SvHCI deployment guide

Download the Software

SvHCI ISO installer image:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/sections/20863930855837-SvHCI

Rufus software:

https://rufus.ie/en/

Create the Device

Open Rufus and select the ISO with the SELECT button, ensuring to select Partition Scheme as GPT and UEFI mode.

Write the ISO in DD mode:

Ensure the disk is clear, as it will now be overwritten:

Boot the system:

Run the installer:

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This document will detail the installation of SvHCI, as a 2-node Hyperconverged cluster with a witness, to 2x HPE DL325 Gen11.

Hardware detail

2x HPE DL325 Gen 11

- 1x AMD EPYC 9224 24C/48T@2.5GHz

- 4x 64GB Memory DIMMs

- Adapter 1 - BCM 5719 1Gb 4p BASE-T OCP Adptr (front end management and VM traffic)

- Adapter 2 - Broadcom P210tep NetXtreme-E Dual-port 10GBASE-T Ethernet PCIe Adapter - NIC

---DAC cabled and utilized for live migrate/storage networking

- HPE NS204i-u Gen11 Boot Controller

--2x 480GB SSD

- HPE MR416i-o Gen11

--5x 1.92TB SATA SSD

Storage diagram:

Network diagram:

Connect to the iLO and mount the ISO

Power on the Node

Select to manually choose the boot device:

Select the iLO virtual CD ROM

The below GRUB bootloader will show. Select Install - Manual

Complete the install

Select to install option 1, HyperConverged Infrastructure Appliance (HCIA), specificying the:

1. The disk to install the hypervisor OS to,

2. the Management NIC,

3. Management IP Address, subnet & VLAN, alongside Default Gateway, DNS and NTP

Once completed select Enter to reboot:

Should there be issues with left over partitions or booting the wrong disk etc it is possible to clean other disks using 'purge' at the end of the install:

On boot the console interface will display, including the management IP to connect via Web Browser

Should the wrong NIC have been configured, or Default Gateway not set, or similar, the console may be utilized to correct:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18860298535709-Console-usage

Logging in with a default password of 'password', unless modified.

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This document will detail the configuration of a StorMagic HCI node after initial install and first boot, to define node password, licensing etc.

Login with the default credentials of 'admin' & 'password'.

First accept the License Agreement:

Next the First Boot Wizard introduction page will be displayed, select Next.

The node will then need licensing:

To license the node will route out to the internet, requiring DNS, to https://licensing.stormagic.com

Paste in the key to apply and select Connect.

Alternatively offline licensing may be utilized:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/6397884188829-SvHCI-SvSAN-Online-and-Offline-Licensing

Selecting Choose File and pushing up the downloaded offline license file.

Define a SvHCI network hostname:

Define your own password:

and complete the wizard:

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This document will detail the configuration of a StorMagic HCI node after initial install and first boot, to define node password, licensing etc.

Network Design Summary

This example will configure 2x switched NICs as a 'front-end' SvHCI management and VM network, alongside 2x direct attach (DAC) cabled 'back-end' NICs for storage synchronization and live migration traffic.

Under the Network tab, a default LAN vSwitch will have been provisioned during installation. This will have the single physical NIC, selected during the installation, as an uplink, alongside an interface configured with the management IP address defined durnig installation.

Notice that port groups have yet to be configured.

vSwitch Configuration

First lets add an uplink to LAN vSwitch for front end, switched NIC redundancy.

Under the Virtual Switchs section, select LAN vSwitch

Select Edit

Un-edited vSwitch view

Select an Active-backup bond mode and select the additional NIC to add as an uplink

Active Backup Bonding

Active Backup bonds send all traffic out one “active” member until that member becomes unavailable. Since they are significantly less complicated than SLB bonds, they are preferred when LACP is not an option. Additionally, they are the only bond mode which supports attaching each member to a different upstream switch.

The vSwitch will now display per the below.

