Deploying Block Storage for Private Cloud with Microsoft® SCVMM 2012 SP1 & Dell EqualLogic Storage
This blog post was originally written by Sean Crawford and Michael Schroeder.
Comments are welcome! To suggest a topic or make other comments, contact WinServerBlogs@dell.com.
Introduction
Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 introduces support for the Storage Management Provider (SMP) for supported Dell EqualLogic™ PS Series Arrays. The Storage Management Provider allows you to easily create and assign logical unit numbers (LUNs) from your arrays to your Hyper-V hosts or clusters from within the SCVMM console. This optimizes storage provisioning for your private cloud solutions and lowers the complexity for increasing or decreasing storage capacity. This blog walks through an installation using SMP with Windows Server® 2012 on Dell™ PowerEdge™ Servers and EqualLogic™ PS Series Storage.
Dell EqualLogic Host Integration Tools installation highlighting the SMP feature-:
Walkthrough Prerequisites
Host
- A Windows Server® 2012supportedPowerEdge™ Server
- Installation of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 with SP1
- Dell EqualLogic Host Integration Tools for Microsoft® version 4.5
Storage
- Dell EqualLogic PS Series Firmware v5.0 and later
SCVMM Host Configuration
1. Install the Dell Host Integration Tools 4.5 on your SCVMM server (requires reboot).
2. Open the iSCSI Initiator and add the group IP as a discovery portal.
3. Start the Virtual Machine Manager Command Shell from the Start Screen.
4. Next you will need to import the EqualLogic PowerShell Tools by using the following command:
Import-Module –Name “C:\Program Files\EqualLogic\bin\EQLPSTools.dll”
5. Then we’ll need to import the storage provider to allow VMM to see the group. This is done via the following command:
Import-SCStorageProvider
6. Now open the Remote Setup Wizard from the Start Screen.
7. At the following screen, select Configure MPIO Settings.
8. On the MPIO screen, exclude the non iSCSI subnets from MPIO then click Save.
9. Select the PS Group Access Tab on the Left, then select your SCVMM host from the center pane. Once the host is selected, choose PowerShell/SMP under PS Group Access and fill in your Group IP, then your Group Username and Password then SAVE.
SCVMM Console Configuration
10. Open SCVMM and select the Fabric workspace. Under Storage, click Providers then verify you see the Dell EqualLogic Storage Provider in the center pane.
11. Right-click on Arrays then click Add Storage Devices.
12. Select Add a storage device that is managed by an SMP provider then click next.
13. In the Provider drop down box select your array.
14. On the next screen, the array should be discovered once the Scan completes, click next.
15. Select the desired pools you want to allow SCVMM to manage and assign a Classification. Storage classifications help you to assign meaningful descriptions to the storage pools in your datacenter. For example, you could create different classifications for pools based on the underlying storage drive type (SATA, SAS or SSD) or RAID level configured.
16. Here you can create your Classifications by clicking the Create Classification button. They can be renamed at a later time.
Summary
Storage is one of the key building blocks for establishing your fabric for private cloud solutions with System Center Virtual Machine Manager. The Storage Management Provider (SMP) by Dell EqualLogic and the Windows Storage Management API (SMAPI) in Windows Server® 2012 helps integrate storage management capabilities into the SCVMM console for improved infrastructure management to enable you to create and assign your datacenter storage resources more efficiently.
Additional Resources:
EqualLogic Support Site for HIT Kits and Firmware