Bridge network configuration
          1.  
            Host network configuration
          2.  
            Configuring guest network
        2.  
          Network configuration for VCS cluster across physical machines (PM-PM)
        3.  
          Standard bridge configuration
        4.  
          Network configuration for VM-VM cluster
  3. Section III. Implementing InfoScale an OpenStack environment
    1. Installing and configring resources in an OpenStack environment
      1.  
        About installing and configuring the OpenStack environment
      2.  
        About installing and configuring InfoScale on OpenStack VMs
  4. Section IV. Implementing Linux virtualization use cases
    1. Application visibility and device discovery
      1.  
        About storage to application visibility using InfoScale Operations Manager
      2.  
        About KVM virtualization discovery in InfoScale Operations Manager
      3.  
        About Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization discovery
      4.  
        Virtual machine discovery in Microsoft Hyper-V
      5.  
        Storage mapping discovery in Microsoft Hyper-V
    2. Server consolidation
      1.  
        Server consolidation
      2.  
        Implementing server consolidation for a simple workload
    3. Physical to virtual migration
      1.  
        Physical to virtual migration
      2.  
        How to implement physical to virtual migration (P2V)
    4. Simplified management
      1.  
        Simplified management
      2. Provisioning storage for a guest virtual machine
        1.  
          Provisioning VxVM volumes as data disks for VM guests
        2.  
          Provisioning VxVM volumes as boot disks for guest virtual machines
      3. Boot image management
        1.  
          Creating the boot disk group
        2.  
          Creating and configuring the golden image
        3.  
          Rapid Provisioning of virtual machines using the golden image
        4.  
          Storage Savings from space-optimized snapshots
    5. Application availability using Cluster Server
      1.  
        About application availability options
      2.  
        Cluster Server in a KVM environment architecture summary
      3.  
        Virtual to Virtual clustering and failover
      4.  
        I/O fencing support for virtual-to-virtual clustering
      5.  
        Virtual to Physical clustering and failover
      6.  
        Recommendations for improved resiliency of InfoScale clusters in virtualized environments
    6. Virtual machine availability
      1.  
        About virtual machine availability options
      2.  
        VCS in host monitoring the Virtual Machine as a resource
      3.  
        Validating the virtualization environment for virtual machine availability
    7. Virtual machine availability for live migration
      1.  
        About live migration
      2.  
        Live migration requirements
      3. About Flexible Storage Sharing
        1.  
          Flexible Storage Sharing use cases
        2.  
          Limitations of Flexible Storage Sharing
      4.  
        Configure Storage Foundation components as backend storage for virtual machines
      5.  
        Implementing live migration for virtual machine availability
    8. Virtual to virtual clustering in a Hyper-V environment
      1.  
        Installing and configuring Cluster Server with Microsoft Hyper-V virtual-to-virtual clustering
    9. Virtual to virtual clustering in an OVM environment
      1.  
        Installing and configuring Cluster Server for Oracle Virtual Machine (OVM) virtual-to-virtual clustering
      2.  
        Storage configuration for VCS support in Oracle Virtual Machine (OVM)
    10. Multi-tier business service support
      1.  
        About Virtual Business Services
      2.  
        Sample virtual business service configuration
      3. Recovery of Multi-tier Applications managed with Virtual Business Services in InfoScale Operations Manager
        1.  
          Service Group Management in Virtual Business Services
    11. Managing Docker containers with InfoScale Enterprise
      1.  
        About managing Docker containers with InfoScale Enterprise
      2. About the Cluster Server agents for Docker, Docker Daemon, and Docker Container
        1.  
          Supported software
        2.  
          How the agents make Docker containers highly available
        3.  
          Documentation reference
      3. Managing storage capacity for Docker containers
        1.  
          Provisioning storage for Docker infrastructure from the Arctera File System
        2. Provisioning data volumes for Docker containers
          1.  
            Provisioning storage on Arctera File System as data volumes for containers
          2.  
            Provisioning VxVM volumes as data volumes for containers
          3.  
            Creating a data volume container
        3. Automatically provision storage for Docker Containers
          1.  
            Installing the InfoScale Docker volume plugin
          2.  
            Configuring a disk group
          3.  
            Creating Docker containers with storage attached automatically
          4.  
            Avoid noisy neighbor problem by using Quality of Service support
          5.  
            Provision to create snapshots
          6.  
            Configuring Veritas volume plugin with Docker 1.12 Swarm mode
        4.  
          About using InfoScale Enterprise features to manage storage for containers
      4. Offline migration of Docker containers
        1.  
          Migrating Docker containers
        2.  
          Migrating Docker Daemons and Docker Containers
      5. Disaster recovery of volumes and file systems in Docker environments
        1.  
          Configuring Docker containers for disaster recovery
      6.  
        Limitations while managing Docker containers
  5. Section V. Reference
    1. Appendix A. Troubleshooting
      1.  
        InfoScale logs for CFS configurations in OpenStack environments
      2.  
        Troubleshooting virtual machine live migration
      3.  
        The KVMGuest resource may remain in the online state even if storage connectivity to the host is lost
      4.  
        VCS initiates a virtual machine failover if a host on which a virtual machine is running loses network connectivity
    2. Appendix B. Sample configurations
      1. Sample configuration for a KVM environment
        1.  
          Sample configuration 1: Native LVM volumes are used to store the guest image
        2.  
          Sample configuration 2: VxVM volumes are used to store the guest image
        3.  
          Sample configuration 3: CVM-CFS is used to store the guest image
      2.  
        Sample configurations for OpenStack environments
    3. Appendix C. Where to find more information
      1.  
        InfoScale documentation
      2.  
        Linux virtualization documentation
      3.  
        Service and support
      4.  
        About Services and Operations Readiness Tools (SORT)

