SCVMM 2012 with Non-SMI-S Storage?
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mercredi 10 août 2011 18:44
Let me start by saying that I think it is great that Microsoft is providing advanced storage integration with SCVMM 2012 - it is a needed and useful feature.
What is absolutely disheartening however is the complete lack of support for non-SMI-S storage. For example, I have a white box SAN that was built using a 4U case with a bunch of SAS drives, Server 2008 R2, and the ISCSI Target Software. The storage configured as a CSV inside of our production cluster it just works like a champ - great speed and great reliability.
Upon installing the SCVMM 2012 Beta I noticed that I could no longer provision or migrate to / from these CSVs are they weren't recognized as manageable storage (which of course they aren't via SMI-S). Why should this matter? I am not asking SCVMM 2012 to do anything to the storage other than to move things between it - I don't need LUN creation, etc.
This worked fine in SCVMM 2008 R2 - why the change? It would seem that Microsoft would want to support both types of storage and let the user decide what they want to use.
Another option here is that it does in fact support using non-SMI-S storage as CSVs and I am just unable to figure out how to do it. Thoughts?
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mercredi 10 août 2011 23:34
you right.....if VMM 2012 supports non-SMI-S storage will be wonderful.
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jeudi 11 août 2011 12:46Modérateur
Richard; Can you explain in detail what you`re trying to do?
SCVMM 2012 will of course let you move your VMs between the nodes in the cluster, that is located on your pre-configured CSV. Even though your SAN might not support SMI-S, SCVMM will be able to create CSV for you, using the available disks in the cluster. You just need to prepare a bit, and connect them to your hosts through iSCSI for example.
If you select properties nn your Hyper-V Cluster in the SCVMM console, you should be able to see the shared volumes, and eventually avaialble storage. From the available storage, you``ll be able to create CSV.
Kristian (Virtualization and some coffee: http://kristiannese.blogspot.com ) -
samedi 13 août 2011 00:22
I am not talking about any of the functionality you mentioned. I am talking about the ability to move VMs from / to / between CSVs that are on storage that doesn't suppoert SMI-S. SCVMM 2012 doesn't recognize these CSVs as available for placement while SCVMM 2008 R2 does.
This seems like a major oversight on Microsoft's part.
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mercredi 17 août 2011 16:27
Richard,
1) I haven't tried SCVMM 2012 yet
2) like you, my iSCSI SAN doesn't support SMI-S
Let me get this straight - you are saying that the Quick Storage Migration feature, introduced in SCVMM 2008 R2, which allows you to migrate a running VM from one CSV (or more, if you have multiple VHDs) to another, doesn't work in SCVMM 2012, unless you have SMI-S capable storage? If so, I agree with you, it's a major oversight. QSM is 2008 R2s best feature, IMO! Hopefully it will come back by RTM...
cheers,
Aitor
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jeudi 18 août 2011 03:43That seems to be the case - nor can you place a new VM onto a CSV from a library nor migrate it from a server with DAS to a CSV.
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jeudi 18 août 2011 15:13It would be worth you filing a report of this on connect.microsoft.com - they *sometimes* respond to bug reports and suggestions posted there...
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mercredi 24 août 2011 22:06
This is inaccurate and likely indicates that there is some form of misconfiguration in your environment.
SCVMM 2012, as with SCVMM 2008, fully supports non-SMI-S storage. SMI-S is only used to provision and mask LUNs and if you can live without these features so can SCVMM 2012.
SMI-S has NOTHING to do with quick, live, or storage migration.
Provisioning new VMs can be done to DAS or CSV regardless of the storage being provisioned via SMI-S.
Storage Migration can easily occur between DAS and SAN storage or between two different CSV volumes regardless of the availbility of SMI-S.
FWIW - Between the time I began writing this response and the submission of this response I have performed each of the activities above to validate that they are functional as described above.
- Marqué comme réponse Richard Raseley vendredi 26 août 2011 16:10
- Non marqué comme réponse Richard Raseley lundi 26 septembre 2011 17:39
- Marqué comme réponse Richard Raseley lundi 26 septembre 2011 17:44
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vendredi 26 août 2011 16:10
Hmm... I spent quite a bit of time messing around with it and couldn't get it to recognize my CSVs as storage available for placement for storage migration or new VM creation. I guess I have to assume (as I believe you) that either there was an issue in the beta version that I had or that there was some unknown misconfiguration in my environment.
When I have the time I will get another instance installed (reverted back to 2008 R2) and have another go at it. I will mark your response as the answer for now.
Thanks!
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lundi 26 septembre 2011 17:45
Just a follow-up to say that I was, indeed, able to get this to work (migrating a VM from a stand-alone host to a cluster - placing it on a CSV as part of the migration).
Not quite sure what I had misconfigured last time.
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mercredi 14 mars 2012 18:17
Its entertaining that you award points for this answer. The original poster's issue was never directly answered. Your "not quite sure what I had misconfigured" statement is interesting, but not helpful as far as solutions go. Maybe I am the 2nd person ever to have this issue, but I doubt it. I am struggling with HOW to attach to a CSV in VMM2012. VMM is actually installed on one of 3 HyperV host servers. The servers are clustered, attached to an EMC fibre channel SAN. This test environment that I am working in is NOT going to be given direct (SMI-S)access to the corporate SAN, so I need to be able(I think) to work within VMM with the CSV.
