Marathon Computer FTvirtual Server, IBM BladeCenter User Manual
Marathon Technologies FTvirtual
Server
Installing and Configuring a Fault-Tolerant Windows
TM
and IBM BladeCenter
Environment for Mission Critical Applications
TM
Marathon Technologies Corporation
www.marathontechnologies.com
888.682.1142
Notices
Marathon Technologies Corporation reserves the right to make
improvements to this guide and the product it describes at any
time and without further notice.
Copyright
© Marathon Technologies Corporation. 1996-2005. All rights
reserved.
This guide is copyrighted, and all rights are reserved. No part of
this guide or the products it describes may be reproduced by any
means or in any form, without prior consent in writing from
Marathon Technologies Corporation.
Printed in the U.S.A.
U.S. Patent Numbers: 5,600,784; 5,615,403; 5,787,485;
5,790,397; 5,896,523; 5,956,474; 5,983,371; 6,038,685;
6,205,565; and 6,728,898.
European Patent Numbers: EP0974912; EP0731945;
EP0993633; EP0986784; and EP1000397.
Other patents pending.
Software Copyright Notice
The software described in this document is covered by the
following copyright:
© Marathon Technologies Corporation. 1996-2005.
Trademark Notice
Endurance, Marathon Assured Availability, Marathon
FTvirtual Server, and the Marathon logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Marathon Technologies Corporation in the United States and/or other
countries.
Microsoft, MS-DOS, and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/
or other countries.
IBM eServer BladeCenter and IBM are registered trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
All other brands and product names are trademarks of
their respective companies or organizations.
Software Revision
The revision of the software that this document supports is
Revision 6.1.1.
This section describes the technical changes made in
this edition of the Marathon Technologies FTvirtual Serv-
TM
and IBM eServer BladeCenter
er
Environment for Mission Critical Windows Applications
application note. Minor changes and editorial corrections
may also be included that are not identified.
TM
- A Fault-Tolerant
Summary of changes
Summary of changes for
Marathon Technologies FTvirtual Server and IBM
TM
eServer BladeCenter
for Mission Critical Windows
as created or modified on 9/2/05.
September 2005, First Edition
1.0.0
- A Fault-Tolerant Environment
Contents
Contents
Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Copyright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Software Copyright Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Trademark Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Software Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Summary of changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
September 2005, First Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iv
CHAPTER 1 Introduction
Fault-Tolerant Computing for Mission Critical Windows Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Trend Toward Blades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Mission-Critical Blades: The Need For Fault Tolerance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Marathon FTvirtual Server - Fault-Tolerance Through Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER 2 Planning and Preparation
Planning the Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
FTvirtual Server Boot Disk Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Network Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
CoServer and Switchbay Network Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Figure - Sample BladeCenter Network Adapter Switchbay Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Network Adapter Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Table - 4 NIC Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Table - 3 NIC Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Table - 3 NIC Alternate Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Table - 2 NIC Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Preparing to Install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
BladeCenter Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
FTvirtual Server and Blade Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Identifying Network Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Mapping the Switchbays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Table - Adapter PCI-to-Switchbay Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
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Contents
CHAPTER 3 Installing the Endurance Software
Major Installation Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Windows Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Installing Windows on the CoServers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Event Log Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Disk Partitioning and Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Installing the FTvirtual Server Boot Disk on a Physical Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Installing Endurance Software on the CoServers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Before You Begin the Software Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
CoServer 1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Starting the Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Specify the Location of the Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Configure the Network using the Endurance Network Setup Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Table - Suggested CoServer1 CLink IP Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
CoServer 2 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Table - Suggested CoServer2 CLink IP Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Installing Windows on and Configuring the FTvirtual Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Select CoServer Devices for FTvirtual Server Use and Configure the FTvirtual Server Disk . 34
Install Windows on the FTvirtual Server Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Finish the Windows Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Install the Endurance FTvirtual Server Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Specify the Location of the Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Finish the FTvirtual Server Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Verifying the FTvirtual Server Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
What to do Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2 Marathon Technologies Corporation
CHAPTER 1 Introduction
This chapter discusses the key advantages of IBM BladeCenter and Marathon Technologies FTvirtual Server and how they combine to create a truly
fault-tolerant environment for mission critical Windows applications.
Fault-Tolerant Computing for Mission Critical Windows Applications
The Trend Toward Blades
Blade configurations like the IBM BladeCenter have become popular
because they provide several key advantages over conventional pedestal
or rack-mounted servers. These advantages include:
• Flexibility and Ease of Installation
Because blades get their electrical power and network interconnections
from the chassis, adding processing power to an existing chassis is as
simple as inserting the blade and configuring its software and network
address. No additional cabling or electrical power connections are
required.
