Now, in this post. I’m going to talk about Storage in SCVMM 2012 SP1 and also how to build a Windows 2012 File server to connect with SCVMM.
One thing I’m very sure about Microsoft is they must love Onions. Because a SCVMM 2012 combining with Windows File server 2012 is like a huge onion which has many layers.
With embedded VHD technology, Microsoft deployed one layer after another layer of VHD which makes me worried because VHD can be corrupted. What would happen if one of VHD layers corrupted and you will loss all data on top of this layer? Or shall we wait for Windows 2012 R2 which may use VHDX instead of VHD?
Anyway, with no further ado, let’s cut Onion open.
Following is the diagram of File storage I used in my lab.
Let me walk you through with this diagram first so you will have better understand instead of lossing yourself in a million picture of wizard.
Layer 1(Physical Disks):
Target: File Server
Let’s start with physical disk layer on physical Host.
Windows 2012 File server has 3 physical disk. 2 x RAID 1 for 0S which only 70GB. 1 900GB disk with Raid 0.
Let’s see a screenshot from File server
Layer 2 (Storage Pool):
Target: File Server
With Windows File server 2012, You can build a storage pool which we call it VMMlib01
Layer 3(Virtual Disks):
Target: File Server
Now, we build a virtual Disk on top of Storage Pool.
Since this is my File server, I have built number of Virtual disks (the virtual disk concept equals normal physical disk back in Win2k8). I have built 2 quorum disks size are 1GB for VMM cluster, and Hyper-v cluster.
VHD50, Virtual Disk 01 and VHD200 are my test virtual disks to store VMs.
for test purpose, I have setup both Fixed and thin disks.
Layer 4 (Volumes):
Target: File Server
Same thing as volume in old OS. You will give drive label to each volume.
I have create each volume for each virtual disk. Those disks will be shared via iSCSI.
Layer 5(Storage Pool):
Target: VMM server
In the VMM, there are multiple ways to import storage into VMM library. With same target host (like File server here), only one way of connection will be accepted.
For example, if I choose to use SMB share to connect to File server, then I can’t use iSCSI to connect in VMM.
You can choose to use simple SMB 3.0 share, but then you will loss lots of storage function.
If you choose using FC/iSCSI as storage, you will be able to define your storage as different classification. You may want to put fast storage pools into gold classification and slow storage to Silver or Brown.
The storage Pool you will find here is same thing as volume from File Server.
Layer 6 (Logical Unit)
Target: VMM Server
This logical Unit is created base on Storage Pool in VMM server. You can choose use some part of space to assign to Host group (Not cluster) and reserve some logical Units for future.
Layer 7 (Clustered Share Volume)
Target: VMM Server –> Hyper-v Cluster
Believe it or not, once you assign Logical Unit to Host group and it doesn’t mean your hyper-v Cluster is going to use it. From Cluster point of View, it just got available space.
You need to convert it to Cluster shared Volume
Now, if you switch to Hyper-v cluster, you will see your shared volume is there.
To be continued …..