Guest VM Port Groups Configuration

LAN example

VLAN example

As we're using DAC cables we'll configure this into 2x vSwitches on different IP subnets

vSwitch1

vSwitch2

SvHCI Interface Configuration

Existing Management interface

Interface 1

Interface 2

Host1 Final Configuration

Host2 Configuration

In most scenarios the partner node will need matching networking, with matching Port Group Names, but different IP addresses.

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This document will detail the Discovery Service,

addition of a static entry for the witness, if not auto-discovered

and pairing of the nodes into a 2-node cluster with a sharable witness.

StorMagic Discovery

StorMagic's Discovery service is detailed below:

https://stormagic.com/doc/svsan/6-3-U1/en/Content/discovery.htm

https://stormagic.com/doc/svhci/1-2-0/en/Content/discovery.htm

Add a Discovery entry for the Witness to both nodes, if it is in a different subnet.

From the Discovery page select Join:

Select the partner SvHCI node alongside the witness to cluster:

They clustered nodes will now be displayed:

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This article is intended for administrators wishing to configure an SvHCI nodes pool storage.

Within SvHCI a pool is configured on storage to be utilized by both ISOs and Guest VM disks.

The pool is akin to the VMFS in a VMware world with the Guest VM disk existing, as a synchronous mirror (RF2), across the nodes.

A pool can be on top of any hardware RAID type. e.g RAID5, RAID10, HDD or SSD.

Or a software RAID 0, 1 or 10 may also be configured over individual disk drives.

SvHCI creates a boot pool, by default, on the remaining space of the install disk.  This is to accomodate server systems with just 1x RAID disk, rather than separate boot storage.

Boot pool

Per the below SvHCI creates a boot pool on the remaining space after the installation partitions have been created:

This consumes license capacity and may be used for ISOs and Guest VM disks.

This enables the support and use of server systems with just a single RAID disk of storage, rather than requiring separate boot storage.

Storage pool

It is also possible to create a separate pool from additional storage within the server. This could be a hardware RAID disk,

or a software RAID0, 1 or 10 of individual drives.

Pool licensing

Each license will have a capacity associated with it that is consumed based on total pool size on the node, not RAW disk, per the below:

It is possible to change the licensing of a pool up or down with the License Pool Capacity option, such as the below limiting the pool to 2TB:

Having restricted the capacity, note the free space in the pool per the below example:

SvHCI and SvSAN storage consumption

Other hyperconverged products in the market consume individual drives in what are are typically called disk groups.

This typically involves a number of HDDs, up to a maximum of 6, with a dedicated SSD to act as a cache disk. Should one of these drives fail the disk group is marked failed.

A lot of these solutions recommend 3-nodes for this reason, as with a 2-node there is only, typically, node resiliency wih no internal drive resiliency.  e.g. 1x fault domain.  A drive fails and it fails the node.

Both SvHCI and SvSAN, being targeted to start with a 2-node configuration, consume disks/drives in more traditional RAID model, enabling 2x fault domains even in a 2-node cluster. e.g. internal disk resiliency through software or hardware RAID, alongside the cross-node resiliency of the synchronous mirroring (replication factor 2) of the virtual disks.

This results in SvHCI or SvSAN nodes tolerating an indivdual drive failure, be it SSD or HDD.

SvHCI and SvSAN also have a Storage Failed mechanism detailed below:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/10068071108509-SvHCI-SvSAN-Storage-Failed-Target-Recovery

This article is intended for administrators wishing to upload a guest OS installer ISO, or a converted RAW disk .img file, to an SvHCI node.

Scenario

This document will detail the upload of an ISO image file into SvHCI via the webGUI.

A converted VMDK/VHD to a RAW disk img can also be uploaded per the below:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18861134490653-VM-disk-VMDK-VHD-Copy-Conversion-Import-of-a-Linux-guest-from-VMware-to-SvHCI

First browse to an SvHCI node management IP address or hostname, and select Virtual Machine from the left hand menu.

