HP StoreVirtual VSA

HPE StoreVirtual for Hyper-V .NET 3.5

Posted on 8 January 201811 January 2021 by Craig

As part of transitioning my lab to Hyper-V I’m using a HPE StoreVirtual VSA to provide shared storage to the Hyper-V Hosts.

When trying to load ‘HPE_StoreVirtual_VSA_2014_and_StoreVirtual_FOM_Installer_for_Microsoft_Hyper_V_TA688-10552’ I encountered the error ‘The Hyper-V for VSA deployment wizard requires version of .NET 3.5 to be installed on the system’.

Issue

Easy, I thought go into roles and features and add .NET 3.5. However, you encounter the following error ‘Do you need to specify an alternate source path? One or more installation selections are missing source files on the destination’.

Resolution

The first thing to do is mount your Windows Server 2016 Datacenter CD. Once done, select ‘Specify an alternate source path’

Type in G:SourceSxS and click OK, followed by Install.

HP ConvergedSystem 200-HC StoreVirtual System – Questions Answered

Posted on 3 June 201511 January 2021 by Craig

Background

HP released two offerings of the HP ConvergedSystem 200-HC StoreVirtual System last year. Essentially they have taken ESXi, HP StoreVirtual VSA, OneView for vCenter and automated the setup process using OneView Instant On.

Two models are available which are:

HP CS 240-HC StoreVirtual System, this has 4 nodes each with:
- 2 x Intel E5-2640v2 2.2GHz 8 Core Processor
- 128GB RAM
- 2GB Flash Backed HP Smart Array P430 Controller
- 2 x 10GbE Network Connectivity
- 1 x iLO4 Management
- 6 x SAS 1.2TB 10K SFF Hard Drives
- Around 11TB of usable capacity

HP CS 242-HC StoreVirtual System, this has 4 nodes each with:
- 2 x Intel E5-2648v2 2.2GHz 10 Core Processor
- 256GB RAM
- 2GB Flash Backed HP Smart Array P430 Controller
- 2 x 10GbE Network Connectivity
- 1 x iLO4 Management
- 4 x SAS 1.2TB 10K SFF Hard Drives
- 2 x 400GB Mainstream Endurance SSD
- Around 7.5TB of usable capacity

These are marketed with the ability to provision virtual machines within 30 minutes.

What Does Provision Virtual Machines Within 30 Minutes Really Mean?

To answer this question you need to understand what HP have saved you from doing, which is:

Installing ESXi across 4 x Hosts
Installing vCenter to a basic configuration
Installing HP StoreVitrual VSAE to a basic configuraiton across 4 x Hosts
Pre-installed Management VM running Windows Server 2012 Standard that has OneView for vCenter and CMC for StoreVirtual Management

So after completing the initial setup, you do have the ability to upload an ISO and start deploying an OS image.

What About The Stuff Which Marketing Don’t Mention? AKA Questions Answered?

Database

SQL Express is used as the database (local instance on Management VM). I have real concerns around the database if logging levels are increased to troubleshoot issues and/or the customer doesn’t perform an kind of database maintenance
- I’m waiting on confirmation from HP as whether you can migrate the SQL database instance to a full blown version

Host Profiles

Grey area, these can be used. However HP rather you stay with the base configuration of the nodes (much like the networking see below).

Licences

The solution is only supported using Enterprise or Enterprise Plus VMware licenses, with the preference being HP OEM.
Windows Server 2012 Standard is supplied as the Management VM. Initially, this runs from a local partition and is then Storage vMotioned onto the HP Converged Cluster. Windows licensing dictates that when a OS is moved across hosts using Standard Edition you cannot move the OS back for 90 days or you need to license each node for the potential number of VM’s that could be ran.
- HP have confirmed that you receive 2 x Windows Server 2012 Standard licenses and DRS Groups Manager rules are configured to only allow the Management VM to migrate between these two ESXi Hosts.

