ISCSI loopback on 2012 R2?

Hey guys,
I'm running 2012 R2, and I would love the option to mount a iSCSI target on the iSCSI server itself.
I think the loopback is the best way to go but can't find any information about that.
Greets
With Windows Server 2012 (even w/o R2) this is a supported configuration. See:
Introduction of iSCSI Target in Windows Server 2012
http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2012/05/21/introduction-of-iscsi-target-in-windows-server-2012.aspx
Loopback: There
are cases where you want to run the initiator and Target on the same machine; it is referred as “loopback”. In Windows Server 2012, it is a supported configuration. In loopback configuration, you can provide the local machine name to the initiator for discovery,
and it will list all the Targets which the initiator can connect to. Once connected, the iSCSI virtual disk will be presented to the local machine as a new disk mounted. There will be performance impact to the IO, since it will travel through the iSCSI initiator
and Target software stack when comparing to other local IOs. One use case of this configuration is to have initiators writing data to the iSCSI virtual disk, then mount those disks on the Target server (using loopback) to check the data in read mode.
You need to understand however you cannot just mount single LU with multiple iSCSI initiators and write to it from multiple locations unless you run some sort of an distributed lock (Windows Cluster or lock manager like MetaSAN) or clustered file system
(MelioFS, SFS etc). You can read more here:
iSCSI instead of SMB
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/forums/starwind-f5/trying-clear-this-use-iscsi-instead-smb-t1392.html
If you plan to use Windows target as a shared storage for cluster then you're again out of luck: it does not do any synchronous mirroring between hosts so is pretty useless. Commercial SAN implementations from the other side can do it just fine. See:
Virtual SAN
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/native-san-for-hyper-v-free-edition
So you'll be able to cluster only two hosts w/o any other hardware with iSCSI one connection in a loopback. Like on the picture below:
Hope this helped a bit :)
StarWind VSAN [Virtual SAN] clusters Hyper-V without SAS, Fibre Channel, SMB 3.0 or iSCSI, uses Ethernet to mirror internally mounted SATA disks between hosts.

Similar Messages

Unable to use device as an iSCSI target

My intended purpose is to have iSCSI targets for a virtualbox setup at home where block devices are for the systems and existing data on a large RAID partition is exported as well. I'm able to successfully export the block files by using dd and added them as a backing-store into the targets.conf file:
include /etc/tgt/temp/*.conf
default-driver iscsi
<target iqn.2012-09.net.domain:vm.fsrv>
backing-store /srv/vm/disks/iscsi-disk-fsrv
</target>
<target iqn.2012-09.net.domain:vm.wsrv>
backing-store /srv/vm/disks/iscsi-disk-wsrv
</target>
<target iqn.2012-09.net.domain:lan.storage>
backing-store /dev/md0
</target>
but the last one with /dev/md0 only creates the controller and not the disk.
The RAID device is mounted, I don't whether or not that matters, unfortunately I can't try it being unmounted yet because it is in use. I've tried all permutations of backing-store and direct-store with md0 as well as another device (sda) with and without the partition number, all had the same result.
If anyone has been successful exporting a device (specifically a multi disk) I'd be real interested in knowing how. Also, if anyone knows how, or if it's even possible, to use a directory as the backing/direct store I'd like to know that as well, my attempts there have been unsuccessful as well.
I will preempt anyone asking why I'm not using some other technology, eg. NFS, CIFS, ZFS, etc., by saying that this is largely academic. I want to compare the performance that a virtualized file server has that receives it's content being served by both NFS and iSCSI, and the NFS part is easy.
Thanks.