Select Upload Disk Image

Select Choose File and browse to the ISO to upload.

Ensure to select the correct storage pool on each node.

Select Upload and observe the upload take place

On completion browse to a different page, and attach this ISO to a virtual machine (VM).

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This article is intended for administrators wishing to utilize SvHCI 2.1.0 to import VMware Virtual Machines across into SvHCI

• Summary
• Required Firewall Ports
• Windows VM import
• Trigger box Configuration and setup
• Command Parameters
• Help Syntax
• Example Command
• Example Iterative VM Import
• Example Copy Speed

Summary

The StorMagic SvHCI VM import utility essentially consists of an engine within the SvHCI node that is triggered to import a VMware virtual machine from a client device via a python script.

The intent of this model is the ability to potentially trigger VM imports via a centralized automated script, with the VM import running within a remote LAN network.

The SvHCI node may be triggered to import talking to vCenter or direct to an ESXi host over any vmkernel adapter, e.g. even able to chat direct to ESXi over a faster network link, such as a direct attach cable between the nodes.

Required Firewall Ports

Windows VM import

To ensure Windows VMs import correctly please ensure they're booting from a VMware Paravirtual SCSI controller within VMware prior to import.

If they're still on LSI Logic SAS this can be modified via the below steps:

This example utilized a Guest VM Base system installed on - UEFI, LSI Logic SAS, E1000E (server 2016 template)

Base system installed - UEFI, LSI SAS, E1000E (server 2016 template)

Install VMware tools, if not already present, to install drivers (VMXNET3 and PVSCSI)

Shut down

Add a new a new SCSI controller

setting it to VMware Paravirtual (pvscsi), typically SCSI controller 1

Boot up - to ensure the drivers for the pvscsi controller are loaded into the Windows Operating System

This controller will display in Device Manager

Power Down.

Transition SCSI controller 0 from LSI Logic SAS to VMware Paravirtual

Remove the SCSI controller 1

Boot up in VMware - should boot fine, reboot to verify.

Power down.

Export to OVF, or pull the VMDK via datastore browser, or import via StorMagic SvHCI 2.1.0 import utility.

Trigger box Configuration and setup

Download and install python to your operating system of choice. The below demo's running on Windows.

Ensure to select the highlighted py launcher

Ensure to add Python to the environment variables

Command Parameters

Help Syntax

PS C:\VM-Import> python .\vm_import.py -h
usage: vm_import.py [-h] [--defaults DEFAULTS] [--hostname HOSTNAME] [--password PASSWORD]
                    [--vsphere-hostname VSPHERE_HOSTNAME] [--vsphere-username VSPHERE_USERNAME]
                    [--vsphere-password VSPHERE_PASSWORD] [--vm-name VM_NAME] [--pool POOL]
                    [--remote-pool REMOTE_POOL]

Script to process VM import operation with vCenter / vSphere host.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --defaults DEFAULTS   Path to defaults file (key=value per line)
  --hostname HOSTNAME   Hostname of the target system
  --password PASSWORD   Password for authentication
  --vsphere-hostname VSPHERE_HOSTNAME
                        vSphere server address
  --vsphere-username VSPHERE_USERNAME
                        Password for vSphere authentication
  --vsphere-password VSPHERE_PASSWORD
                        Password for vSphere authentication
  --vm-name VM_NAME     Name of the virtual machine
  --pool POOL           Name of the pool on the local system
  --remote-pool REMOTE_POOL
                        Name of the storage pool on the remote system (adds VM protection)
c:\VM-Import>

Example Command

Note in the below example the python client cannot route to the VMware node on vmkernel port 192.168.1.2. However the SvHCI node can, over a back end network.

