Openfiler project

As part of the lab rebuild, I am setting up an Openfiler box.


Some features I am using:
  1. iSCSI block-level storage with path redundancy
  2. FC block-level storage
  3. Block-level replication (potentially have a 2nd host)
As I've been setting it up, I'm realizing that it uses LVM for storage which is kinda nice as it dovetails into what I've learned from the clusters at work.  Also realized that fiber channel has way more curb appeal than iSCSI.  I've not had a chance to integrate the FC switch yet, but that's on the list.  What I have done is document (thanks to the internet and some testing) the steps involved in setting up/giving new access to the target and new servers.  For the price, I'd say you can't go wrong with this setup for a home lab.
  • Openfiler has a 4-port FC card ($80 per card)
  • Each ESXi server has a 2-port FC card ($40/per card)
  • FC cables from monoprice ($10/each)
Now, the motherboards I am using in the ESXi servers do not have PCI-X slots, but being bus-limited to 133MB/s is probably the least of my worries.  The Openfiler box has 133mhz PCI-X (~1050MB/s) slots, so no loss there.  The alternative would be to use iSCSI MPIO, but I'm still limited to PCI slot speeds, as the other two slots on the ESXi boards are still PCI (two Intel PRO1000 dual port cards).

At any rate, I am running both FC and iSCSI from the Openfiler (SAS over FC, SATA over iSCSI), so there are two methods of accessing VMFS datastores.

The wiki has been updated with my install documentation - more to come......

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning through failure - a keyboard creation journey

Image
tl;dr Built a custom keyboard cuz I have weirdo nerve pain issues.   Learned a lot cuz I failed a lot.   Maybe 'do it right the first time' is a bad frame of mind.   The keyboard ended up being kinda nifty.   It has lights, and a trackball, and QMK, and it helps my issues.   \o/ ( tl;dr is internet lingo that means, too long; didn't read ) Pain as a key ingredient An old proverb says, 'necessity is the mother of invention', and that is how this story begins. Over the last few years, age or stress or something has caught up with me and I developed the need to change my human-to-computer interface.  Mousing changed to trackballing.  The traditional keyboard was swapped out for an ergonomic, and then split keyboard.  Complicated multi-finger-and-hand key combinations were replaced by single keypress macros.  And yet more was still needed. It's often said that change only happens with pain - indeed, the organizations many...
Read more

Learning Opportunities - Watching/listening list

Over the last year I've spent a lot of time learning (thank you, long commute & lunch hours).  Many topics ranging from Chef to DevOps to architecture concepts to management concepts and everything in between.  Why have I done this? DevOps Demystified with Ben Rockwood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5E--QSBVBY DevOps at ancestry.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF5ya0q53kk Those two presentations were key in sending me down this road.  First, and most important, was Mr. Rockwood's explanation as to the real 'why', and the point behind DevOps from an operational perspective.  Second, and no less important but for a different reason, the continuous delivery system at ancestry.com really made it real to me because they are a 'Windows shop'.  So much of what I'd been reading about Chef/config mgmt. relied on amazing tools (see the error there?) only available to the Linux world.  Suddenly here's this guy telling me that it's possible...
Read more

DFSR - eventid 4312 - replication just won't work

This warning isn't documented that well on the googles, so here's some google fodder: You are trying to set up replication for a DFS folder (no existing replication) Source server is 2008R2, 'branch office' server is 2012R2 (I'm moving all our infra to 2012R2) You have no issues getting replication configured You see the DFSR folders get created on the other end, but nothing stages Finally you get EventID 4312: The DFS Replication service failed to get folder information when walking the file system on a journal wrap or loss recovery due to repeated sharing violations encountered on a folder. The service cannot replicate the folder and files in that folder until the sharing violation is resolved.    Additional Information:  Folder: F:\Users$\user.name\Desktop\Random Folder Name\  Replicated Folder Root: F:\Users$  File ID: {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}-v0  Replicated Folder Name: Users  Replicated Folder ID: 33F0449D...
Read more