Management Server

You are able to upgrade the Management Server VM in terms of RAM, CPU and Disk Space and be supported.
You cannot add additional components to the Management Server VM and be supported e.g. VUM, vCenter SysLog Service
- I’m waiting on confirmation from HP around what is and isn’t supported, I would air on caution and not install anything extra

Networking

The 1GbE connections are not used apart from the initial configuration of the Management Server. My understanding is that these are not supported for any other use.
HP prefer you to stay with the standard network configuration, this causes me concern. 10GbE Network providing Management, iSCSI, Virtual Machine and vMotion traffic. How do you control vMotion bandwidth usage on a Standard vSwitch? You can’t a Distributed vSwitch is a much better option, but if you need to reconfigure a node, you will need to perform a vSS to vDS migration

Updates

You can upgrade individual components separately, however you must stay within the HP Storage SPOCK for the Converged System 200-HC StoreVirtual (Note a HP Passport login is required)

Versions

At the time of this post, the latest supported versions are as follows:

vSphere 5.5 U2 , no vSphere 6
vCenter 5.5 U2
HP StoreVirtual VSA 11.5 or 12.0
HP OneView for vCenter Storage/Server Modules 7.4.2 or 7.4.4
HP OneView Instant On 1.0 or 1.0.1
PowerCLI 5.8 R1

Final Thoughts

HP have put together a slick product which automates the initial installation of ESXi and gives you a basic configuration of vCenter. What it doesn’t give you is design to say that your workloads are going to be suitable on the environment and or a solution that meets a client requirements.

HP StoreVirtual Multi-Path Extension Module (MEM) for vSphere

Posted on 4 March 201511 January 2021 by Craig

With the release of LeftHand OS 12.0, HP have introduced a Multi-Path Extension Module to replace the previously recommended path selection policy being ‘Round Robin’ and Storage Array Type Plugin VMW_SATP_DEFAULT_AA

By default Round Robin would send 1,000 I/O down each path.

Note: That this can be altered as per my previous article entitled ‘How To Change Default IOP Limit‘ but should normally only be done under the guidance of the manufacturer.

The issue with this is how a volume is created within a StoreVirtual node. Let’s imagine we have two cluster nodes, A and B. When the first volume is created it is ‘owned by a master node’ in this case ‘node A’. When the second volume is created it is owned by ‘node B and so on, as shown below.

Volume 1 – Node A
Volume 2 – Node B
Volume 3 – Node A
Volume 4 – Node B

Using the recommended bonding method of ‘Adaptive Load Balancing’ SCSI read and write commands are issued on all NIC’s in the bond which can result in data being accessed from a non-authoritative node, which means a trip across the network to the authoritative node. I think a picture is in order!

This was rather inefficient and meant that random reads (which are served from disk) could be accessed from a non-authoritative node. This is where the StoreVirtual Multi-Path Extension Module (MEM) steps in. It has knowledge on where the data resides and ensures that all:

Read I/O’s are always serviced by the storage node that holds the authoritative data.
Write I/O’s are always serviced by the storage node that receives a mirror copy of the data ensuring data integrity. Remaining copies are then forwarded to the remaining storage nodes.

This results in the following data flow architecture.

The installation guide for HP StoreVirtual Multipathing Deployment Guide is fairly straight forward. The only issue I ran into was ‘could not find trusted signer’ when trying to install the vib.

This was resolved by adding –no-sig-check to the end of the command esxcli software vib install -v /HPMEM.vib –no-sig-check

Once installed, you will need to change the path selection policy for your datastores to HP_PSP_LH

How To: Rehost HP StoreVirtual Licenses

Posted on 1 March 201511 January 2021 by Craig

I’m not sure exactly when, but HP changed the licensing portal from ‘Poetic’ to a new portal named ‘My HP Licensing Portal’. All of the information looked exactly the same, however you could not rehost HP StoreVirtual Licenses.

The purpose of this blog post is to assist anyone who was in the same situation as me, scratching their head trying to figure it out!

Problem

You have an existing HP StoreVirtual license which ties the feature set to the first NIC MAC address on your StoreVirtual VSA. You have changed, upgraded or redeployed your VSA and you need to rehost the license onto the new MAC address.

Solution

Browse to myhplicensing.hp.com and login for your email address and password that you use for your portal account.

Note: If you are not sure what email address is tied to your account login to HP Licensing for Software and select Administration > My Profile which will show your email address.