c:\VM-Import> python .\vm_import.py --vsphere-hostname="192.168.1.2" --vsphere-username="root" --vsphere-password="St0rMag1c!" --hostname="10.10.130.3" --password="St0rMag1c!" --pool="pool" --vm-name="WindowsVM"

Example Iterative VM Import

vm_list = ['GuestVM1', 'GuestVM2', 'GuestVM3', 'GuestVM4', 'GuestVM5']
  

for vm in vm_list

    python C:\Users\markc\Desktop\vm-import\vm_import.py --vsphere-hostname="192.168.1.2" --vsphere-username="root" --vsphere-password="St0rMag1c!" --hostname="10.10.130.3" --password="St0rMag1c!" --pool="pool" --vm-name=(vm)

Example Copy Speed

The copy speed will be impacted by many factors including network bandwidth, contention, storage read and write speed etc.

As an example we have observed a customer importing a 500GB VM (4x disks) over 10Gb networking in ~4hours 14minutes.

The system will run 10x imports concurrently. e.g. with a vm_list of 11 VMs, 10 will stream across, and GuestVM11 will start when 1x out of the 10 finishes.

Streaming multiple VMs across may also improve import speed.

• https://stormagic.com/doc/svhci/2-1-0/en/Content/SvHCI/vm-import.htm

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This article is intended for administrators wishing to know which virtual hardware to select when utilizing different guest operating systems on top of StorMagic SvHCI.

• Supported Operating Systems and recommended virtual hardware
• Boot Firmware
• CPU
• Virtual Storage Controller
• Virtual Network Adapter
• Technical Services Validated Operating systems with virtual hardware
• Installing storage drivers for Windows guests

Supported Operating Systems and recommended virtual hardware

StorMagic SvHCI offers a fully certified supported guest operating system list per the below URL:

https://stormagic.com/doc/svhci/2-3-1/en/Introduction/guest-os.htm

The below tables detail out the recommended virtual hardware choices for each OS to deliver best performance and drivers built-in vs needing to added to the guest Operating System. e.g. out of the box support rather than needing to add drivers separately.

Note legacy BIOS vs UEFI being preferred for certain operating systems. This is relating to certain backup vendor agents to work correctly.

Boot Firmware

CPU

Virtual Storage Controller

Virtual Network Adapter

Technical Services Validated Operating systems with virtual hardware

Installing storage drivers for Windows guests

In cases where Windows does not included the required storage driver you will need to install them manually during the Windows setup for the disk(s) to be visible.

For PVSCSI you need the VMware Guest Tools ISO.

For VirtIO you need the windows virtio drivers ISO.

1. Login to the SvHCI Web GUI, edit the Windows guest, and attach the driver ISO using Add CDROM.
   Note: You can also attach the ISO at VM creation if deploying a new VM

   Add CDROM for driver ISO

   
2. Click Apply to attach the ISO to the VM.
3. Boot the VM to the Windows installer.
4. Choose a Custom install of Windows.
5. Select Load driver and select the path to the driver for your version of Windows.
6. The disks will now be visible and the Windows setup can be completed as usual.

Example driver paths:

• PVSCSI storage drivers path on VMware Guest Tools ISO for Windows 10

  D:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\Drivers\pvscsi\Win10\amd64\

• Virtio storage drivers path on Virtio ISO for Windows 2022

  D:\vioscsi\2k22\amd64\

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This article is intended for administrators wishing to understand how SvHCI manages Guest VM vCPU, and memory assigment/usage.

Scenario

This document will detail how SvHCI divides actual hardware into virtual harwdare to be provisioned to guest VMs.

pCPU/vCPU

SvHCI allows the total available vCPUs in the node to be provisioned to each guestVM.

SvHCI 2.x.x has a limit of clustered 50 VMs.