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Case Resolution CSCul82285

Microsoft KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/296930
I was told this was a Microsoft problem, but the resolution would not be implemented until the next major release. Cisco has implemented a workaround via ENIC driver version 3.0.0.6 or higher. This driver has not been publicly released, but should be in the El Capitain Maintenance Release 2 (2.3.0) which is slated for around Sept. of 2014. The 3.0.0.6 driver I received from TAC has not been though Microsoft's Hardware Quality Labs so it is not signed from Microsoft as of yet. it is signed with Cisco's publicly trusted Code Signing Certificate which will prompt you to accept the validity on the first install.
I can attest that the driver does work to solve the use of both iSCSI boot and 2012 and 2012 R2 NIC Teaming. At this point, you will have to open a TAC case and your support engineer will need to contact the DEV Team to procure the updated driver.
Here is what worked for me on a 2012 Failover Clustering Hyper-V using iSCSI Boot, Software NIC Teaming, and VMFEX hypervisor bypass:
1) During installation install, use the ENIC 2.4.0.15 driver from the UCS Server Utility image.
2) During first logon, start the Microsoft iSCSI service and use the Cisco VIO install utility to custom install all options. Reboot when prompted.
3) In Device Manager, install the ENIC 3.0.0.6 driver on each Cisco VIC Ethernet network interface. You will be prompted to reboot when you replace the driver on your iSCSI interfaces. DO NOT REBOOT until you have updated the driver on all interfaces.
4) Configure your iSCSI multipath.
4) Team and configure your desired network adapters so that you can use both fabrics simultaneously for Management, Live Migration, and Fault Tolerance.
5) Setup Hyper-V and failover clustering.

Hi astroboy,
there's a property node ("Display.Primary Workspace" in LV7.1) giving you the actual screen size - you can poll this once a second...
But:
How do you want to control the resize of LabView controls/indicators? They are maintained by the LV core routines. How to plug-in your "3rd party resize functions"?
Message Edited by GerdW on 01-22-2008 09:59 AM
Best regards,
GerdW
CLAD, using 2009SP1 + LV2011SP1 + LV2014SP1 on WinXP+Win7+cRIO
Kudos are welcome

Windows 2012 Nodes - Slow CSV Performance - Need help to resolve my iSCSI issue configuration

I spent weeks going over the forums and the net for any publications and advice on how to optimize iSCSI connections and i'm about to give up. I really need some help in determining if its something i'm not configuring right or maybe its an equipment
issue.
Hardware:
2x Windows 2012 Hosts with 10 Nics (same NIC configuration) in a Failover Cluster sharing a CSV LUN.
3x NICs Teamed for Host/Live Migration (192.168.0.x)
2x NICS teamed for Hyper-V Switch 1 (192.168.0.x)
1x NIC teamed for Hyper-V Switch 2 (192.168.10.x)
4x NICs for iSCSI traffic (192.168.0.x, 192.168.10.x, 192.168.20.x 192.168.30.x)
Jumbo frames and flow control turned on all the NICs on the host. IpV6 disabled. Client for Microsoft Network, File/Printing Sharing Disabled on iSCSI NICs.
MPIO Least Queue selected. Round Robin gives me an error message saying "The parameter is incorrect. The round robin policy attempts to evenly distribute incoming requests to all processing paths. "
Netgear ReadyNas 3200
4x NICs for iSCSI traffic ((192.168.0.x, 192.168.10.x, 192.168.20.x 192.168.30.x)
Network Hardware:
Cisco 2960S managed switch - Flow control on, Spanning Tree on, Jumbo Frames at 9k - this is for the .0 subnet
Netgear unmanaged switch - Flow control on, Jumbo Frames at 9k - this is for .10 subnet
Netgear unmanaged switch - Flow control on, Jumbo Frames at 9k - this is for .20 subnet
Netgear unmanaged switch - Flow control on, Jumbo Frames at 9k - this is for .30 subnet
Host Configuration (things I tried turning on and off):
Autotuning
RSS
Chimney Offload
I have 8 VMs stored in the CSV. When try to load all 8 up at the same time, they bog down.  Each VM loads very slowly and when they eventually come up, most of the important services did not start. I have to load
them up 1 or 2 at a time. Even then the performance is nothing like if they were loading up on the Host itself (VHD stored on the host's hdd). This is what prompted me to add in more iSCSI connections to see if I can improve the VM's
performance.  Even with 4 iSCSI connections, I feel nothing has changed. The VMs still start up slowly and services do not load right. If I distribute the load with 4 VMs on Host 1 and 4 VMs on Host 2, the load up
times do not change.
As a manual test for file copy speed, I moved the cluster resources to Host 1 and copied a VM from the CSV and onto the Host.   The speed would start out around 250megs/sec and then eventually drop down to about 50/60 megs/sec. If I turn
off all iSCSI connections except one, it get the same speed. I can verify from the Windows Performance Tab under Task Manager that all the NICS are distributing traffic evenly, but something is just limiting the flow. Like what I stated on top,
I played around with autotuning, RSS and chimney offload and none of it makes a difference.
The VMs have been converted to VHDx and to fixed size. That did not help.
Is there something I'm not doing right? I am working with Netgear support and they are puzzled as well. The ReadyNas device should easily be able to handle it.
Please help! I pulled my hair out over this for the past two months and I'm about to give up and just ditch clustering all together and just run the VMs off the hosts themselves.
George

