iSCSI and switch high availibility

Hi
Could you advice me if this configuration will work?
I want to use 4xDL380 G5 (as Hyper-V hosts and clustering) with 2xNIC on
each (working in team) for iSCSI network. Servers are connected to two
switches DELL PowerConnect 2724. Every NIC from team plugged to different
switch. I’m going to use DELL MD3000i with two controllers (4 ports)
connected to the some switches. Everything to eliminate single point of
failure (NICs and Switches).
I wonder if these switches will work correctly. I found examples of similar
configuration on DELL webpage but with PowerConnect 5000 which is 10 times
more expensive. I don’t want to spend money for something which is not
useful.
Could you tell me if it will work? Maybe some additional advices about this
configuration? Is any better solution?
And just in case (I know we can’t use teaming for Hyper-V) maybe someone
found solution for high availability for public Hyper-V network similar like
for iSCSI network?
Best Regards

Teaming is probably not a good idea around Hyper-V at this point. Last I
heard here, it was creating issues.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Piotr" <Piotr@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:03587C5D-C800-4CBF-B522-7A9EECCFDE17@microsoft.com...
> Hi
> Could you advice me if this configuration will work?
> I want to use 4xDL380 G5 (as Hyper-V hosts and clustering) with 2xNIC on
> each (working in team) for iSCSI network. Servers are connected to two
> switches DELL PowerConnect 2724. Every NIC from team plugged to different
> switch. I’m going to use DELL MD3000i with two controllers (4 ports)
> connected to the some switches. Everything to eliminate single point of
> failure (NICs and Switches).
> I wonder if these switches will work correctly. I found examples of
> similar
> configuration on DELL webpage but with PowerConnect 5000 which is 10 times
> more expensive. I don’t want to spend money for something which is not
> useful.
> Could you tell me if it will work? Maybe some additional advices about
> this
> configuration? Is any better solution?
> And just in case (I know we can’t use teaming for Hyper-V) maybe someone
> found solution for high availability for public Hyper-V network similar
> like
> for iSCSI network?
> Best Regards
>

Many thanks for your reply.

I noticed that teaming cause some problems with Hyper-V (I wasn’t able to
find another solution to provide high availability for Hyper-V network – any
ideas? I wonder especially about switch).
However I’m going to use teaming for iSCSI network. Do you think it will
cause problems as well?


"Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:

> Teaming is probably not a good idea around Hyper-V at this point. Last I
> heard here, it was creating issues.
>
> --
> Charlie.
> http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
>
> "Piotr" <Piotr@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:03587C5D-C800-4CBF-B522-7A9EECCFDE17@microsoft.com...
> > Hi
> > Could you advice me if this configuration will work?
> > I want to use 4xDL380 G5 (as Hyper-V hosts and clustering) with 2xNIC on
> > each (working in team) for iSCSI network. Servers are connected to two
> > switches DELL PowerConnect 2724. Every NIC from team plugged to different
> > switch. I’m going to use DELL MD3000i with two controllers (4 ports)
> > connected to the some switches. Everything to eliminate single point of
> > failure (NICs and Switches).
> > I wonder if these switches will work correctly. I found examples of
> > similar
> > configuration on DELL webpage but with PowerConnect 5000 which is 10 times
> > more expensive. I don’t want to spend money for something which is not
> > useful.
> > Could you tell me if it will work? Maybe some additional advices about
> > this
> > configuration? Is any better solution?
> > And just in case (I know we can’t use teaming for Hyper-V) maybe someone
> > found solution for high availability for public Hyper-V network similar
> > like
> > for iSCSI network?
> > Best Regards
> >
>
>

Teaming for iSCSI is not supported

Multiple NIC's and having MPIO in combination with the iSCSI initiator using
multiple paths is supported
see iSCSI product documentation for information.



rgds,
Edwin.



"Piotr" <Piotr@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:03587C5D-C800-4CBF-B522-7A9EECCFDE17@microsoft.com...
> Hi
> Could you advice me if this configuration will work?
> I want to use 4xDL380 G5 (as Hyper-V hosts and clustering) with 2xNIC on
> each (working in team) for iSCSI network. Servers are connected to two
> switches DELL PowerConnect 2724. Every NIC from team plugged to different
> switch. I'm going to use DELL MD3000i with two controllers (4 ports)
> connected to the some switches. Everything to eliminate single point of
> failure (NICs and Switches).
> I wonder if these switches will work correctly. I found examples of
similar
> configuration on DELL webpage but with PowerConnect 5000 which is 10 times
> more expensive. I don't want to spend money for something which is not
> useful.
> Could you tell me if it will work? Maybe some additional advices about
this
> configuration? Is any better solution?
> And just in case (I know we can't use teaming for Hyper-V) maybe someone
> found solution for high availability for public Hyper-V network similar
like
> for iSCSI network?
> Best Regards
>

Many thanks for your reply

So MPIO will provide iSCSI network redundancy. Heart Beat network is also
not support in NIC teaming. But in this case I can use two NIC in different
subnets.
But what about Hyper-V? How I can provide fail over for guests? Any idea?

Best Regards

You can't, currently, provide automatic failover. But, that being said, make
sure you have iLO (or equivalent) access to the host, and it's fairly
trivial to have a second NIC sitting on the subnet, disabled, and in the
(frankly unlikely) event that a NIC goes down, disable the bad one and
enable the good one. You'll still have some reconfiguration to do of child
partitions, but the actual requirements to do that aren't hard and could be
scripted. Especially if you've preconfigured your Hyper-V network, just
haven't connected anything to it.

Honestly, I haven't had a server grade NIC go belly up in years and years.
Power supplies, hard disks, even motherboards. But I simply can't remember
when I've had a good, server grade NIC die. (I tend to buy Intel Server
NICs, usually two port.)

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Piotr" <Piotr@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:21BAAA42-3247-4C8E-99F5-6A56FD2C4CCA@microsoft.com...
> Many thanks for your reply
>
> So MPIO will provide iSCSI network redundancy. Heart Beat network is also
> not support in NIC teaming. But in this case I can use two NIC in
> different
> subnets.
> But what about Hyper-V? How I can provide fail over for guests? Any idea?
>
> Best Regards
>

Hi Piotr,

My understanding is that you should use Clustering for HA in resources.
Perhaps this link could help you
http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/arc...1/8628515.aspx

Regards!
Antonio Soto

"Piotr" <Piotr@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:21BAAA42-3247-4C8E-99F5-6A56FD2C4CCA@microsoft.com...
> Many thanks for your reply
>
> So MPIO will provide iSCSI network redundancy. Heart Beat network is also
> not support in NIC teaming. But in this case I can use two NIC in
> different
> subnets.
> But what about Hyper-V? How I can provide fail over for guests? Any idea?
>
> Best Regards
>

Many thanks for yours help. Now I just knnow there is no way to provide
authomatic failover for Hyper-V guests NICs. It is not good news for me but I
have clarity.
Thanks again and have a good weekend.