On the below systems:

25VMs each with 16vCPUs assigned = 24:1 ratio

16VMs with 1vCPU asisgned = 1:1 ratio

16VMs with 2vCPUs assigned = 4:1 ratio

The below SvHCI Node has 1x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU D-1548 @ 2.00GHz

Cores: 8 Threads: 16

Each VM can have a maximum of 16vCPUs assiged:

Or alternatively:

The below SvHCI Node has 1x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E-2314 @ 2.80GHz

Cores: 4 Threads: 4

Each VM can have a maximum of 4vCPUs assigned:

Or alternatively:

The below SvHCI Node has 1x AMD EPYC 9224 24-Core Processor

Cores: 24 Threads: 48

Each VM can have a maximum of 48vCPUs assigned:

Memory

SvHCI hard reserves guest VM RAM, such that if a SvHCI node had 64GB RAM, guest VMs could be created with over this amount on the node however only up to 64GB RAM provisioned may be powered on concurrently.

e.g. 64GB RAM available in the node

17 VMs (guestVM1 - GuestVM17) each with 4GB RAM assigned and created on the system powered on

GuestVM1 - GuestVM16 would power on, however GuestVM17 would block

Disk

In SvHCI 2.x.x each VM can have 8 virtual disks

VM disk capacity is hard provisioned.

Thin provisioning is not supported.

Network

In SvHCI 2.x.x each VM can have 4 virtual NICs

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This article is intended for administrators wishing to create a Linux VM on SvHCI.

Scenario

This document will detail the configuration of a Linux VM on top of StorMagic HCI.

Having uploaded an installation ISO image per:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18860950861469-SvHCI-ISO-or-RAW-Disk-img-Upload

Select the Virtual Machine section from the left menu

Define the desired VM config regarding

Name,

Protected (Highly available)

Preferred host and other host

Memory

CPUs

Keyboard Map

Select to Add a CDROM and select the desired, previously uploaded, operating system ISO installer file.

Select to add a virtual NIC, and select the port group to attach/connect the NIC to.

Select to add a virtual disk. This will be mirrored between the nodes, and contain the Guest VM file system. Ensure to select the correct pool/s.

With the VM defined select Apply to create the VM.

The VM will now display under the Virtual Machines menu

May be powered on.

And the Operating System installed.

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This article is intended for administrators wishing to creation and configure a Windows Virtual Machine on SvHCI.

Scenario

This document will detail the creation and configuration of a Windows Guest OS VM on StorMagic SvHCI.

First upload your Windows ISO into SvHCI

Next upload the virtIO driver ISO into SvHCI per the below:

https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso

Create the Windows Guest with both ISOs attached per the below:

Power on, booting the Windows installer ISO, and start the install

The disk will not be visible, by default, as Windows needs a Driver.

Select Load driver.

Select Browse

Browse to the attached virt IO ISO selecting vioscsi and 2k22 per the below:

Select Next:

The driver will now load/install

And the disk will now be visible

Proceed with the Windows installation as normal.

QEMU Guest tools

This article is intended for administrators wishing to understand the benefits that QEMU tools brings and how to install these into a Windows Guest Virtual Machine on SvHCI

• What is the virtio ISO
• What are QEMU Tools
• How to install the agent

What is the virtio ISO

QEMU KVM drives for virtualized hardware such as VIRTIO storage controller and network adapters may downloaded from the below URL:

https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/archive-virtio/

These enable Windows to use this Linux KVM virtualized hardware, providing best performance, however requires driver add during install per the below guide:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18860994242077-SvHCI-Windows-VM-Creation

What are QEMU Tools

QEMU guest tools, primarily the QEMU Guest Agent (QGA), are software installed inside a virtual machine (VM) that enable deeper communication and control between the VM (guest) and the virtualization host (hypervisor). They allow for crucial functions like consistent snapshots (by freezing filesystems), graceful shutdowns/reboots, live migration, displaying guest IP addresses, and better resource monitoring, significantly improving management and stability beyond basic hardware emulation.