• Ease of Management
System management tools like the IBM Director permit hundreds of
blade servers to be maintained remotely through use of a single graphical console. This tool provides a common management view across
multiple servers in a chassis and enables a smaller IT staff to manage
the same number of servers.
Marathon Technologies Corporation 1
Introduction
• Reduced Floor Space Usage in the Data Center
Modular design reduces cost through more efficient use of valuable floor
space. The increased density can significantly reduce the space requirements in a data center.
• Reduced Cost of Power and Cooling
Blades servers integrate resources and share key components. Since
blades in a chassis share common power supplies, power is distributed
more efficiently and less heat is generated for a given amount of processing power.
• Increased Reliability and Availability
Since the BladeCenter may be configured with redundant hot-swap
power supplies and built-in network switches, it effectively eliminates
several key single points of failure and provides greater system availability than conventional rack-mount servers. The BladeCenter also
reduces down-time due to server failure by making replacement of a
failed server easy.
Mission-Critical Blades: The Need For Fault Tolerance
As enterprises move more compute load to blade servers, blades are
becoming increasingly mission-critical. Because downtime has significant
associated costs - lost sales, decreased customer satisfaction, lost productivity - the need for a simple, affordable way to keep blades running continuously is becoming urgent. Four trends are converging to further increase
the need for continuously available blades:
• Improved server density and server consolidation increases the
potential risk to business operations in the event of downtime by
“putting all your eggs in one basket”
• Increasingly stringent regulations require data retention and avail-
ability
• More threats to security and physical systems
• Increasing complexity of enterprise infrastructure, and impact of
system downtime
2 Marathon Technologies Corporation
Marathon FTvirtual Server - Fault-Tolerance Through Software
To address the need for continuous availability of mission-critical applications, Marathon Technologies has designed its FTvirtual Server software to
work with blade server configurations as well as traditional servers.
Marathon software harnesses the redundancy provided by two BladeCenter
servers to create a true, fault- tolerant environment for Windows applications.This is accomplished by loading the Marathon software on any two
blade servers and interconnecting them via the BladeCenter’s integrated
chassis switching matrix. The Marathon software synchronizes the two
servers and creates a virtual application environment that runs on both
servers simultaneously. If either server in the connected pair fails, the application environment continues to function uninterrupted, using the processing power of the other. Unlike typical clustering technologies which require
seconds or even minutes to “fail-over” application processing and may
incure data loss, there is no failover with Marathon software, so there is no
downtime.
The result is a truely fault-tolerant Windows environment for BladeCenter
configurations. Enterprises get all the cost savings and operational efficiencies of the BladeCenter while protecting their business-critical Windows
applications and data, even in the event of a blade failure.
Conclusion
Blade servers are helping companies save money and increase efficiency
and flexibility in their data centers. However, without adequate fault protection, these benefits are soon lost in the event of downtime. Marathon’s
FTvirtual Server software delivers a simple, affordable way to protect important applications and data running on IBM eServer BladeCenter configurations.
Marathon Technologies Corporation 3
Introduction
4 Marathon Technologies Corporation
CHAPTER 2 Planning and Preparation
This chapter describes BladeCenter features and options, key design concepts, and basic configuration guidelines you should be aware of before
beginning to install and setup a BladeCenter FTvirtual Server.
Planning the Installation
Before starting the Endurance software installation you should consider
several major configuration related issues, which will effect the overall operation and capability of your FTvirtual Servers.
FTvirtual Server Boot Disk Options
The Endurance software allows the FTvirtual Server boot disk to be
installed on either a separate physical disk or as a Virtual disk. If your blade
configuration is limited to a single on-board physical disk you will need to
use a Virtual boot disk for the FTvirtual Server. A virtual boot disk allows
you to share a single physical disk as both the CoServer and the FTvirtual
Server Windows boot disk. Disk space is allocated to a file on the CoServer
disk. The content of the file is then formatted, partitioned, and used as the
FTvirtual Server boot disk.
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Planning and Preparation
Network Environment
The optimal FTvirtual Server configuration uses 4 network adapters per
blade to support CoServer communications and client access links critical
to applications. These links provide the mechanisms and transport for redirected network I/O, FTvirtual Server communications and fault management activities.
When using the optimal network configuration, two of the adapters in each
blade will support CoServer Links (CSLink) 1 and 2, which are primarily
used for disk mirroring and memory synchonization operations. A third
adapter in each blade is used for CoServer out-of-band remote administration and SNMP management activities. The fourth serves as a redirected
network link permitting the FTvirtual Server to satisfy client and application
I/O requests.
