Dell EMC Solutions for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI Operations Guide for Managing and Monitoring the Solution Infrastructure Life Cycle Dell Technologies Solutions Part Number: H17518.
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Contents Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................................... 4 Document scope....................................................................................................................................................................4 Audience and assumptions...................................................................................................................................................
1 Introduction Topics: • • • • • Document scope Audience and assumptions Known issues Dell EMC Solutions for Azure Stack HCI overview Deployment guidance Document scope This operations guide focuses on operational aspects of a hyperconverged infrastructure solution on Azure Stack HCI with Hyper-V and Storage Spaces Direct.
Figure 1. Hyperconverged virtualized solution using Dell EMC AX nodes Deployment guidance For deployment guidance and instructions for configuring a cluster using Dell EMC Solutions for Azure Stack HCI, see https:// infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/solutions-for-azure-stack-hci-9/. This operations guidance is applicable only to cluster infrastructure that is built using the instructions that are provided in the AX node deployment documentation.
2 Day 0 Operations Topics: • • • • Introduction Activating the Windows operating system license Creating virtual disks Dell EMC Solutions for Azure Stack HCI Life Cycle Management Introduction After deploying the AX node cluster, complete day 0 operations. This chapter provides details about the day 0 operations. Activating the Windows operating system license When the server operating system is installed using the retail or volume licensing media, the operating system license must be activated.
The AX nodes for Storage Spaces Direct offer software-defined storage building blocks for creating highly available and highly scalable hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI). The AX nodes are preconfigured with certified components and validated as a Storage Spaces Direct solution that includes Dell EMC PowerSwitch S-Series switches, with simplified ordering and reduced deployment risks.
Figure 3. HCI cluster navigation 2. Click Add. The Add Cluster window is displayed. 3. Enter the cluster FQDN and select Also add servers in the cluster, as shown in the following figure. Figure 4. Adding the HCI cluster Windows Admin Center discovers the cluster and the nodes that are part of the cluster. 4. Click Add. The cluster is added to the connection list and Windows Admin Center is configured to monitor and manage the HCI cluster.
You can drill down into any alerts by clicking the alerts tile in the dashboard. Figure 5. HCI dashboard in Windows Admin Center Viewing server details To view the server details, click the tools pane and go to Servers > Inventory. Figure 6. Servers: Inventory tab NOTE: The metrics in the figure are for a three-node Azure Stack HCI cluster with all-flash drive configuration.
Viewing drive details About this task View the total number of drives in the cluster, the health status of the drives, and the used, available, and reserve storage of the cluster as follows. Steps 1. In the left pane, select Drives. 2. Click the Summary tab, as shown in the following figure. Figure 7. Drives: Summary tab To view the drive inventory from the cluster nodes, from the left pane, select Drives, and then click the Inventory tab. Figure 8.
The HCI cluster is built using three AX-640 nodes, each with two 1.6 TB NVMe drives and eight 1.92 TB SSD drives. By clicking the serial number of the drive, you can view the drive information, which includes health status, slot location, size, type, firmware version, IOPS, used or available capacity, and storage pool of the drive. Also, from the dashboard, you can set the drive options as Light On or Light Off, or Retire or Unretire from the storage pool.
Figure 10. Volumes: Inventory tab Creating volumes in Storage Spaces Direct About this task Create volumes in Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Admin Center as follows. Steps 1. Go to Volumes > Inventory. 2. Click Create. The Create volume window is displayed. 3. Enter the volume name, resiliency, and size of the volume, and then click Create. The volume is created. Managing volumes About this task Open, expand, delete, or make a volume offline as follows. Steps 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Go to Volumes > Inventory.
Steps 1. Go to Volumes > Inventory. 2. Click the volume on which to enable data deduplication. 3. In the optional features, switch the ON button to enable deduplication and compression on that volume. The Enable Deduplication window is displayed. 4. Click Start and select Hyper-V from the drop-down list. 5. Click Enable Deduplication. Deduplication is enabled and the Storage Spaces Direct volume is compressed.
Figure 12. Virtual machines: Inventory tab You can perform the following tasks from the Windows Admin Center console: • • • • • • View a list of virtual machines that are hosted on HCI cluster. View individual virtual machine state, host server information, virtual machine uptime, CPU, memory utilization, and so on. Create a new virtual machine. Modify virtual machine settings. Set up virtual machine protection.
Managing Windows updates About this task You can manage Windows updates on a cluster node. All the updates are performed in cluster-aware mode. Steps 1. Click the HCI cluster and go to Updates. In the right pane, the Available Updates and Update History tabs are displayed. The Available Updates tab provides information on the last updates and their status. 2. Click Check Available Updates to view the updates that are available for the cluster nodes. 3.
