The Path to Continuous Availability with Windows Server 2012Luke NotleyTechnical Consultant – Red Ember

WSV326

Availability Matters…

Why now? What you said

Keep my data safe

Keep my services running

Keep my business running

Server virtualization

Server consolidation

User expectations

Availability Spectrum

Address planned and unplanned downtime

Reduce frequency of failures

Manage failures or interruptions

Focus on the availability of the service

Single server

Scale up and out

Multi-site

cost

SL

A

Continuous Availability

Transparent failover is ability to survive planned moves or unplanned failures – without errors, without losing data, and while performing well at scale

Continuously available

software and hardware platforms are designed to

support transparent failover without data loss

introducing

Windows Server 2012 'Active On'

Disk Error Protection

Data recovery from unreadable disk errorsDirectory corruption repair in seconds

With disk online with CSVNo ChkDsk at all with ReFS

Storage Virtualisation and Resiliency

Data redundancy with either n-way mirroring (clustered or unclustered) or parity mode (unclustered)

Designed for resiliency on industry standard storage hardware – JBOD with SAS (clustered) or SATA (clustered or unclustered)

Integrated with Windows Failover Clustering & Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

Software-only storage virtualization of individual disks to manage as pools

NTFS Online Scan and Repair aka chkdskDisk scanning process separated from repair process

Scanning done with volume online, taken offline only for time to repair – based on number of errors to fix rather than size of volume

Zero offline time when used with CSV

Windows Server 2012 will support volumes up to 64 TB.

100

Millio

n File

s

200

Millio

n File

s

300

Millio

n File

s0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2012

Min

ute

s

Resilient File System (ReFS)

Data corruption avoidedAllocate-on-write eliminates corruption from in-place update errors Checksums detect whether the data on disk has changed since it was last written

Data integrity protectionFile system metadata is always protected, maximizing online operationOptional user data protection (integrity streams) is configurable on a per-volume, per-directory, and per-file basis

Rapid recovery from file system corruption without affecting volume availability

If redundant copy available, automatic correctionIf not, salvage done online and only corrupt portion of namespace affected

Managing Memory Errors

Server memory errors isolated to single application or VM Other VMs and host server continue running

Memory Fault IsolationOS support for consumed memory error recovery on capable x64 processors

Application Assisted Memory Error Recovery

Gives applications an opportunity to free memory that is marked for offline

Hyper-V supports recovery from uncorrected memory errors

Machine check signaling of uncorrected memory error injected into the affected guest VM

If the affected memory page is not in use, or can be freed by the application or OS, then page is unmapped, marked as bad, and taken out of service

Event log

Processor

User mode process

WHEA2

3

5

KERNEL

4

Fetch data or execute code from memory location with uncorrected error

1

Mem

ory

Machine Check Exception

Handle Exception

Recovery Actions

Recovery Actions:User Mode

• Terminate the process• Take memory offline

Kernel Mode• BugCheck the system

2

Clustering Applications and Services

Scale HA applications and VM infrastructure both up and outEasy setup experience for clustered appliancesNative highly-available DHCP service

Windows Failover Clustering

Increased scale out and scale up

Scale out to 64-nodesScale up to 4,000 VMs per cluster4x > Windows Server 2008 R2

Much faster failover timesCluster Shared Volumes (CSV) v2 supported for general use

. . .

Sca

le u

p

Scale out

. . .

Simplified Cluster Setup

Easy setup of clustered NAS or Hyper-V appliances

Fast: Approximately 15 minutes from power-on to file sharing

Simple: Minimal set of setup steps with guided workflow

Single console: Single-pane-of-glass to configure appliance from only one node

Extensible: OEM customization framework to enable unique needs of appliance

demo

Configuring Clustering

DHCP Failover

2 Modes of Operation:Load Balance (Active-Active)

Both servers respond to clients in proportion to a configured load distribution percentageSuited for single-site deployment

Hot Standby (Active-Passive)Only one of the servers serves all the clients on the subnetStandby servers serve IP address only when the primary is downSuited for multi-site deployments

GoalsContinuous service availabilityIP address continuity to clientsLower TCO of DHCP HA deployment

Solution2 servers form part of a failover setupServers replicate lease information between each otherServers load balance the client requests between them

Configuring DHCP Failover

Continuously Available Storage

Highly available, high performance, low cost storage for Hyper-V and SQL ServerHeterogeneous storage for VMware and non-Windows applications