How to install the agent

With the VirtIO driver ISO mounted to your WIndows guest Virtual Machine:

And the Virtual Machine powered on and booted, browse file explorer and run the executable:

Accept the license agreement:

This will enable the installation of various drivers and recommended software components to improve performance

Finsh the install and restart the operating system

These will then show in Add/Remove programs to be managed like any other program

PCI Device Warning

PCI device warning:

Select to update the Device Driver

Select the virtio-win ISO from previously

The warning against the device will now be removed:

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This section demonstrates how to validate SvHCI cluster functionality including Live Migration, High Availability behaviour, and guest VM failover.

This article is intended for administrators wishing to configure and validate SvHCI node virtual networking for NIC teaming, port group configuration, and potential micro-segmentation or VLAN tagging within an SvHCI cluster.

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Overview

SvHCI High Availability (HA) enables automatic restart of protected guest VMs on the surviving cluster node in the event of a host failure.

Before validating HA functionality, ensure an SvHCI cluster has already been created using the StorMagic lightweight witness.

Cluster configuration documentation:

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/sections/18777732563997-StorMagic-SvHCI

Ensure both hosts have sufficient resources available to allow VMs to fail over or live migrate between nodes.

Reference documentation for VM migration:

Virtual Machine (VM) Live Migrate

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Validate Cluster Health

Before performing migration or failover testing complete a cluster health check.

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/26133857400989-SvHCI-Health-Check

Open the SvHCI web interface and confirm both hosts appear healthy and clustered.

Create several guest VMs for testing. In this example the virtual machines are initially running on host2.

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Test 1 — Guest VM Live Migration

SvHCI allows protected virtual machines to be migrated live between cluster nodes.

Migration traffic uses TCP port 5093 and travels over network interfaces flagged as Mirror Preferred.

SvHCI will migrate up to 4 virtual machines concurrently. Additional migrations may be queued.

From the Virtual Machines page select the Migrate action for the VM.

During migration the Tasks pane will display migration progress and status.

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Test 2 — Guest VM Failover

To validate High Availability behaviour, simulate a host failure.

Start a continuous ping to the guest VM to monitor connectivity during the test.

Power off host1 using the system management interface (iLO / iDRAC / CIMC / IPMI / XCC).

Observe the failover process from the surviving host within the SvHCI Web GUI.

Once restarted on the surviving host, the guest VM should resume responding to ping and be accessible via console, VNC, or RDP.

Typical SvHCI VM failover time is under 30 seconds.

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This article is intended for administrators wishing to understand and test failure scenario tolerances of StorMagic SvHCI in a 2-node configuration with the sharable witness.

Introduction

This Evaluator’s Guide describes how to perform SvHCI failure testing and benchmarking using an example hardware, and SvHCI configuration.

The first section describes configuring and deploying the infrastructure, including:

• SvHCI hosts, clusters
• Configuring the hardware
• Deploying SvHCI
• Configuring the virtual networking
• Clustering the systems with a witness
• Creating a test VM
• Configuring SvHCI event notifications

The next sections describe various failure scenarios. Each scenario checks that systems are configured correctly to provide the highest levels of redundancy where possible and to understand the expected outcomes of each instance. These are organized into two categories: lights on and lights off:

'lights on' – in single failure scenarios, VMs remain running due to resiliency and redundancy designed into the system.
‘lights off’ – in dual failure scenarios, such as both hosts losing power, VMs go offline ('lights off').
There is a section outlining how to set up SvSAN data encryption with StorMagic SvKMS key management, followed by various data encryption failure scenarios.

There are performance benchmarking sections: one for a system that does not utilize SSD or memory caching, and one for testing performance with caching.

Finally, there is a section on troubleshooting, and one for how to roll back the system if required.

StorMagic Support may be contacted at support@stormagic.com or at our support suite at http://support.stormagic.com.

