ODX Speed Up VHDX Creation Times On Windows Server 2012 (R2)

Some technlogies you just need to see in action instead of reading about it. I have posted a video on Vimeo that shows ODX in action on Windows Server 2012 R2 and a DELL Compellent SAN running Storage Center 6.3.10 firmware that supports UNMAP & ODX. Watch the video here or on Vimeo itself for a better experience. It’s a rerun of the demo scripts used in my TechNet Belux Live Meeting of this week.

We demonstrate the amazing speeds at which we can create VHDX files on both a traditional clustered disk and a Cluster Shared Volume. If you have ever tried to create a lot of fixed VHD/VHDX files, especially larger one, then you really need to check out ODX and its potential. If you have a SAN or think about acquiring one make sure you get this feature and be sure that it works as advertised.

I hope you enjoy it and inspires you to look where you can leverage this technology in your own environments.

Windows Server 2012 R2 Unmap, ODX On A Dell Compellent SAN Demo

UNMAP & ODX Video

Some things are easier to show using a video so have a look at a video on UNMAP/ODX used with Windows Server 2012 R2 and Compellent SAN:

You can also go directly to the Vimeo page by clicking on the below screen shotimage

We start out with a 10.5TB large thinly provisioned LUN that has about 203GB of space in use on the SAN. So the LUN on the SAN might be 10.5TB and windows sees a volume that is 10.5TB only the effective data stored consumes storage space on the SAN. That ought to demonstrate the principle of thin provisioning adequately Smile. The nice PowerShell counter is made possible via the Compellent PowerShell Command Set.

We then copy 42GB worth of ISO files inside a Windows Server 2012 virtual machine from a fixed VHD to a dynamically expanding VDHX. Those are nice speeds. And look at how the size of the VHDX file grows on the CSV volume and how the space used on the SAN is growing. That’s because the LUN is thinly provisioned.

Secondly we copy the same ISO files to a fixed size VHDX. Again, some really nice speeds. As the VHDX is fixed in size you do not see it grow. When looking at the little SAN counter however we do see that the thinly provisioned LUN is using more storage capacity.

Once that is done we see that the total space consumed on the SAN for that CSV LUN has risen to 284GB. We then delete the data from both dynamically expanding VHDX and are about to run the Optimize-Volume command when we notice that the SAN has already reclaimed the space. So we don’t run the optimize command. Keep that in mind. By the way, this process is done as part of standard maintenance (defrag) and some NTFS check pointing mechanism that’s run every 5 minutes and sends down the info from the virtual layer to the physical layer to the SAN. During demo’s it’s kind of boring to sit around and wait for it to happen Smile. Just remember that in real life it’s a zero touch feature, you don’t need to baby sit it.

We then also delete the ISO files from the fixed VHDX and run Optimize-Volume G –Retrim and as result you see the space reclaimed on the SAN. As this is a fixed disk the size of the VDHX will not change. But what about the dynamically expanding VHDX? Well you need to shut it down for that. But hey, nothing happens. So we fire it up again and do run Optimize-Volume H –Retrim before shutting it down again and voila.

So what do you need for this?

Rest assured. You don’t need the most high end, most expensive, complex and proprietary SAN hardware to get this done. What you need is good software (firmware) on quality commodity hardware and you’re golden. If any SAN vendor wants to charge you a license fee for ODX/UNMAP just throw them out. If they don’t even offer it walk away from them and just use storage spaces. There are better alternatives than overpriced SANs lacking features.

I’ve found that systems like Equalogic & Compellent are in the sweet point for 90 % of their markets based on price versus capabilities and features.  Let’s look at the a Compellent for example. For all practical intend this SAN runs on commodity hardware. It’s servers & disk bays. SAS to the storage & FC, iSCSI or SMB/NFS for access. With capable hardware the magic is in the software. Make no mistake about it, commodity hardware when done right, is very, very capable. You don’t need a special proprietary hardware & processors unless for some specialized nice markets. And if you think you do, what about buying commodity hardware anyway at 50% of the cost and replacing it with the latest of the greatest commodity hardware after 4 years and still come out on top cost wise whilst beating the crap out of that now 4 year old ASIC and reaping the benefits of a new capabilities the technology evolutions offers? Things move fast and you can’t predict the future anyway.