I have found several posts here and in other places that say "its easy!" but NOT ONE that makes even a feeble attempt to explain how.
I apologize here and now if this is too pissy, but I am deeply frustrated at this point.
- Modifié JeffofTulsa mercredi 14 mars 2012 18:19
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mercredi 14 mars 2012 18:32
Since my (fairly useless) contribution to this thread, I have tried out the RC. I've had a few issues with it, in fact I will probably nuke it and start again, but I'm not having the OP's CSV issue.
Can I create CSVs using SCVMM: no
If I create a CSV on the Hyper-V cluster, is it recognised by SCVMM: yes
Can I create new VHDs on the CSV and attach them to existing VMs: yes
Can I use QSM to migrate VMs to/from CSVs: yes, well I could until recently, but now when clicking on browse button I get a .Net runtime errorAlthough I'm having problems with QSM, migrating a VM from one node to the other at the same time as changing storage locations generally works OK.
And I can live with creating CSVs outside of SCVMM.
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mercredi 14 mars 2012 19:56
It is a bit pissy, but I understand your frustration.
Many (most?) IT organizations have one group that handles all SAN Fabric and Array configuration while another handles server, enclosure, and OS configuration. (Of course some large organizations may brake these down into even more groups.) In such cases, as yours appears to be, the organization that owns SCVMM does not own or have rights to the storage fabric. In such a scenario, and please correct me if I am wrong, you as part of the "server/OS administration" team need to request LUNs from the "storage" team. In this scenario, the SCVMM2012 fabric *will not* be configured with any Storage Providers.
So let me walk through this scenario and see if I can bring some amount of clarity.
Organizational process:
- Request is made to Storage team for new 500GB LUN for a pre-existing trio of Hyper-V hosts configured as a cluster
- Storage team creates LUN and masks LUN to allow access by all three Hyper-V hosts.
- Storage team notifies Server/OS team of LUN availability.
SCVMM2012 process (from the GUI):
- Refresh cluster configuration (right-click on cluster and refresh) and wait for the job to complete.
- Edit properties of cluster.
- View Available Storage.
- Add available storage.
- Enable new LUN and configure Partition Style, File System, Volume Label, and Quick Format option then click OK.
- Click OK to close the Properties and wait for the job to complete.
- Edit properties of cluster.
- View Available Storage.
- Select the volume you created and click Convert to CSV.
- Click OK and wait for the job to complete.
So there is my feeble attempt to provide you with 10 "easy" steps to accomplish your goal.
Hopefully your urinary issues will now dissipate.
PS Can I have some more points now? ;=)
- Proposé comme réponse Aric Bernard jeudi 15 mars 2012 15:42
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mercredi 14 mars 2012 19:57BTW - I wrote the instructions as I executed them, so I know they are valid.
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mardi 17 avril 2012 14:38Do you know how we can add an existing CSV? We installed SCVMM to manage an existing cluster, so our CSV is already created. With the CSV being the only option selected as available for placement, it errors out any time we try and create a new VM. Can you validate if we can use an existing CSV, or if we have to create a new CSV via new Storage?
-Justin Jackson
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mercredi 24 octobre 2012 17:07I have had the same problem in my lab. VMM 2012 fails to create the hyper v clusters and points to the storage being an issue. However Failover Cluster creates the cluster and CSV just fine BUT VMM 2012 won't deploy any high available VMs. Is there any software SCSI provider that supports SMI-S that I can run in the VM? I am simply wanting a lab to build could and tinker so you can see how I don't want to spend a bunch of $$ on storage.
- Modifié Bryan Heath mercredi 24 octobre 2012 17:08
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mercredi 24 octobre 2012 17:20
Bryan,
Starwind is working on a SMI-S provider but I'm not sure what the status of it is: http://www.starwindsoftware.com/forums/beta-f17/starwind-smi-and-integrations-with-scvmm-2012-t2739.html
Starwind is a software iSCSI target that runs on Windows, runs fine as a hyper-v VM. They have a free edition which should be fine for lab use; the paid editions have features like synchronous replication for high availability.
I'm not using SCVMM at the moment, but I had no problems with creating/managing VMs on an existing CSV when I tried it with the RTM bits.
cheers,
Aitor
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lundi 5 novembre 2012 17:25
This is defiantly specific to VMM 2012. I have no problems with CSV and HyperV. However I want to use VMM 2012 for templates and so on. I can't seem to get VMM to work with my scale out SMB or CSV. I am not sure if there is a way to provision the storage permissions differently or not. I've added VMMSA and VMM server full control of the cluster and scale out shares and it still can't create templates on the storage. Nor can I create the Cluster from scratch. I am going to try a storage pool within the failover cluster and see if that makes any difference. Otherwise I will try the beta you mentioned above.
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mercredi 7 novembre 2012 16:53
Ok gang good news. The Scale out file server share is now working on VMM 2012 SP1 beta for me!! I noticed I was on the CTP 2 so I decided to reinstall VMM. I will try using the VMM 2012 deployment to a hyperv cluster. This is progress. Thanks for being so helpful :)
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