A few things...
For starters, I recommend opening a case with Microsoft support. They will be able to dig in and help you...
Turn on the CSV Cache, it will boost your performance
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/03/22/10286676.aspx
A file copy has no resemblance of the unbuffered I/O a VM does... so don't use that as a comparison, as you are comparing apples to oranges.
Do you see any I/O performance difference between the coordinator node and the non-coordinator nodes? Basically, see which node owns the cluster Physical Disk resource... measure the performance. Then move the Physical Disk resource for the
CSV volume to another node, and repeat the same measure of performance... then compare them.
Your IP addressing seems odd... you show multiple networks on 192.168.0.x and also on 192.168.10.x.   Remember that clustering only recognizes and uses 1 logical interface per IP subnet. I would triple check all your IP schemes...
to ensure they are all different logical networks.
Check you binding order
Make sure you NIC drivers and NIC firmware are updated
Make sure you don't have IPsec enabled, that will significantly impact your network performance
For the iSCSI Software Initiator, when you did your connection... make sure you didn't do a 'Quick Connect'... that will do a wildcard and connect over any network. You want to specify your dedicated iSCSI network
No idea what the performance capabilities of the ReadyNas is... this could all likely be associated with the shared storage.
What speed NIC's are you using?   I hope at least 10 GB...
Hope that helps...
Elden
Hi Elden,
2. CSV is turned on, I have 4GB dedicated from each host to it. With IOmeter running within the VMs, I do see the read speed jumped up 4-5x fold but the write speed stays the same (which according to the doc it should). But even with the read
speed that high, the VMs are not starting up quickly.
4. I do not see any difference with IO with coordinator and non coordinator nodes.
5. I'm not 100% sure what your saying about my IPs. Maybe if I list it out, you can help explain further.
Host 1 - 192.168.0.241 (Host/LM IP), Undefined IP on the 192.168.0.x network (Hyper-V Port 1), Undefined IP on the 192.168.10.x network (Hyper- V port 2), 192.168.0.220 (iSCSI 1), 192.168.10.10 (iSCSI2), 192.168.20.10(iSCSI 3), 192.168.30.10 (iSCSI 4)
The Hyper-V ports are undefined because the VMs themselves have static ips.
0.220 host NIC connects with the .231 NIC of the NAS
10.10 host NIC connects with the 10.100 NIC of the NAS
20.10 host NIC connects with the 20.100 NIC of the NAS
30.10 host NIC connects with the 30.100 NIC of the NAS
Host 2 - 192.168.0.245 (Host/LM IP), Undefined IP on the 192.168.0.x network (Hyper-V Port 1), Undefined IP on the 192.168.10.x network (Hyper- V port 2), 192.168.0.221 (iSCSI 1), 192.168.10.20 (iSCSI2), 192.168.20.20(iSCSI 3), 192.168.30.20 (iSCSI 4)
The Hyper-V ports are undefined because the VMs themselves have static ips.
0.221 host NIC connects with the .231 NIC of the NAS
10.20 host NIC connects with the 10.100 NIC of the NAS
20.20 host NIC connects with the 20.100 NIC of the NAS
30.20 host NIC connects with the 30.100 NIC of the NAS
6. Binding orders are all correct.
7. Nic drivers are all updated. Didn't check the firmware.
8. I do not know about IPSec...let me look into it.
9. I did not do quick connect, each iscsi connection is defined using a specific source ip and specific target ip.
These are all 1gigabit nics, which is the reason why I have so many NICs...otherwise there would be no reason for me to have 4 iscsi connections.

