Successfully Planning your iSCSI Storage Area Network (SAN)

Analyze Current Environment Servers

Server Hardware Inventory/Specs Physical and/or Virtual Hosts CPU/RAM/Bus/NICs/RAID CTRLs I/O – Maximum Network Utilization

Storage Current Storage Consumption/Rate I/O – maximum I/O Rates per Server Storage Classification – Tiers 1,2,3 Existing Storage Reutilization

Analyze Current Environment Networking

Physical Inventory/Diagrams Helpful for Storage Vendor and Internal Use

Switches Jumbo Frame/VLAN/Aggregation Support

Dedicated Storage Network Segregation with Switches or VLANs Dedicated NICs in Servers

Current Vendors/Products Virtualization, Database, File Storage Best Practices for Storage and Networking

Identify Appropriate SAN Solution Building SAN with ISCSI Software

Software/OS Requirements – CPU and Memory RAID CTRL(s)

Bus/Speed, Channels, I/O Capabilities, Scalability RAID Level and Cache Support

Storage Capacity and Tiers – Scalability Drive Type(s)/Speeds - Internal and/or Direct Attached RAID Level(s) 0,1,5,6, x+0

Memory and Cache Recommendations for RAM-Based Disk Cache RAID CTRL’d SSD

Networking 1GB, 10GB, 40GB Ethernet PCI BUS/Card Type Scalability – Available Expansion Slots

Identify Appropriate SAN Solution Additional Features to Leverage

High Availability Active/Active – Active/Passive Clustering

Data Deduplication Significantly Reduce Capacity Requirements

Auto-Tiering Move Data to Faster/Slower Drives

Thin Provisioning Expand Storage Later – Be Careful!

Snapshot Capabilities Rollback and Cloning Features

Security Considerations Disk and Packet Encryption Interface Binding

Compatibility and Potential Upgrades Certified for Use by your OS/Virtualization Vendor

Microsoft, VMware, XEN Ready Physical and Virtual Hosts

Adequate Hardware for iSCSI Support Additional CPU and RAM Workload Dedicated Storage Adapters and Capabilities

Jumbo Frame/Aggregation/TOE/RSS/Chimney Offload Supporting Bus Type and Speed

Supported Communication Methods and Considerations MPIO Policies Link Aggregation

Switch or Non-Switch Aware

Compatibility and Potential Upgrades LAN/WAN Compatibility and Upgrades

Dedicated Storage Network Equipment Physical or VLAN Segregation

1GB, 10GB, 40GB Switches Switch Fabric Capacity Jumbo Frame Support Aggregation Support Scalability

Additional Features and Required Support Deduplication – Additional RAM and CPU I/Os Active/Passive-Active/Active Storage Clustering

I/O’s – CPU/RAM/RAID CTRL/Drives Support Entire Workload from Single SAN

Snapshots – VSS for Microsoft Servers/Applications Offsite/DR Replication – Bandwidth Requirements

Best Practices and Optimization Identify all Vendor Best Practices

RAID Level, Stripe Sizes, Cache, Partitions/Formatting Dedicated, Dedicated, Dedicated!

Segregate Your Traffic Eliminate Single Points of Failure

Multiple Switches and NICs Ling Aggregation with Failover Redundant Power and UPS

Non-Routable Subnets Aggregation Causes Aggravation with Proxy ARP

Best Practices and Optimization Performance Tuning – Multiple Factors

Network Performance and Throughput to Disk RAID Type/Stripe Size/Drive Speeds Jumbo Frames, TOE/Large Send Offload, RSS, Chimney Offload One Size does not Fit All Storage Vendor Recommendations

Server/SAN Benchmark Testing Server/Platform Performance Tools I/O Subsystem Measurement Tools – Iometer

Modify Jumbo Frames and Offload Engines I/O’s Should be on NICs not CPU

Network Utilization and Latency Between 50% and 99% 1ms-5ms Latency is Ideal

Disk Utilization and Queue Lengths High Utilization and Low Queue Length Queue Length Should Not Exceed Total Spindles

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