Virtual
Machine Manager 2012 SP1 | Adding a SMB3.0 File Share to your Hyper-V Cluster
It`s been a long time since I`ve blogged detailed about Virtual Machine Manager.
I am a
virtualization dude by heart, and I have spent most of the time on Hyper-V in
Windows Server 2012 lately, and the rest of the components in System Center
2012.
But as
we`re getting close to release of System Center 2012 SP1 (I guess, since
Windows Server 2012 was announced to be RTM the first week in August today at
WPC), it`s time to dive into the details once again.
Since there`s some major new features and changes in Windows Server 2012, and most of it is very tightly to the Hypervisor, we will see Virtual Machine Manager adopt these asap.
Today,
we`ll take a look at the SMB3.0 protocol, and how it`s being used by VMM to
create flexible Fabric solutions.
SMB3.0
So what
exactly is SMB3.0?
Server Message Block protocol operates as an application
layer network protocol, for providing shared access to serial ports, printers
and files. You have most likely been using this protocol for decades in your
network. One of the good things with SMB3.0 in Windows Server 2012 is that you
can now run virtual machines and SQL user databases from a SMB3.0 file share.
Needless
to say, this will create some new options for your private cloud to host VMs.
And when
we add Multi-channel and RDMA to the table, this will actually be able to scale
out beyond traditional datacenter
implementations.
To be
able to scale out a SMB3.0 share, you would need a Failover Cluster with the
SMB Scale Out File Server role. I will blog more about this in the future, but
as an easy overview, the Hyper-V hosts will access the SMB share on the
cluster, using every possible network route. This will also introduce us to
something called CA – Continuous Availability
– meaning no downtime for your VHDs.
Scale-Out
File Server is designed to provide scale-out file shares for server applications.
Benefits of using Scale-Out File Server in
Windows Server 2012:
Increased
bandwidth by using the total bandwidth of all cluster nodes in the Scale-Out
File Server Cluster. You`ll notice this during cluster creation when you add
the Scale-Out File Server role, that you don’t assign an IP address to the
cluster. You only define the subnet. This means that every possible route to
the cluster will be used for maximum performance, and is quite simple, cheap
and easy to scale out by adding more routes/servers/NIC`s.
This
leads to the term “Active-Active file shares” since all nodes in the Scale-Out
File Server Cluster can accept and serve SMB client requests, also known as
Continuous Availability since this provides transparent failover during planned
– and unplanned downtime.
Scale-Out
File Server role is built upon Clustered Shared Volumes, meaning that you
create your file shares on a CSV. This will also give some of the other new
benefits like CHKDSK with zero downtime on your CSV (this is independent of the
Scale-Out File Server role), without any impact on your applications. Another
neat feature is the CSV cache for increased performance in your virtual
environment, especially for VDI scenarios.
To summarize
a bit before we focus on Virtual Machine Manager, we can recommend using
Scale-Out File Server for the ability to scale in an easy, reliable, cost
effective and reliable manner. It`s not recommended to use this role for
workloads that generates a lot of metadata operations such as typical
information workers. Think of it this way: If you have a large datacenter
running many many many virtualization hosts and you would have to purchase a
large volume of new virtualization
hosts to respond to business requirements, and you`re using a FC SAN as
storage. You would have to buy additional HBA ports for every single new host,
increasing the cost additionally. If you had a SMB Scale-Out File Server
Cluster, you would only need the HBA ports on these nodes, and could connect your
virtualization hosts to the cluster using 10GBe.
You can
easily set this up by using Failover Cluster Manager or Server Manager today,
and point the locations for your VHD`s to be on this share in Hyper-V Manager,
Failover Cluster Manager and Powershell.
But we
will also need a solution on the management side. This is where Virtual Machine
Manager comes handy.
A couple of important things to notice prior to
adding your SMB share to your Hyper-V servers/clusters:
· We recommend that you use a dedicated file server.
· For SMB 3.0 files shares to work correctly with VMM, the file
server must not be a Hyper-V host. This also applies to a highly available file
server. Do not add the file server (stand-alone or cluster) as a managed host
in VMM.
· The file share must not be added as a VMM library share.
· The VMM service account must have local administrative permissions on
the file server where the SMB 3.0 share resides. You must assign these
permissions outside of VMM.
· If you used a domain account for the VMM service account, add the domain
account to the local Administrators group on the file server.
· If you used the local system account for the VMM service account, add
the computer account for the VMM management server to the local Administrators
group on the file server. For example, for a VMM management server that is
named VMMServer01, add the computer account VMMServer01$.
· Any host or host cluster that will access the SMB 3.0 file share
must have been added to VMM by using a Run As account. VMM automatically uses
this Run As account to access the SMB 3.0 file share.
Adding a SMB3.0 File Share to your Hyper-V
Cluster
Navigate
to your Fabric workspace in VMM and right click the Hyper-V Cluster you`d like
to use a SMB3.0 File Share, and click properties.
Click ‘File
Share Storage’, Add and type in the UNC path to your SMB share.
Once
this is done, you should be able to specify the SMB share as the location for
your VMs during creation.
You can
also perform this task by using Powershell:
Example:
$hostCluster = Get-SCVMHostCluster
-Name "hvcluster.private.cloud"
Register-SCStorageFileShare -FileSharePath
"\\smboslo\smb" -VMHostCluster $hostCluster
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