Fixing A Little Quirk In Dell Compellent Replay Manager

If you’re running a DELL Compellent SAN you’re probably familiar with Replay Manager. It’s Compellent’s solution to take VSS based (and as such application consistent) snapshots.image

When you’re running Replay Manager you might run into the following issue when trying to access a host.image

Every time, you access a host for the first time after opening Replay Manager you’ll be prompted for your password, even if you select Remember my password. You don’t need to retype it so that’s fine, but you do need to click it.

In the system log you’ll see the below error logged.image

Log Name:      System
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Security-Kerberos
Date:          7/08/2013 9:55:43
Event ID:      4
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      replayserver.test.lab
Description:
The Kerberos client received a KRB_AP_ERR_MODIFIED error from the server replaymanagerservice. The target name used was HTTP/myhost.test.lab. This indicates that the target server failed to decrypt the ticket provided by the client. This can occur when the target server principal name (SPN) is registered on an account other than the account the target service is using. Ensure that the target SPN is only registered on the account used by the server. This error can also happen if the target service account password is different than what is configured on the Kerberos Key Distribution Center for that target service. Ensure that the service on the server and the KDC are both configured to use the same password. If the server name is not fully qualified, and the target domain (TEST.LAB) is different from the client domain (TEST.LAB), check if there are identically named server accounts in these two domains, or use the fully-qualified name to identify the server.

Well, this a rather well know issue in the Microsoft world. Take a look here IIS 7+ Kerberos authentication failure: KRB_AP_ERR_MODIFIED. Browse to the possible causes & solutions. You’ll find this situation right in there. So what we do is execute the following command to register the correct SPN for the host or hosts on the Replay Manager service account:

SetSPN -a HTTP/myhost.test.lab TESTreplaymanagerservice

Do note to run this from an elevated command prompt using a account with sufficient AD permissions in AD. You’ll now no longer have to click on the username/password prompt and get rid of that error.

You can verify if the SPB for your hosts exists on your Replay Manager Service account by running:

SetSPN -l  TESTreplaymanagerservice

If this is the biggest issue you’ll ever have with a hardware snapshot service & hardware provider you know you’ve got a good solution.

Upgrading Your DELL Compellent Storage Center Firmware (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of this blog. You’ll find Part 1 over here.

In part 1 we prepared our Compellent SAN to be ready and install Storage Center 6.3.10 that has gone public.  As said, 6.3.10 brings interesting features like ODX and UNMAP to us Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V users. It also introduces some very nice improvements to synchronous replication and Live Volumes. But here we’ll just do the actual upgrade, the preparations & health check have been done in part 1 so we can get started here right away.

Log in to your Compellent system and navigate to the Storage Management menu. Click on “System”, select Update and finally click on “Install Update”.  It’s already there as we downloaded it in Part 1. Click on “Install Now” to kick it all off.

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Click on Install now to launch the upgrade.

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After initialization you can walk away for 10 minutes but you might want to keep an eye on things and the progress of the process.

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So go have a look at your storage center. Look at the Alert Monitor for example and notice that the “System is undergoing maintenance”.

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When the controller the VIP address of the SAN reboots it becomes unavailable. After a while you can login again to the other controller via the VIP, if you cant’ wait a few seconds just use the IP address of the active controller. That will do.

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When you log in again you’ll see the evidence of an ongoing SAN firmware upgrade. Nothing to panic about.image

This is also evident in Alert Monitor. CoPilot knows you’re doing the upgrade so no unexpected calls to make sure your system is OK will come in. They’re there every step of the way. The cool thing is that is the very first SAN we ever owned that we don’t need engineers on site or complex and expensive procedure to do all this. It’s all just part of an outstanding customer service Compellent & DELL deliver.image

You can also take a peak at your Enterprise manager software to see paths going down and so on. The artifacts of a sequential controller failovers during an upgrade. Mind you you’re not suffering downtime in most cases.image

Just be patient and keep an eye on the process. When you log in again after the firmware upgrade and your system is up and running again, you’ll be asked to rebalance the ports & IO load between the controllers on the system. You do, so click yes.image

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When done you’ll return to the Storage Center interface. Navigate to “Help”" and click on About Compellent Storage Center. image

You can see that both controllers are running 6.3.10.

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You’re rocking the new firmware. As you kept an eye on your hosts you should know these are good to go. Send of an e-mail to CoPilot support and they’ll run a complete health check on your system to make sure you’re good to go. Now it’s time to start leveraging the new capabilities you just got.