Windows Server 2012 - Hyper-V - iSCSI SAN - All Hyper-V Guests stops responding and extensive disk read/write

We have a problem with one of our deployments of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V with a 2 node cluster connected to a iSCSI SAN.
Our setup:
Hosts - Both run Windows Server 2012 Standard and are clustered.
HP ProLiant G7, 24 GB RAM, 2 teamed NIC dedicated to Virtual Machines and Management, 2 teamed NIC dedicated to iSCSI storage. - This is the primary host and normaly all VMs run on this host.
HP ProLiant G5, 20 GB RAM, 1 NIC dedicated to Virtual Machines and Management, 2 teamed NIC dedicated to iSCSI storage. - This is the secondary host that and is intended to be used in case of failure of the primary host.
We have no antivirus on the hosts and the scheduled ShadowCopy (previous version of files) is switched of.
iSCSI SAN:
QNAP NAS TS-869 Pro, 8 INTEL SSDSA2CW160G3 160 GB i a RAID 5 with a Host Spare. 2 Teamed NIC.
Switch:
DLINK DGS-1210-16 - Both the network cards of the Hosts that are dedicated to the Storage and the Storage itself are connected to the same switch and nothing else is connected to this switch.
Virtual Machines:
3 Windows Server 2012 Standard - 1 DC, 1 FileServer, 1 Application Server.
1 Windows Server 2008 Standard Exchange Server.
All VMs are using dynamic disks (as recommended by Microsoft).
Updates
We have applied the most resent updates to the Hosts, WMs and iSCSI SAN about 3 weeks ago with no change in our problem and we continually update the setup.
Normal operation
Normally this setup works just fine and we see no real difference in speed in startup, file copy and processing speed in LoB applications of this setup compared to a single host with 2 10000 RPM Disks. Normal network speed is 10-200 Mbit, but occasionally
we see speeds up to 400 Mbit/s of combined read/write for instance during file repair
Our Problem
Our problem is that for some reason all of the VMs stops responding or responds very slowly and you can for instance not send CTRL-ALT-DEL to a VM in the Hyper-V console, or for instance start task manager when already logged in.
Symptoms (i.e. this happens, or does not happen, at the same time)
I we look at resource monitor on the host then we see that there is often an extensive read from a VHDX of one of the VMs (40-60 Mbyte/s) and a combined write speed to many files in \HarddiskVolume5\System Volume Information\{<someguid and no file extension>}.
See iamge below.
The combined network speed to the iSCSI SAN is about 500-600 Mbit/s.
When this happens it is usually during and after a VSS ShadowCopy backup, but has also happens during hours where no backup should be running (i.e. during daytime when the backup has finished hours ago according to the log files). There is however
not that extensive writes to the backup file that is created on an external hard drive and this does not seem to happen during all backups (we have manually checked a few times, but it is hard to say since this error does not seem leave any traces in event
viewer).
We cannot find any indication that the VMs themself detect any problem and we see no increase of errors (for example storage related errors) in the eventlog inside the VMs.
The QNAP uses about 50% processing Power on all cores.
We see no dropped packets on the switch.
(I have split the image to save horizontal space).
Unable to recreate the problem / find definitive trigger
We have not succeeded in recreating the problem manually by, for instance, running chkdsk or defrag in VM and Hosts, copy and remove large files to VMs, running CPU and Disk intensive operations inside a VM (for instance scan and repair a database file).
Questions
Why does all VMs stop responding and why is there such intensive Read/Writes to the iSCSI SAN?
Could it be anything in our setup that cannot handle all the read/write requests? For instance the iSCSI SAN, the hosts, etc?
What can we do about this? Should we use MultiPath IO instead of NIC teaming to the SAN, limit bandwith to the SAN, etc?