Infrastructure configuration and deployment

The example below uses HPE DL325 Gen11 systems:

Model: ProLiant DL325 Gen11

- 1x AMD EPYC 9224 2.5GHz 24-core 200W Processor for HPE

--Logical Processors: 48

- 8x32GB RAM = 256GB RAM (DDR4)

- Hypervisor + VSA

-- HPE NS204i-u Gen11 NVMe Hot Plug Boot Optimized Storage Device

- SAN Storage

-- HPE MR216i-o Gen11 x16 Lanes without Cache OCP SPDM Storage Controller

--- 5x HPE 1.92TB SATA 6G Read Intensive SFF BC Multi Vendor SSD

Install SvHCI - https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18858860181917-SvHCI-Installation

Complete the first boot wizard - https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18860442155549-SvHCI-First-Boot-Wizard

Configure the virtual networking - https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18860678011293-SvHCI-Configure-networking

Deploy a Witness - https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/4418754965777-StorMagic-SvHCI-SvSAN-Witness-Deploy-Install-Upgrade-and-Migrate

Create the Cluster - https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18860768070557-SvHCI-Cluster-Creation

Create the Storage Pool - https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18860841823389-SvHCI-SvSAN-Configure-a-Storage-Pool

Create a 5x Benchmark Ubuntu VMs - https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18860989386781-SvHCI-Linux-Guest-VM-Creation

- Each with a boot disk a around 100GB of benchmark disk space

Video Resources

The below Webinar overviews some of the below scenarios live:

Hardware failure (HA Failover)

WAN Drop (witness connectivity failure)

Storage Failure

Cluster down

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‘Lights on’ failure scenarios

This section details different failure scenarios that may occur in a production environment. Each scenario checks that systems are configured correctly to provide the highest levels of redundancy where possible and to understand the expected outcomes of each instance. In the case of single failures, resiliency and redundancy is designed into the system such that the guest VMs remain running or complete a HA/FT failover (‘lights on’).

‘Lights off’ failure scenarios

This section details different failure scenarios that may occur in a production environment. Each scenario checks that systems are configured correctly to provide the highest levels of redundancy where possible and to understand the expected outcomes of each instance. In the case of dual failures, such as both hosts losing power, guest VMs are offline ('lights off').

Data Encryption and StorMagic SvKMS

If you have SvHCI/SvSAN Data Encryption (separately licensed), you may also wish to consider evaluating the feature.

SvHCI/SvSAN Data Encryption can be used with SvKMS, the KMIP-compliant key management solution from StorMagic. However, various third party key management solutions are also supported, which may be used instead of SvKMS, and integration guides for these are provided.

See the data encryption topic in the manual Data encryption for how to configure and use the feature.

Once configured, test that you can:

• encrypt your VM disks/storage volumes presented by SvHCI/SvSAN
• rekey your VM disks/storage volumes presented by SvHCI/SvSAN

SvHCI/SvSAN VSAs request new encryption keys from the key server with which to encrypt the storage. You can do this using either the VSA web GUI or StorMagic PowerShell Toolkit.

The SvHCI/SvSAN VSAs will continue to present the storage, without disruption, while rekeying in the background. Continue to the next two sections to test failure scenarios when using SvHCI/SvSAN data encryption with StorMagic SvKMS.

* or other key management provider

'Lights off' failure scenarios with encryption

This section details different failure scenarios that may occur in a production environment. when using SvSAN data encryption with SvKMS key server (any other supported key server may be used). In the case of dual failures, such as both hosts losing power, guest VMs are offline ('lights off').

Performance Benchmarking

This task describes how to measure the performance of the evaluation environment. A test tool called FIO will measure IOps, MBps and response times of the system using simulated workloads. FIO is open-source software available to download from https://fio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/fio_doc.html

1. Create Ubuntu guest VMs with an operating system (OS) disk and a benchmark disk

2. Install FIO

3. Run desired benchmarks

The example DL325 Gen11 system demo demonstrates 5x Ubuntu guest VMs performing 4k random reads at 32 queue depths, each running 4 jobs, concurrently

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This step validates that the SvHCI cluster is healthy before performing any maintenance operations. These checks ensure the cluster is operating normally and that virtual machines can safely migrate between nodes before taking a host offline.

