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Marathon Technologies FTvirtual 
Server

 

TM

 and IBM BladeCenter 

TM

 

  

Installing and Configuring a Fault-Tolerant Windows 

Environment for Mission Critical Applications

Marathon Technologies Corporation

www.marathontechnologies.com

888.682.1142

Summary of Contents for FTvirtual IBM BladeCenter

Page 1: ...ies FTvirtual ServerTM and IBM BladeCenter TM Installing and Configuring a Fault Tolerant Windows Environment for Mission Critical Applications Marathon Technologies Corporation www marathontechnologies com 888 682 1142 ...

Page 2: ...ucts 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 N...

Page 3: ...de marks of the International Business Machines Corpora tion 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 ...

Page 4: ...s Summary of changes for Marathon Technologies FTvirtual Server and IBM eServer BladeCenterTM A Fault Tolerant Environment for Mission Critical Windows as created or modified on 9 2 05 September 2005 First Edition 1 0 0 ...

Page 5: ...hrough 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 Confi...

Page 6: ...pecify 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 t...

Page 7: ...isting 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 graphi cal console This tool provides a common management view across multiple server...

Page 8: ...y 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 los...

Page 9: ...ected pair fails the appli cation environment continues to function uninterrupted using the process ing 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 BladeCent...

Page 10: ...Introduction 4 Marathon Technologies Corporation ...

Page 11: ...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...

Page 12: ...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 con figuration maximizing server fault tolerance and network availability It should be mentioned that although each switchbay is internally intercon nected wit...

Page 13: ...ected for CoServer 2 Management for CoServer 1 FTv1 CoServer 2 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 FTv3 CoServer 1 PCI 1 0 0 NIC PCI 1 0 1 NIC PCI 2 2 1 NIC PCI 2 2 0 NIC To Network To Network Blade Bays 1 5 9 are assumed to contain CoServer 1 Blade Bays 3 7 11 are assumed to contain CoServer 2 Blade Bay pa...

Page 14: ... confine all associated traf fic 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...

Page 15: ...ing resources located on your Marathon software distribution CD ROM Administrator s Guide Upgrading Endurance Software Configuration and Installation Guide TABLE 4 2 NIC Configuration Function CoServer 1 CoServer 2 Comment CSLink 1 Switchbay 1 Switchbay 2 Exposed network utilization Requires network routed IP address Redirected Switchbay 2 Switchbay 1 Redundant External Connection ...

Page 16: ...modular 14 slot chassis that can support a total of 14 hot swap BladeCenter HS20 blades A CD ROM and floppy shared by all blade bays A maximum of two Management modules integrating remote man agement functions and a 14 port Keyboard Video Mouse switch Up to 4 Gigabit Ethernet Switch modules Each switch has four external ports as well as 14 internal ports one to each bay HS20 hot swappable blades s...

Page 17: ...Endurance system has been established the blades can be moved to any chassis slot and located in any order Data communications between Endurance configured blades is controlled by IP addresses which are unique to a blade and FTvirtual Server blade pair Identifying Network Components To help simplify Endurance software installation it is suggested that you first create a chart that maps blade confi...

Page 18: ...a status change 4 Right click on the connection that changed status to display the Local Area Connection Properties 5 Click the Configure button to display the controller properties Note the switchbay number of the switch you unpluged and record the corre sponding PCI location information for that adapter in Table 4 Plug the switchbay back into its slot and wait for the connection status to return...

Page 19: ... are 1 Install Windows on both CoServers 2 Install Endurance software on CoServer 1 3 Install Endurance software on CoServer 2 4 Install Windows on and configure the FTvirtual Server This chapter describes in detail how to install and configure the Endurance software on each of the BladeCenter CoServers to create the FTvirtual Server ...

Page 20: ... requirements including Windows Security Updates Note If the Manage Your Server or Configure Your Server window appears click Don t display this page at logon and then dismiss the window Event Log Recommendations On both CoServers For best results in tracking system events make sure that the Application Log and System Log on both CoServers are set to at least 16384 KB From Computer Management sele...

Page 21: ...sing Endurance software creating a Virtual disk from this file space The Virtual disk can then be mounted formatted and partitioned like any physical disk This allows you to use one physical disk for booting both the CoServer and the FTvirtual Server on blade systems configured with only a single physical disk If you wish to install the FTvirtual Server boot disk on a physical disk con tinue on wi...

