Starwind HA / Windows MPIO Policy reccomendations

jeffhamm · Wed Jun 01, 2011 9:18 pm

In a 2 node HA environment, what is the recommended MPIO Policy on the Hyper-V hosts connecting to the Starwind systems?

Fail Over Only
Round Robin
Round Robin with Subset
Least Queue Depth
Weighted Paths
Least Blocks

We will be using mostly RAID1 volumes in case that matters.

Thanks,
Jeff

Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:06 pm

Round Robin obviously! Fail-Over may *look* like it providers better numbers initially but it only means there are some issues with MPIO configuration on either initiator and / or target side. Issues should be pinpointed and fixed in either way before putting the whole thing into production.

jeffhamm wrote:In a 2 node HA environment, what is the recommended MPIO Policy on the Hyper-V hosts connecting to the Starwind systems?

Fail Over Only
Round Robin
Round Robin with Subset
Least Queue Depth
Weighted Paths
Least Blocks

We will be using mostly RAID1 volumes in case that matters.

Thanks,
Jeff

jeffhamm · Mon Jun 06, 2011 1:24 pm

I totally get using Round Robin instead of failover. But why Round Robin instead of some of the other load balanced options? Also, I am trying to maximize bandwidth to each Starwind box. So I'm planning on using two GigE Nics per Starwind box, each plugged into a separate switch and with a separate IP Address (no teaming). Since there will be a total of 4 IP Addresses (two per Starwind HA node), I'm planning on specifying all 4 IP Addresses as 4 separate paths in the MPIO config on the Hyper_V servers.

1) Does this make sense?

2) Will this work?

Thanks,
Jeff

Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:03 pm

B/c Round Robin policy configured properly nearly multiplies your SAN performance. Yes it does make sense. Just make sure you've properly configured your MPIO on initiator side.

jeffhamm wrote:I totally get using Round Robin instead of failover. But why Round Robin instead of some of the other load balanced options? Also, I am trying to maximize bandwidth to each Starwind box. So I'm planning on using two GigE Nics per Starwind box, each plugged into a separate switch and with a separate IP Address (no teaming). Since there will be a total of 4 IP Addresses (two per Starwind HA node), I'm planning on specifying all 4 IP Addresses as 4 separate paths in the MPIO config on the Hyper_V servers.

1) Does this make sense?

2) Will this work?

Thanks,
Jeff

deiruch · Tue Jun 07, 2011 1:57 pm

Is "Round Robin" preferred even if you connect to StarWind that runs on the same server?

Tue Jun 07, 2011 2:04 pm

For loopback there's no way / need to configure MPIO. At least I don't see any.

deiruch wrote:Is "Round Robin" preferred even if you connect to StarWind that runs on the same server?

deiruch · Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:39 pm

anton (staff) wrote:For loopback there's no way / need to configure MPIO. At least I don't see any.

The StarWind service might crash. And, as the service uses delayed start, to have working storage during boot it's useful to have a secondary server. Otherwise it takes a minute or so until the storage is available.

I can add the local host and it's mirror as paths to MPIO.

Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:47 pm

Yes you're right here. Never though about such a scenario... Thanks a lot for pointing at!

deiruch wrote:
anton (staff) wrote:For loopback there's no way / need to configure MPIO. At least I don't see any.
The StarWind service might crash. And, as the service uses delayed start, to have working storage during boot it's useful to have a secondary server. Otherwise it takes a minute or so until the storage is available.

I can add the local host and it's mirror as paths to MPIO.