Build Your Own ESX Lab (Part 3)

Posted: 07-04-2009 | Author: Steve | Category: How-To's | No comments

Configuring Openfiler’s iSCSI Functionality

 

iSCSI is an IP based storage networking standard for linking hosts to storage devices (iSCSI Targets), developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). By carrying standard SCSI commands over IP networks, iSCSI is used to facilitate data transfers over standard gigbit Ethernet networks. The iSCSI protocol is among the key technologies driving the rapid development of  low cost storage area network (SAN) devices by increasing the capabilities and performance of storage data transmission.

Given that most users will not have access to fibre channel based SAN hardware in their ESX labs we will be utilising Openfiler’s iSCSI functionality and the  inbuilt software based iSCSI initiator functionality in ESX 3.5 to create the shared storage needed for us to explore HA and DRS.  To configure Openfiler we need to complete the following steps.

 

  • Enable iSCSI Target Server Service
  • Configure Block Device (Disk) for use
  • Create a volume group and a logical volume
  • Create a new iSCSI target
  • Configure network access and ACL’s for our initiators

 

Let’s make start by logging onto the OpenFiler server. Point a browser to the IP address of the openfiler server not forgetting to use HTTPS and the openfiler default admin port of 446.

 

HTTP://<IP address of Openfiler>:446

 

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Build Your Own ESX Lab (Part 2)

Posted: 28-03-2009 | Author: Steve | Category: How-To's | No comments

Installing and Configuring OpenFiler

 

Openfiler is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit industry standard server hardware and can even be installed on PC class hardware. In my own ESX lab I use a Dell XPS 600 PC with two 1.5 Tb SATA drives. One thing to note though is according to the Openfiler web site future  releases of Openfiler may only support 64-bit processors therefore 64bit hardware is highly recommended for new Openfiler installations.

 

Minimum Specifications

Recommended Specifications

·         32-bit 1GHz or higher performance processor

·         512MB or higher of RAM

·         512MB disk space for memory swap area

·         1GB disk space for Openfiler OS installation

·         100MB Ethernet network interface

·         Separate storage volumes/disks for data export

·         64-bit 1.6GHz or higher performance processor

·         1GB or higher of RAM

·         1GB disk space for memory swap area

·         2GB disk space for Openfiler OS installation

·         1Gb Ethernet network interface

·         Separate storage volumes/disks for data export

·         Hardware RAID controller

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Build Your Own ESX Lab (Part 1)

Posted: 23-03-2009 | Author: Steve | Category: How-To's | No comments

 

Overview

 

Over the next few posts I’ll be taking you through how to build a small two node ESX cluster. Later on we will be using this cluster to create a number of labs  allowing you to become more familiar with a number VMware technologies, configuration techniques and products including the following to name a few:

 

  • VMotion
  • DRS
  • HA
  • Basic and Advanced Network Configurations
  • Basic and Advanced Storage Configurations
  • VCB
  • Site Recovery Manager
  • View3
  • ThinApp
  • Scripting 

 
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