Once logged into My HP Licensing select Rehost Licenses

Next select Rehost Licenses and click on the MAC Address you want to update

Select the tick box to confirm this is the license that you want rehosting and then click Rehost.

Select ‘Enter New Locking ID’ and enter the MAC Address of the first network adapter on your StoreVirtual. Then click Next

This bit takes a while but once done you will receive the license file which can be saved or emailed

How To: HP StoreVirtual LeftHand OS 12.0 With T10 UNMAP

Posted on 26 February 201511 January 2021 by Craig

HP have announced the release of LeftHand OS 12.0 which finally includes T10 UNMAP which means we can now start and stay thin with StoreVirtual.

A list of feature enhancements are:

Space Reclamation
- Reclaim space on thinly and fully provisioned volumes used by Windows Server 2012 or later, and vSphere 5 or later
StoreVirtual Multi-Path Extension Module (MEM) for vSphere
- Provides data path optimization similar to StoreVirtual DSM for Microsoft MPIO
REST API for StoreVirtual
- Enables automation and scripting of clusters, provisioning and volume management
StoreVirtual VSA Term LicenseManagement
- Enforces term licensing for StoreVirtual VSA

So lets take LeftHand OS 12.0 for a spin and test out T10 UNMAP.

Centralised Management Console Upgrade

The first step is to upgrade your Centralised Management Console to LeftHand OS 12.0. Once done, you will be greeted by your new 12.0 screen. First impressions, it is a lot faster to discover StoreVirtual nodes and access Management Groups, well done HP!

StoreVirtual Node Upgrade

Just a word of warning, I would always recommend performing upgrades out of hours as when a StoreVirtual node reboots you will loose a percentage of your clusters performance e.g. if you have two nodes in your cluster and your reboot one, then you will loose approximately 50% of your performance.

The good news for those that are using physical StoreVirtuals, HP have reduced the reboot time.

When you are ready to upgrade, the procedure is as slick as always. Download your updates via the CMC and then apply them to your nodes one at a time.

Enable Space Reclamation

Space reclamation is enabled manually at the Management Group level. Right Click your Management Group and Select Enable Space Reclamation

Next we receive a warning that once upgraded you cannot downgrade to previous versions of LeftHand OS that do not support space reclamation.

Enter your Management Group name, in my case DC01-MG01 and accept the disclaimer and enable Space Reclamation.

I suggest checking your Device and RAID status to ensure everything is OK before moving forward. This is done by selecting your Cluster, followed by the Node and then selecting Storage. As you can see I have Adaptive Optimisation enabled and my RAID Status is normal.

Space Reclamation Test

Space reclamation can be performed either on vSphere after a Storage vMotion has taken place or when files have been deleted from with a guest operating system.

In this test I’m going to perform a Storage vMotion from one datastore another and then zero the space on the VMFS file system.

The test is going to be ran on the datastore DC02-NODR02 which has a single virtual machine inside of it, with the following storage storage characteristics:

Datastore DC02-NODR02
- Capacity 199.75GB
- Provisioned Space 45.01GB
- Free Space 177.29GB
- Used Space 22.46GB

Volume – 17.50GB consumed space
- 200GB Fully Provisioned with Adaptive Optimisation enabled

Next I’m going to perform a Storage vMotion of the virtual machine onto the datastore DC02-NODR03. Time to grab a cup of tea before we move on and run VMKFSTools to reclaim the space.

VMKFSTools

Now the Storage vMotion has finished, we need to run vmkfstools on the datastore to reclaim the space. Jason Boche has an excellent blog post entitled ‘Storage: Starting Thin and Staying Thin with VAAI UNMAP‘ on the vmkfstools command.

On an ESXi Host that can see the datastore DC02-NODR02, I’m going to run the command ‘vmkfstools -y 90’

Note in a production environment you would reclaim the space out of hours and use 60% of the available space

If we now check the volume DC02-NODR02 it’s consumed space is 0.46MB which is the VMFS file system

Monitoring Space Reclamation

HP have introduced some extra performance statistics to enable space reclamation to be monitored which include:

IOPS Space Reclamation
Latency UNMAP

These can be accessed by added to the Performance Monitor window so that you can verify the effect of space reclamation on your StoreVirtual node.