CoServer and Switchbay Network Connections
A sample BladeCenter network map depicting the connections for two
FTvirtual Server configurations (FTv1 and FTv3) is shown in Figure 1. This
configuration demonstrates the optimal BladeCenter FTvirtual Server configuration, maximizing server fault-tolerance and network availability.
It should be mentioned that although each switchbay is internally interconnected with each slot of the BladeCenter chassis, these additional connections have been left out of the diagram for the sake of simplicity.
Note that in this 4 NIC configuration switchbays 1 and 2 provide dedicated
CSLink 1 and CSLink 2 switching capability for each of the FTv CoServers.
These connections are made internally to the BladeServer chassis and
none of the external ports available on these two switches are used for
external connections.
Switchbays 3 and 4 are configured for FTvirtual Server Redirected and
Management use. The four external ports available on these switches are
used to connect the FTvirtual Server/s to the public network.
6 Marathon Technologies Corporation
FIGURE 1.
FTv1 CoServer 1
PCI 1:0:0 NIC
PCI 1:0:1 NIC
PCI 2:2:1 NIC
PCI 2:2:0 NIC
FTv1 CoServer 2
PCI 1:0:0 NIC
PCI 1:0:1 NIC
PCI 2:2:1 NIC
PCI 2:2:0 NIC
Sample BladeCenter Network Adapter Switchbay Map
Switch Bay 1
CSLink 1 connections only
No external connections
Switch Bay 2
CSLink 2 connections only
No external connections
FTv2 CoServer 1
FTv2 CoServer 2
FTv3 CoServer 1
PCI 1:0:0 NIC
PCI 1:0:1 NIC
PCI 2:2:1 NIC
PCI 2:2:0 NIC
FTv3 CoServer 2
PCI 1:0 :0 NIC
PCI 1:0 :1 NIC
PCI 2:2 :1 NIC
PCI 2:2 :0 NIC
Switch Bay 3
Redirec ted for CoServ er 1
Management for CoSer ver 2
Switch Bay 4
Redirec ted for CoServ er 2
Management for CoSer ver 1
Blade Bays 1, 5, 9 are assumed to contain CoServer 1
Blade Bays 3, 7, 11 are assumed to contain CoServer 2
Blade Bay pairs 1 & 3, 5 & 7, 9 & 11 each make an Endurance system
To
Network
To
Network
Marathon Technologies Corporation 7
Planning and Preparation
Network Adapter Configurations
Depending upon your specific switchbay and blade on-board device configuration, it is possible that fewer than 4 adapters will be available for use.
When planning a BladeCenter network configuration your primary concern
should be to maximize the availability of the redirected network links and
minimize utilization of external networks by the CoServer links.
To maximize the availability of the redirected links, different switches
should be used to connect the CoServers to the external network. To minimize utilization of the external network by the CoServer links, both CoServers should use the same internal switch for a CSLink connection. Routing a
CSLink connection through the same switch will confine all associated traffic to that switch. Several recommended network configurations using 4, 3,
and 2 network adapters are shown in the following tables.
TABLE 1. 4 NIC Configuration
Function CoServer 1 CoServer 2 Comment
CSLink 1 Switchbay 1 Switchbay 1 Internal Bandwidth
CSLink 2 Switchbay 2 Switchbay 2 Internal Bandwidth
Redirected Switchbay 3 Switchbay 4 Redundant External Connection
Manage Switchbay 4 Switchbay 3 Redundant External Connection
TABLE 2.
Function CoServer 1 CoServer 2 Comment
CSLink 1 Switchbay 1 Switchbay 1 Internal Bandwidth
Redirected Switchbay 2 Switchbay 3 Redundant External Connection
CSLink 2 Switchbay 3 Switchbay 2 Exposed network utilization
TABLE 3.
Function CoServer 1 CoServer 2 Comment
CSLink 1 Switchbay 1 Switchbay 1 Internal Bandwidth
Redirected Switchbay 2 Switchbay 3 Redundant External Connection
Manage Switchbay 3 Switchbay 2 Redundant External Connection
3 NIC Configuration
3 NIC Alternate Configuration
8 Marathon Technologies Corporation
Requires network routed IP
addresss
TABLE 4. 2 NIC Configuration
Function CoServer 1 CoServer 2 Comment
CSLink 1 Switchbay 1 Switchbay 2 Exposed network utilization.
Redirected Switchbay 2 Switchbay 1 Redundant External Connection
Requires network routed IP
address.
For More Information
For more information on setting-up network configurations, Virtual boot
disks and other preparation issues consult the following resources located
on your Marathon software distribution CD-ROM:
• Administrator’s Guide
• Upgrading Endurance Software
• Configuration and Installation Guide
Marathon Technologies Corporation 9
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