SMB Transparent Failover

Failover transparent to server application – zero downtime, just short IO delay during failover

Supports both planned and unplanned failovers Resilient for both file and directory operations

Witness service allows failover without waiting for TCP timeout on client

File Server Cluster

SQL Server or Hyper-V Server

Failover to Node B

2

Normal operation

Connections and handles auto-recovered; application IO continues with no errors

1 3

File Server Node A

File Server Node B

\\fs1\share \\fs1\share

Configuring SMB Failover

Both sides of SMB connection must be Server 2012 or Windows 8

SMB Multi-channel

Uses multiple TCP connections for each SMB session if available

Transparent failover – recovers network failure if another connection is available

Improved throughputBandwidth aggregation with multiple NICsUtilizes multiple CPUs for network processing with multiple or RSS-capable NICsCan combine with LBFO teams

Simple automatic configuration - SMB detects and uses multiple network paths

Multiple 10GbE/IB RSS-capable NICs

Multiple 1GbE NICs

SMB Server

SMB Client

Switch1GbE

SMB Server

SMB Client

NIC1GbE

NIC1GbE

Switch1GbE

NIC1GbE

NIC1GbE

Switch10GbE/IB

NIC10GbE/IB

NIC10GbE/IB

Switch10GbE/IB

NIC10GbE/IB

NIC10GbE/IB

Sample Configurations

SMB Multi-channel

No user configuration necessary – connections are made automatically and dynamically

Both ends of the SMB connection must be running Windows Server 2012 (or Windows 8)

Parallel data transfer requires similar network interfaces; failover can occur across dissimilar interfaces

Scale-Out File Server

Active/Active access to the same shares through any cluster node

Simpler deployment and management

Distributed Net Name: Single DNS name for clusterCSV: Cluster-wide file system available on all nodesConsistent cluster-wide file server configuration

Zero-downtime client failover – both planned and unplanned

Single File System Namespace

Cluster Shared Volumes

Single Logical Server (\\Foo\Share)

SMB

Hyper-V Cluster

File Server Cluster

Clustered StorageNFS v3 and iSCSI Target

Continuously available:iSCSI block storage for diskless boot & application (initiators)NFS v3 shares for UNIX/Linux clients and VMware VMDKs

Transparent & fast:Failover transparent to client – zero downtime, just short IO delay during failoverSupports both planned and unplanned failovers

Clustered iSCSI Target or NFS v3 server

iSCSI Initiator(s),NFS v3 clients

1

23

Node A Node B

Normal storage access through Node A

Failover of iSCSI Target or NFS connections to Node B

Client automatically reconnects to Node B and application IO continues

demo

Clustered File Shares

Non-disruptive Reconfiguration & Updating

Reconfiguring VM storage without downtimeAutomated patching of clustered servers without downtime

Hyper-V Storage Live Migration

Move VHDs for VM from one disk location to another

Zero VM downtime

New storage location must be reachable from Hyper-V host

Can use SMB file server as target

VHD

Cluster Aware Updating

Simple orchestration of cluster node updates

Determines updates needed, moves workloads off nodes for updates

Uses Windows Update AgentIdentifies node with least loadPuts node in maintenance modeVerifies success, then moves to next node

Maintains service availability and without impacting cluster quorum

Windows Update

UpdateCoordinator

demo

Cluster Aware Updating

VM Multi-site Recovery

Easy basic DR replication of VMs

Hyper-V ReplicaSimple, secure DR replica of VMs across standard networksReachable to any reachable Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V server

Storage types can be differentVendor independent

Can set for application-consistent or crash consistent snapshots (VSS inside VM)

What does this all mean?

Windows Server 2012 storage can deliver enterprise-class storage availability, reliability and performance – at a fraction of the cost

Windows Server 2012 continuously available storage

Flexible, low-cost solutions for Hyper-V and SQL ServerEasy to set up and configure

More options

for storage

Related Content

Find Me tomorrow morning at the Speaker Community Lounge

WSV325 - WS2012 File and Storage Services Management – Jeff Alexander

WSV326 - The Path to Continuous Availability with WS2012 – Luke Notley

WSV332 - Cluster-Aware Updating & the New Generation of WSUS – Orin Thomas

© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to

be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS

PRESENTATION.