Hi,
> All VMs are using dynamic disks (as recommended by Microsoft).
If this is a testing environment, it’s okay, but if this a production environment, it’s not recommended. Fixed VHDs are recommended for production instead of dynamically expanding or differencing VHDs.
Hyper-V: Dynamic virtual hard disks are not recommended for virtual machines that run server workloads in a production environment
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee941151(v=WS.10).aspx
> This is the primary host and normaly all VMs run on this host.
According to your posting, we know that you have Cluster Shared Volumes in the Hyper-V cluster, but why not distribute your VMs into two Hyper-V hosts.
Use Cluster Shared Volumes in a Windows Server 2012 Failover Cluster
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612868.aspx
> 2 teamed NIC dedicated to iSCSI storage.
Use Microsoft MultiPath IO (MPIO) to manage multiple paths to iSCSI storage. Microsoft does not support teaming on network adapters that are used to connect to iSCSI-based storage devices. (At least it’s not supported until Windows Server 2008 R2. Although
Windows Server 2012 has built-in network teaming feature, I don’t article which declare that Windows Server 2012 network teaming support iSCSI connection)
Understanding Requirements for Failover Clusters
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771404.aspx
> I have seen using MPIO suggests using different subnets, is this a requirement for using MPIO
> or is this just a way to make sure that you do not run out of IP adressess?
What I found is: if it is possible, isolate the iSCSI and data networks that reside on the same switch infrastructure through the use of VLANs and separate subnets. Redundant network paths from the server to the storage system via MPIO will maximize availability
and performance. Of course you can set these two NICs in separate subnets, but I don’t think it is necessary.
> Why should it be better to not have dedicated wireing for iSCSI and Management?
It is recommended that the iSCSI SAN network be separated (logically or physically) from the data network workloads. This ‘best practice’ network configuration optimizes performance and reliability.
Check that and modify cluster configuration, monitor it and give us feedback for further troubleshooting.
For more information please refer to following MS articles:
Volume Shadow Copy Service
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee923636(WS.10).aspx
Support for Multipath I/O (MPIO)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770294.aspx
Deployments and Tests in an iSCSI SAN
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/bb649502(v=SQL.90).aspx
Hope this helps!
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Server 2012 Failover Cluster No Disks available / iSCSI

Hi All,
I am testing out the Failover Clustering on Windows Server 2012 with hopes of winding up with a clustered File Server once I am done.
I am starting with a single node in the cluster for testing purposes; I have connected to this cluster a single iSCSI LUN that is 100GB in size.
When I right click on Storage -> Disks and then click 'Add Disk', I get No disks suitable for cluster disks were found.
I get this, even if I add a second server to the cluster, and connect it to the iSCSI drive as well.
Any ideas?

Hi All,
I am testing out the Failover Clustering on Windows Server 2012 with hopes of winding up with a clustered File Server once I am done.
I am starting with a single node in the cluster for testing purposes; I have connected to this cluster a single iSCSI LUN that is 100GB in size.
When I right click on Storage -> Disks and then click 'Add Disk', I get No disks suitable for cluster disks were found.
I get this, even if I add a second server to the cluster, and connect it to the iSCSI drive as well.
Any ideas?
For testing purpose you'd better spawn a set of VMs on a single physical Hyper-V host and use shared VHDX as a back clusterd storage. That would be both much easier and much faster then what you do. + it would be trivial move one of the VMs to another physical
host, shared VHDX to CSV on a shared storage and go from Test & Development to production :) See:
Shared VHDX
http://blogs.technet.com/b/storageserver/archive/2013/11/25/shared-vhdx-files-my-favorite-new-feature-in-windows-server-2012-r2.aspx
Virtual File Server with Shared VHDX
http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=15145
Guest
VM Cluster with Shared VHDX
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn265980.aspx
For a pure iSCSI scenario you may try this step-by-step guide (just skip StarWind config as you do have a shared storage already with your SAN). See:
Configuring HA File Server on Windows Server 2012 for SMB NAS
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/configuring-ha-file-server-on-windows-server-2012-for-smb-nas
Hope this helped a bit :)
StarWind VSAN [Virtual SAN] clusters Hyper-V without SAS, Fibre Channel, SMB 3.0 or iSCSI, uses Ethernet to mirror internally mounted SATA disks between hosts.

My Windows 2012 ISCSI Target service needs to be restarted every time the server starts.

Every time I restart my Windows 2012 server, the ISCSI Target Service is unavailable to the clients even though it appears to be running.
I have to restart the service, then the clients can connect to it.
I tried to change the startup Type to Delayed, but I get an error 87: parameter is incorrect.
I've tried to delete and recreate the VHD and ISCSI Target.
I've tried to uninstall the Role, and reinstall it.
Anybody have any additional ideas to try and troubleshoot this?
Thank you
James Roper

