34 Preparing Your Systems for Clustering
The following sub-sections describe steps that enable you to establish
communication between the cluster nodes and your shared MD3200i or
MD3220i storage array(s), and to present disks from the storage array to the
cluster:
1
Installing the iSCSI NICs.
2
Installing the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator.
3
Installing and Configuring the Storage Management Software.
4
Configuring the Shared Storage System.
5
Configuring a Failover Cluster.
Installing the iSCSI NICs
It is recommended that you install the latest supported version of the driver.
If the NIC driver requires any service packs or hotfixes to be installed along
with the operating system, install them at this time.
For a list of recommended operating systems, hardware components, and
driver or firmware versions for your Dell Windows Server Failover Cluster, see
the Dell Cluster Configuration Support Matrices at dell.com/ha.
Enabling TOE NIC
The purpose of TOE is to take the TCP/IP packets to be processed by the
system processor(s) and offload them on the NIC. The TOE eliminates the
bottlenecks with applications that generate significant network traffic, freeing
up CPU cycles, and the amount of available main memory bandwidth. TOE
NICs provide increased performance for iSCSI traffic.
NOTE: All the nodes in a cluster solution must use similar NICs (TOE NICs or
regular NICs) for iSCSI traffic. Combining TOE NICs and regular NICs is not
supported in a cluster solution.
You must configure the public, private, and iSCSI networks in each node
before you install Microsoft Failover Clustering. The following sections
explain the principles and procedures related to the networking prerequisites.
NOTE: If the iSCSI networks are not configured to use DHCP, you must configure
static IPs. To fully utilize the iSCSI ports on the storage system, the IPs are
configured such that access to each iSCSI port is balanced among the cluster
nodes. For example, if the four subnets on the storage systems are .10, .11, .12, and
.13, the two iSCSI NICs on the first cluster nodes can be on .10 and .11 subnets, the
book.book Page 34 Monday, June 21, 2010 1:45 PM
To Next Page
Loading...