Flexible Storage Sharing use cases

The following list includes several use cases for which you would want to use the FSS feature:

Use of local storage in current use cases

The FSS feature supports all current use cases of the Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions (Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions) stack without requiring SAN-based storage.

Off-host processing

Data Migration:

  • From shared (SAN) storage to network shared storage

  • From network shared storage to SAN storage

  • From storage connected to one node (DAS)/cluster to the storage connected to a different node (DAS)/cluster, that do not share the storage

Back-up/Snapshots:

An additional node can take a back-up by joining the cluster and reading from volumes/snapshots that are hosted on the DAS/shared storage, which is connected to one or more nodes of the cluster, but not the host taking the back-up.

DAS SSD benefits leveraged with existing Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions features

  • Mirroring across DAS SSDs connected to individual nodes of the cluster. DAS SSDs provides better performance than SAN storage (including SSDs). FSS provides a way to share these SSDs across cluster.

  • Keeping one mirror on the SSD and another on the SAN storage provides faster read access due to the SSDs, and also provide high availability of data due to the SAN storage.

  • There are several best practices for using SSDs with Storage Foundation. All the use-cases are possible with SAN attached SSDs in clustered environment. With FSS, DAS SSDs can also be used for similar purposes.

FSS with SmartIO for file system caching

If the nodes in the cluster have internal SSDs as well as HDDs, the HDDs can be shared over the network using FSS. You can use SmartIO to set up a read/write-back cache using the SSDs. The read cache can service volumes created using the network-shared HDDs.

FSS with SmartIO for remote caching

FSS works with SmartIO to provide caching services for nodes that do not have local SSD devices.

In this scenario, Flexible Storage Sharing (FSS) exports SSDs from nodes that have a local SSD. FSS then creates a pool of the exported SSDs in the cluster. From this shared pool, a cache area is created for each node in the cluster. Each cache area is accessible only to that particular node for which it is created. The cache area can be of type, VxVM or VxFS.

The cluster must be a CVM cluster.

The volume layout of the cache area on remote SSDs follows the simple stripe layout, not the default FSS allocation policy of mirroring across host. If the caching operation degrades performance on a particular volume, then caching is disabled for that particular volume. The volumes that are used to create cache areas must be created on disk groups with disk group version 200 or later. However, data volumes that are created on disk groups with disk group version 190 or later can access the cache area created on FSS exported devices.

Note:

CFS write-back caching is not supported for cache areas created on remote SSDs.

For more information, see the document InfoScale SmartIO for Solid State Drives Solutions Guide.

Campus cluster configuration

Campus clusters can be set up without the need for Fibre Channel (FC) SAN connectivity between sites.

FSS in cloud environments

The Flexible Shared Storage (FSS) Technology allows you to overcome the limitations of 'Share-Nothing' storage in cloud environments. FSS enables you to create shared-nothing clusters by sharing cloud block storage over the network.

For details, see the InfoScale Solutions in Cloud Environments document.