Page 22: ...asic not dynamic 2 If the partition is not basic right click and select Revert to Basic Right click on unallocated Disk 1 and use the wizard that creates partitions to create the FTvirtual Server boot drive Select Primary partition Specify the partition size Assign a drive letter Record this drive letter for later use during FTvirtual Server installation Format the partition using NTFS Rename the ...

Page 23: ...Marathon Technologies Corporation 17 4 Verify the destination on the Ready to Install window and click Install 5 Click Finish on the Completing the Endurance Quorum Service Setup Wizard ...

Page 24: ... and connected Right click on My Network Places and select Properties Exam ine the status of each connection If the connection is Disabled you must Enable that connection Make sure each connection has a status of Connected Gather information for installing Windows on the FTvirtual Server The Windows license type Per server or Per seat The computer name The user name The organization name The Windo...

Page 25: ...r and follow the prompts through the Welcome License Agreement and Information dialogs to the Customer Information dialog 3 Type a user name company name and the license number including the dashes 4 Verify the name company and license number on the Registration Confirmation page 5 In the Select Features window choose the components you want to install Select Basic Product the default Marathon rec...

Page 26: ...ion Specify the Location of the Software 1 On the Choose Destination Location window save the files in the default location C Program Files Marathon Endurance or specify another location 2 On the Confirm New Folder window click Yes 3 Verify the information on the Check Setup Information window Click Next ...

Page 27: ...ies Corporation 21 Configure the Network using the Endurance Network Setup Wizard If you are installing on a Windows 2003 system the following Security Alert may appear Click Yes to continue with Endurance Network Setup ...

Page 28: ... adapters Click Next to begin 1 On the Configure Redirected page enter 1 in the Specify total num ber of Redirected adapters box and highlight the adapter you wish to assign as redirected in the Connection column Select the adapter to be used based upon the PCI location to switchbay mapping you estab lished during planning and preparation Click Next to continue ...

Page 29: ...rnal CLink connections Note When installing multiple blade pairs the first blade pair will have the same IP for both the default IP and the currently configured IP This will not be the case for subsequent blade pairs TABLE 1 Suggested CoServer1 CLink IP Addresses Blade Pair 1 Blade Pair 2 Blade Pair 3 CoServer1 CoServer2 CoServer1 CoServer2 CoServer1 CoServer2 CSLink1 192 168 3 1 192 168 3 2 192 1...

Page 30: ... on the your adapter selection and choose Internet Protocol Properties from the action menu On the Internet Protocol Properties page select Use the following IP address Fill in the appropriate IP address from Table 1 for this adapter Then enter Subnet mask 255 255 255 0 and click OK ...

Page 31: ...s CoServer Link2 in the Connection column Select the adapter based upon the PCI loca tion to switchbay mapping you established during planning and prepara tion You can use Table 1 to assign IP addresses for internal CLink connections Right click on the adapter selection and choose Internet Protocol Prop erties from the action menu On the Internet Protocol Properties page select Use the following I...

Page 32: ...r you wish to assign for CoServer Management in the Connection column Select the adapter based upon the PCI location to switchbay mapping you established dur ing planning and preparation If you wish to assign an IP address right click on the selection and choose Internet Protocol Properties from the action menu On the Internet Protocol Properties page select Use the following IP address fill in th...

Page 33: ...pears click Exit 7 Click Yes to restart the CoServer 8 When the system restarts the Endurance Network Setup wizard starts automatically to complete network configuration On Windows 2003 Hardware Installation pop ups may appear Click Continue Anyway 9 If the video quality pop up message appears choose the desired response 10 The Endurance FTvirtual Server Desktop window will be displayed in the top...

Page 34: ...hen formatted parti tioned and used as a member of the FTvirtual Server boot disk If you select No skip ahead to the CoServer 2 installation section If you select Yes the Device Redirector Connections dialog is dis played Click OK to create a Virtual boot disk Create a Virtual Disk On the displayed Device Redirector dialog set The virtual disk size The default is 4 gigabytes The boot partition siz...

Page 35: ...dialog showing the name of the file that was created the SCSI ID of the newly cre ated virtual disk and the drive letter associated with the NTFS formatted boot partition Click OK 12 Continue with CoServer 2 Installation CoServer 2 Installation Press both media device select buttons on the front panel of the Blade you have choosen for CoServer2 to assign connection of the console display and CDROM...

Page 36: ...ver Link1 in the Connection column Select the adapter based upon the PCI location to switchbay mapping you estab lished during planning and preparation You can use Table 2 to assign IP addresses for internal CLink connections Note When installing multiple blade pairs the first blade pair has the same IP for both the default IP and the currently configured IP This will not be the case for subsequen...