The service is not starting correctly, even though it does start. If I restart the service, everything works correctly. Here is the event in the ISCSI Target.
Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-iSCSITarget-Service/Admin
Source: Microsoft-Windows-iSCSITarget-Service
Date: 5/8/2013 3:11:10 PM
Event ID: 10
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords:
User: SYSTEM
Computer: SRV-ISCSI1
Description:
The Microsoft iSCSI Software Target service could not bind to network address 10.5.4.31, port 3260. The operation failed with error code 10049. Ensure that no other application is using this port.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-iSCSITarget-Service" Guid="{13953C6E-C594-414E-8BA7-DEB4BA1878E3}" />
<EventID>10</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2013-05-08T22:11:10.899843800Z" />
<EventRecordID>38</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="976" ThreadID="1448" />
<Channel>Microsoft-Windows-iSCSITarget-Service/Admin</Channel>
<Computer>SRV-ISCSI1</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="IpAddress">10.5.4.31</Data>
<Data Name="dwPort">3260</Data>
<Data Name="Error">10049</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

Server 2012 R2 iSCSI Target - Multiple targets per iSCSI Virtual Disk with CHAP

Scenario I am trying to achieve is this:
Windows Server 2012 R2 serves as iSCSI Target configured to have 1 iSCSI Virtual Disk
2 Hyper-V servers connecting to this target with iSCSI Inistator and have multiple targets for that iSCSI Virtual Disk using CHAP
**These 2 are nodes in fail over cluster, this iSCSI is added as a CSV.
Issue that I have, is that you can only have 1 target per iSCSI Virtual Disk
Both Hyper-V servers can connect to this LUN without issue when I add both initiator IDs to the target, but once I enable CHAP, you can only put one initiator ID in the "Name" field, so I can only connect from 1 Hyper-V server.
Do you know of a way around this?

From my understanding, "chaptest" is a single target, my goal was to make 2 targets to the same iSCSI virtual disk.
So if you were to right click the iSCSI virtual disk that "chaptest" is assigned to and click "Assign iSCSI Veritual Disk...", then select "New iSCSI Target, and proceed with the wizard it removes the "chaptest" target
and adds the new one just created.
My goal was to have 2 targets to 1 iSCSI VD, but seeing your screenshot, with 2 initiators connected, that goal doesn't seem needed anymore.
I was under the impression that the "User name" = the iscsi initiator IQN name, which had to be unique. That is why I thought I would need 2 targets.
Thanks

Two native iSCSI LUNs in a 2012 storage pool

I have a Windows Server 2012 storage pool connected to a single SAN VIA iSCSI. I'd like to add a second SAN and present the virtual disks as part of the same pool to extend my total storage. Is this possible?

Hi,
I do not have the environment to test if add LUNs from different SAN will work or not but personally I believe it will work as SAN (LUN) is supported to be added into a storage pool.
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and un-mark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]

Subnet config and switch layout for windows 2012 ISCSI server

I would like to ask about subnet design and switch layout in regards to using a Windows 2012 ISCSI solution. When you guys design subnets for ISCSI configurations do you use one subnet or multiple subnets? Also do you link the switches together when
designing your ISCSI layouts? These types of things are normally discussed in vendor deployment guides. However, I have not come across a best practices guide for deploying Server 2012 ISCSI.

I would like to ask about subnet design and switch layout in regards to using a Windows 2012 ISCSI solution. When you guys design subnets for ISCSI configurations do you use one subnet or multiple subnets? Also do you link the switches together
when designing your ISCSI layouts? These types of things are normally discussed in vendor deployment guides. However, I have not come across a best practices guide for deploying Server 2012 ISCSI.
For iSCSI you typically create a separate subnets around physical NICs you use for iSCSI traffic (assuming they are used by iSCSI target for MPIO of course). Here are few guides on how to do that (some for Windows Server 2008 R2 but you can ignore that fact
as target itself did not change much and concepts are still the same). See:
Configure iSCSI MPIO on Windows (full)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/migreene/archive/2009/08/29/3277914.aspx
(make sure you have at leas one connection before you try to enable MPIO)
Setting up a Target and Initiator
http://www.server-log.com/blog/2011/7/26/setting-up-an-microsoft-iscsi-target-and-initiator-using-mpi.html
You need however be aware of a couple of facts...
1) MSFT does not see much future in iSCSI and is replacing it with SMB3 where it can. So if you want to use iSCSI to provide shared storage to your guest VMs you need to use shared VHDX hosted on SMB3 share, see:
Shared VHDX for guest VM Cluster
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn265980.aspx
If you plan to use iSCSI to host CSV and VM images there you again can use SMB3 share, see:
Hyper-V over SMB
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134187.aspx
That's both simpler to manage (you don't configure anything except teaming for NICs to enable SMB Multichannel and create a shared folder in a few clicks) and faster: MSFT iSCSI target is not cached @ server side while (OK, Hyper-V ovens VMs in a pass-thru
mode but other users typically don't do that). SQL Server is the same as Hyper-V in terms of SMB3 support, Windows clusters support SMB3 share as a witness and so on.
2) That's a single point of failure. Think about using SoFS instead of a single SMB3 share and think about clustering your target (you'll need a separate fault tolerant back end of that) to increase uptime. See:
MSFT iSCSI Target Failover Cluster
http://techontip.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/microsoft-iscsi-target-cluster-building-walkthrough/
Good luck! :)
StarWind VSAN [Virtual SAN] clusters Hyper-V without SAS, Fibre Channel, SMB 3.0 or iSCSI, uses Ethernet to mirror internally mounted SATA disks between hosts.