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Before each step of maintenance please perform the following checks:

1. Check SvHCI Status is Normal

This can be done by either logging into the SvHCI Web GUI or by checking the Host Console. The system status is visible on the home page of the GUI or the main screen of the host console.

SvHCI Host Console:

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2. Confirm Both Hosts are Cluster Members

Verify both nodes are present within the cluster configuration.

This can be checked in the Initiators tab of the SvHCI Web GUI on each node.

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3. Verify Targets and Images are Synchronized

Ensure all targets and storage images are synchronized and that the witness service is online.

This can be checked in the SvHCI Web GUI under the Targets section.

Confirm the Storage Information and Witness columns indicate healthy synchronized status.

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4. Verify Cluster Networking is Enabled

Ensure cluster networking interfaces are operational and showing a status of Enabled.

Additional documentation:

SvHCI – Configure Networking

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5. Check Storage Health

Verify the storage subsystem is healthy and operational.

Confirm the following components are online:

• Storage devices
• Pool disks
• Targets
• Images

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Once the cluster health checks confirm normal operation, staggered maintenance can safely proceed using virtual machine live migration followed by node shutdown.

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See Also

https://stormagic.com/manual/

SvHCI / SvSAN Reporting, Notifications and Alerts

This article is intended for administrators wishing to configure data-at-rest encryption utilizing a Key Management Server, in this example StorMagic SvKMS, with SvHCI for target/disk encryption.

SvHCI supports encryption of storage volumes through integration with the StorMagic key management system.

When encryption is enabled, all storage data written to disk is encrypted using keys managed by the key management service.

Administrators should ensure that the key management system is highly available and backed up appropriately.

By default SvKMS certificates are valid for a period of 1 year from the time of issue.

It is recommended to have notifications configured on your SvHCI environment in the form of email (SMTP), SNMP, Syslog or similar to ensure to be notified in advance of an expiring certificate.

https://stormagic.com/doc/svsan/6-3-P1/en/Content/events.htm?Highlight=notifications

You can find how to set these up in the following KB article

VSA event reporting via SMTP

Downloading the New Certificate

To renew a certificate with the default (1 year) time period, log into the SvKMS Web Portal, selecting Users.

Select AuthCertificate on the intended user, that is the certificate in use on your SvSAN cluster.

Select Generate New. This will download a new certificate from your browser.

Deploying the New Certificate to SvHCI

Log into SvHCI Web GUI, and select the System tab and click Key Management Servers in the action panel on the left side.

Select the Key Management Server in use, if any existing are present, if not create a new KMS.

Click Edit in the action panel on the left side, if one was already present on the system.

Click Clear on both the Certificate entry and Private Key entry, if any were present.

Select Choose file on either the Certificate entry or the Private Key entry.

Select the new, previously downloaded, certificate file from your download folder.

Click Apply.

The certificate will now been uploaded/renewed with the KMS showing connected, and the SvHCI node in a green Healthy status.

Encryption Options

There are 2 options for encryption:

• Create the encrypted target/disk and then attach to a VM at creation. The benefit being that the target/disk starts encrypted and no background encrypt is needed.

• Create the VM, then browse to targets/disks and encrypt the disk. Note: this causes a background encrypt that may take a long time on a large disk.

See Also

• https://stormagic.com/manual/
• https://stormagic.com/doc/svkms/svkms_2.6.1/Content/Integrations/SvSAN/svsan_integration.htm
• Importing a certificate for use with SvKMS valid for over 1 year
• VSA event reporting via SMTP
• SvSAN Reporting

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• SvHCI Help Section.
• StorMagic SvHCI Technical Manual.

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