Page 37: ... the Endurance Network Setup page make sure that the desired adapter is still highlighted and select Use currently configured IP addressing Click Next to continue 6 If your network will not use a CoServer Management connection push Next without highlighting an adapter If you will be using CoServer Management then on the Configure CoS erver Management page highlight the adapter you wish to assign f...

Page 38: ...e FTvirtual Server boot disk is displayed You should select the same response that was given during CoServer 1 installation by clicking the approriate button If you select No the installation will continue with installing Windows and configuring FTvirtual Server Skip ahead to the Installing Windows on and Configuring the FTvirtual Server section If you select Yes the Device Redirector Connections ...

Page 39: ...bytes The boot partition size Specify a size less than or equal to the virtual disk size The default size is the virtual disk size A drive letter to use when you mount the virtual disk on CoServer 2 The default is the next available drive letter Location on CoServer 2 of the file that becomes the virtual disk Click Create to create the virtual disk ...

Page 40: ...roceed to step 3 of the next section to configure the FTvirtual Server boot disk Installing Windows on and Configuring the FTvir tual Server Select CoServer Devices for FTvirtual Server Use and Configure the FTvirtual Server Disk 1 If the Device Redirector Connection dialog box is displayed click OK if both CoServer names appear If both CoServer names do not appear Launch the Endurance Manager Sta...

Page 41: ...warning message is displayed if the sizes of the disks are not equal The FTvirtual Server software has to be installed on the CoServer that contains the smaller disk Click Yes to continue the installation The excess disk space on the larger disk will not be utilized Click No if you did not intend to have mismatched drive sizes and return to step 3 ...

Page 42: ...hed drive sizes and repeat step 5 Repeat this step for each FTvirtual Server disk drive that you wish to redi rect The Endurance Device Redirector runs on CoServer 2 and the redirected network adapters have been automatically configured Note You cannot redirect the CDROM on the IBM eServer BladeCenter because the CDROM is shared across all blades and controlled by a built in USB switch Install Win...

Page 43: ...Marathon Technologies Corporation 37 The Install Wizard for Endurance Windows Preparation will be dis played ...

Page 44: ... you created the FTvir tual Server boot disk Select Install SNMP if you want to run the Endurance SNMP Extension Agent to export management information through SNMP Click NEXT 3 Verify the information on the Check Setup Information window and click NEXT 4 Remove the Endurance CD 5 You are prompted for the Windows distribution media either the Win dows CD or the location of the Windows files If the...

Page 45: ... CoServers reboot log in as Adminis trator on either CoServer The FTvirtual Server Desktop appears 2 Allow the installation to progress Ensure that the Endurance taskbar icon appears Text mode setup starts and displays a progress bar showing Win dows being installed on the FTvirtual Server Text mode setup com pletes and the FTvirtual Server restarts GUI mode setup starts and displays the standard ...

Page 46: ...components you want Select Basic Product the default If you selected SNMP when you installed Windows on the FTvirtual Server the SNMP Agent box is checked Click Next If the SNMP Service in Use window appears click Yes Specify the Location of the Software 1 On the Choose Destination Location window save the files in the default location C Program Files Marathon Endurance or specify another location...

Page 47: ... by Windows after the next reboot The pop up message The FTvirtual Server must be restarted to com plete the installation is displayed Click Yes in response to the Restart Now prompt and the FTvirtual Server is restarted 2 After the FTvirtual Server restarts login using the FTvirtual Server desk top On Windows 2003 if the Manage Your Server window appears click Don t display this page at logon and...

Page 48: ...on your keyboard is blinking the focus is the CoServer If it is not blinking the focus is the FTvirtual Server Desktop Verifying the FTvirtual Server Installation Verify the installation of the Endurance FTvirtual Server 1 From the FTvirtual Server Desktop launch the Endurance Manager The Endurance Manager starts in the FTvirtual Server view 2 From the menu bar of the Endurance Manager select View...

Page 49: ... FTvirtual Server is now complete If you have additional blade pairs to setup return to the Installing Windows on the CoServer section at the begin ning of this chapter For more information about using the FTvirtual Server read Getting Started with Endurance FTvirtual Server and the Endurance FTvirtual Server Administrator s Guide ...

Page 50: ...Installing the Endurance Software 44 Marathon Technologies Corporation ...

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