How to do High Avilability Group Configuration steps without SAN or ISCSI storage in sql 2012

Hi I want to know how to configure HAG Always on in sql 2012 that uses
WSFC on windows 2008 R2 without ISCSI storage???
srm_2010

Hi I want to know how to configure HAG Always on in sql 2012 that uses
WSFC on windows 2008 R2 without ISCSI storage???
srm_2010
Please give a try to these URLs:
Step-By-Step: Creating a SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Group
http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro/archive/2013/08/20/step-by-step-creating-a-sql-server-2012-alwayson-availability-group.aspx
How to deploy SQL Server AlwaysOn in a failover cluster without shared storage to achieve high availability SQL
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/the-enterprise-cloud/sql-server-2012-alwayson-high-availability-database-for-cloud-data-centers/
AlwaysOn Architecture
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj191711.aspx
In general it's a good idea to ask SQL Server HA and DR questions here:
SQL Server HA and DR
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/home?forum=sqldisasterrecovery
Good luck :)
StarWind Virtual SAN clusters Hyper-V without SAS, Fibre Channel, SMB 3.0 or iSCSI, uses Ethernet to mirror internally mounted SATA disks between hosts.

SCVMM 2012 R2 – two iSCSI network interfaces connected to the same subnet

I would like to configure two networks in SCVMM 2012 R2 which will be used by VMs to connect to iSCSI SAN. Both of these networks should be connected to the same subnet (192.168.100.0/24) because they will connect VMs to Dell EqualLogic using iSCSI MPIO.
Those networks should be available on all Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V cluster nodes.
When I try to create two logical networks in SCVMM with the same subnet, I receive error (Unable to assign the subnet 192.168.100.0/24 because it overlaps with an existing subnet)
How should I configure networking in SCVMM to allow one virtual machine to connect to the same subnet using two network interfaces?

"How should I configure networking in SCVMM to allow one virtual machine to connect to the same subnet using two network interfaces?"
You can achieve this by simply adding multiple vNICs to a VM - connected to the same VM Network.
-kn
Kristian (Virtualization and some coffee: http://kristiannese.blogspot.com )

2012 Opsmgr alert if iscsi drive isn't mounted

can 2012 Opsmgr detect and send alert if iscsi drive isn't mounted or loses its mount.

Hi,
As far as I know, we can create monitors or rules for those event logs that indicate the disconnection of iscsi target:
such as event id 5.
More related event id, please go through the below link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972107
In additon, we can create a script based monitor, with get-disk command we can check whether the iscsi drive is mounted.
For more information about how to create a script based monitor:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381420.aspx
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Yan Li
Regards, Yan Li

Multiple Hyper-V 2012 R2 servers to access a since ISCSI target

A couple years ago the community helped me configure a CentOS file server to connect to my VMWare and HyperV Servers for the purpose of backup. At the time I created 2 LVM devices, one to connect to Esxi via NFS, and one to connect to HV via ISCSI. This has worked GREAT!I have converted almost all my production environment to HV. I had to of course rebuild the arrays and make the larger one ISCSI rather than NFS. I just noticed that file the file structure of the connected HV drives is not the same. I have (3) HV Servers connected to the same ISCSI target which resides on the CentOS file server. When you view the connected drives, the same target has different files on it from different HV Hosts. Prior to rebuilding the arrays, the ISCSI target worked as intended. I suspect that I missed a step during the rebuild. The drives were...
This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

