snapshot February 2011
To advertise the success of the IT Service Desk in the last year we have producted a newsletter for internal circulation, it’s a high level overview of all of projects that we’ve successfully completed and I’ve been the owner and runner of almost all of them!
Click the thumbnails below for the two-page .pdf (~700kb).
Using the Dell EQL MEM Module to simplify my backups (also, thanks again, veeam!)
Many posts cover the installation and performance benefits that come from using the Dell Multipathing Extension Module (MEM) on EqualLogic arrays (check the spoonapedia.com one), but the big difference for me was a bit of a pleasant side-effect in terms of handling backups! I’ve covered off this strategy from a high level in my previous blog post, Backup Strategies with Virtual Machines in VMware using Veeam, but I wanted to explain in a little bit of detail how I actually got there: it was down to the MEM!
Before – accessing data from within the OS
Because the file servers I’ve been working on access a lot of data (8TB worth), the original setup involved using the EqualLogic Host Integration Tools (HIT kit) from within the file server OS to access LUNs on the EQL array – this provided valuable multipath access and proved to be a very successful way of handling access to the data. The problem was that is complicated backups quite significantly, I could use veeam to backup the OSs (and I did), but I had no way of backing up the actual file data.
With various bad experiences from using market-leading backup software such as BackupExec in the past I wasn’t in a rush to go out and spend money on a software solution to handle all this file data, so I resorted to a very low-tech solution: I bought a nas box and did a nightly robocopy.
This was simple, but it was awful: the backups didn’t finish in time (they’re being taken over a 100mbit LES), they never caught up with themselves. It was a waste of time and it basically meant no backups were worth having.
After – install the MEM and let ESXi deal with it
But then the MEM came out, and essentially claimed to offer the same (if not better) performance via ESXi – no messing around with the HIT kit any more, and more importantly, a chance to re-evaluate my first decision about not using .vmdks… I changed my mind.
The first time round I did thick LUN straight into Windows, formatted as NTFS, simple. This time I re-evaluated and did a thick LUN on the EQL and then allocated thin disks in ESXi and mounted them to the file servers… This gives me greater flexibility if a disk gets close to its limits but it also now means that the extra .vmdks are picked up by veeam allowing me to replicate my previously successful backup strategy.
In summary…
Veeam now handles the file data as incremental .vmdks which means it only transfers the changes in the .vmdk files – the entire series of backups finishes over the 100mb LES in about 12 hours (which, bearing in mind I run it once a week at the weekend is ideal); the previous robocopy never finished in that amount of time: the size of the data transferred is obviously the same, but because robocopy iterated through every single file and folder for a comparison it took much longer whereas now veeam just… does it, and it was a product that I already had so didn’t require any extra spend (not to mention the money that could now be saved on not upgrading the LES to 1GB purely for the purposes of backup).
Next?
Now being quite satisfied with this setup I’m going to investigate the series of advice from ErikZandboer on optimising his ix2-200 backup speeds, specifically the post that looks at jumbo frames to target storage.
Backup Strategies with Virtual Machines in VMware using Veeam
A recent tweet from @win2ksrv and then retweeted by @veeam reminded me that I was going to write about the most recent backup strategy that I’d put in place using Dell EqualLogic SANs, VMware and of course, veeam, it went like this:
What is everyone’s Veeam backup strategy? What do you backup to & how do you get it offsite? Where do you place Veeam itself?
The basic setup looks like this:
The Production site has a Dell EqualLogic array and a local NAS box (that’s the black thing), the backup site which is connected via a 25mbps internet-based VPN simply has a larger NAS box (it deals with multiple sites). VMware has been used to create all the file server disks (they are .vmdks) and veeam is installed in another virtual machine using appliance mode to access the SAN.
There are essentially two main risks that we want to mitigate against here:
- Accidental deletion / corruption of files
- Complete site wipeout (i.e. full blown disaster)
New office success!
A fairly unique opportunity arose for me towards the end of 2010: I was able to design, purchase components for, and then oversee the implementation of a new office infrastructure. This was due to a new physical build, and based on the success of the previous SAN and Infrastrucure project, I was essentially given full control over all aspects of the IT infrastructure.
It was an extensive piece of work and covered about six months of my life before finally going live at the end of November 2010, it involved visits to the site before building works were completed; setup of an entire dedicated test lab; and various correspondances thrasing out the business requirements for the new build.
The actual move-and-go-live happened over a weekend, the staff downed tools on Friday, had their PCs moved over the weekend and were able to log on and start work again Monday morning, a huge achievement bearing in mind that the entire system had changed: everything from the cables to the printers to the back end storage was now completely different. Continue Reading →
Quick: iscsicpl.exe for easier configuration of your iSCSI access from Windows Server 2008 R2 Core installs and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
This will be the quickest one yet. Bored of using all those iscsicli commands to configure access to your iSCSI hosts, well, certainly in the latest version of Windows Server you don’t have to:
iscsicpl.exe
Why I chose Dell EqualLogic and not HP Lefthand
I spent quite a lot of time weighing up the pros and cons of the two most-similar disk arrays on the market, HP Lefthand and Dell EqualLogic. With similar names (PS4000E – Dell; P4000 – HP) and similar initially observable features (that is, they’re both lots of disks in a box, they’re both iSCSI) it was quite difficult to work out whether one was better than the other or not.
I chose Dell EqualLogic in the end, which means the rest of this post is likely to be flavoured with a bit of Dell bias, but I’ll try and explain why I went that way (depsite at the time receiving quite poor sales support due to placing the order in the middle of some bizzare change from partner channels to Dell Direct).
Quick: Shutdown Dell EqualLogic and PowerEdge R710
I keep forgetting the commands to shutdown the EqualLogic arrays that I’ve got and the R710s that are serving them. I’m still in a test and dev environment so doing safe powerdowns happens quite often (as does deliberately non-safe ones), either way, these are the shutdown commands (I’m assuming you’ve set up management IP addresses on both that allow you to SSH in:
iDRAC6 (Dell R710s)
racadm serveraction powerdown
EqualLogic (remember to connect to each member and perform a shutdown)
shutdown
Yep, they really are that simple. I hope to be able to combine these into a script which can be triggered by environmental monitoring etc.