Hello,
I have installed VMM 2012 R2, this is also not allowing me to add and manage Server 2012 R2 hosts. However it is perfectly able to manage Server 2008 host.
It gives following error when tried to add Server 2012 R2 hosts:
Error (2916)
VMM is unable to complete the request. The connection to the agent windows2012.test.com was lost.
WinRM: URL: [http://windows2012.test.com:5985], Verb: [INVOKE], Method: [Associate], Resource: [http://schemas.microsoft.com/wbem/wsman/1/wmi/root/scvmm/AgentManagement]
Unknown error (0x80338012)
Recommended Action
Ensure that the WS-Management service and the agent are installed and running and that a firewall is not blocking HTTPS traffic.
This problem can also be caused by WMI service crash. Ensure that KB 982293 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982293) is installed on the machine if it is running Windows Server 2008 R2.
If the error persists, reboot windows2012.test.com and then try the operation again.
Any suggestions please?

Server 2012 - iSCSI Virtual Disks Missing After Reboot

Hi guys. I recently had to reboot my Windows 2012 Storage Server. When it came up, the physical disks that the iSCSI virtual
disks reside on were visible, as were the VHD files, but the targets were gone. I looked in the File and Storage Services -> iSCSI but it says 'There are no iSCSI virtual disks', even though the VHD files are clearly there. When I try to import
the already existing ones, it gives me an error because that file already exists in the place I want to put it. These are very large VHD files so moving them to other storage and then re-importing them could take days, if not longer.
The iSCSI targets are still visible under 'View All Targets', but they are no longer associated with their VHD files. How do I reassociate
them? And why did the list of VHD files in File & Storage Services->iSCSI disappear in the first place!?
Thanks for any help!
-Warren

Hi guys. I recently had to reboot my Windows 2012 Storage Server. When it came up, the physical disks that the iSCSI
virtual disks reside on were visible, as were the VHD files, but the targets were gone. I looked in the File and Storage Services -> iSCSI but it says 'There are no iSCSI virtual disks', even though the VHD files are clearly there. When I try
to import the already existing ones, it gives me an error because that file already exists in the place I want to put it. These are very large VHD files so moving them to other storage and then re-importing them could take days, if not longer.
The iSCSI targets are still visible under 'View All Targets', but they are no longer associated with their VHD files. How do I reassociate
them? And why did the list of VHD files in File & Storage Services->iSCSI disappear in the first place!?
Thanks for any help!
-Warren
Replying to this question to answer it with a working solution. I'm not sure what the other replies marked as answers to this post are trying to answer, but they are completely unrelated to this topic. It appears they are describing a fix for a server acting
on the initiator side connecting to a target, not a server acting as an iSCSI target hosting LUNs. Very frustrating to say the least.
I ran into this problem over a weekend maintenance project where I rebooted a Server 2012 R2 File Server to enable some updates. When I logged back in, the iSCSI section was blank and my two existing iSCSI virtual disks had vanish. Now with that said the
underlying file system that the VHDX files were located on was intact. I tried to import them and got the same error that the path was already in use.
I first tried the fix mentioned lower in this thread where you move the VHDX file into another folder to change the path. That worked, but I wanted to figure out exactly why it broke and get my old file to load as it should. Now I don't know the answer to
"why" but I found a way to clear the existing information stored that is preventing you from re-mounting the existing iSCSI files without changing the path.
From this page, there are PowerShell scripts outlined to change iSCSI parameters from the command line.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2012/06/08/iscsi-target-cmdlet-reference.aspx
This command in particular deletes the record of unassigned virtual disks that aren't assigned to a target:
$AllDisks | where {$AssignedDisks -notcontains $_} |
foreach {Remove-IscsiVirtualDisk $_ }
After running that command that broken link that had existed prior was removed and I was able to re-mount my iSCSI virtual disks without that error coming up.
As always, make sure you have a backup before you try any odd powershell commands. That one worked for me.

ISCSI loopback on 2012 R2?

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