Health Status Health Status is the default dashboard that provides details about the Azure Stack HCI cluster nodes. Figure 14.
• • • Physical disks Power supplies Fans Locating physical disks and viewing their status The Blink/Unblink feature of Windows Admin Center enables you to locate physical disks or view disk status. Steps 1. Under the Inventory tab, from the Components list, select Physical Disks. 2. For each physical disk. select Blink or Unblink to control the disk's LED. iDRAC Clicking the iDRAC tab displays the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller dashboard.
Figure 15. Compliance Details 3. Click Next: Summary to view the selected component details. NOTE: Cluster Aware Update is a license feature. Ensure that the Azure Stack HCI license is installed before proceeding.
Figure 16. Update Summary 4. Click Next: Cluster Aware Update to begin the update process and click Yes at the prompt to confirm.
Figure 17. Cluster Aware Update When the update job is completed, the compliance job is triggered automatically. Updating a stand-alone node before adding it to the cluster Before creating a cluster, ensure that each node is updated with the latest versions of firmware and drivers. Steps 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. In Windows Admin Center, in the left pane, click Add. In the Windows Server tile, click Add. Enter the node name and click Add.
Table 1. Known issues Issue Resolution/workaround Running Test-Cluster fails with network communication errors. This error can be safely ignored. To avoid the error, temporarily disable the USB NIC (labeled as Ethernet, by default) before running the Test-Cluster command.
Perform compliance checks, bare-metal firmware updates, and firmware updates using the cluster-aware update feature. To perform these tasks, within SCVMM, first discover the Storage Spaces Direct Ready Nodes and create or edit an update source. Before performing these tasks, ensure that: • SCVMM and the OpenManage Integration for Microsoft System Center appliance have been deployed and configured. • For more information, see the installation guide at https://www.dell.
• For Firmware Update Source Name, enter a friendly source name. • For Description, enter a description (optional). • For Source Type, select Dell Repository manager sources. • For Location, enter the shared path location: \\. • For Credentials, create a credentials profile or use an existing profile to connect to the shared path. c. Click Test Connection to test the connection to the shared path. d. Click Save.
○ Agent Free Update—Updates are applied, and the system restarts immediately. ○ Agent-Free Staged Update—Updates that do not require a system restart are applied immediately. Updates that require a restart are applied when the system restarts. 9. Click Finish. Conducting maintenance operations These procedures describe how to prepare for and conduct maintenance operations.
Obtaining the firmware catalog for AX nodes or Ready Nodes using Dell EMC Repository Manager About this task For a qualified set of firmware and drivers for AX nodes or Ready Nodes, we recommend that you use an Azure Stack HCI catalog. You can generate the firmware catalog along with the firmware and drivers by using Dell EMC Repository Manager (DRM) and copy it to a shared path. Steps 1. Install DRM version 3.0.1.423 or later. 2. On the DRM home page, click the Dell EMC Repository Manager drop-down list.
Figure 18. Check for updates 5. Click Check for updates. A list of available updates is displayed, as shown in the following figure. Figure 19. Select updates 6. Select the updates and click Install and Reboot to install and reboot the system. Updating the out-of-box drivers For certain system components, you might need to update the drivers to the latest Dell supported versions, which are listed in the Supported Firmware and Software Matrix.
Exiting the AX node from maintenance mode After updating the AX node, exit the storage maintenance mode and node maintenance mode by running the following commands: Get-StorageFaultDomain -type StorageScaleUnit | Where-Object {$_.FriendlyName -eq ""} | Disable-StorageMaintenanceMode Resume-ClusterNode -Name “Hostname” -Failback Immediate These commands initiate the operation of rebuilding and rebalancing the data to ensure load balancing.
Table 2. Options to expand storage capacity of the cluster • • Option 1 conditions Option 2 conditions ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ Drive is listed in the Support Matrix Same drive manufacturer Same capacity and endurance Latest model Latest firmware Drive is listed in the Support Matrix Different drive manufacturer Same capacity and endurance Different model Different firmware Ensure that the BIOS, drivers, firmware, and chipset are as listed in the support matrix.
IOPSRead IOPSTotal IOPSWrite IOThroughputRead IOThroughputTotal IOThroughputWrite MemoryAvailable MemoryTotal : 0 /S : 1 /S : 1 /S : 0 B/S : 11.98 KB/S : 11.98 KB/S : 472.87 GB : 768 GB After all available disks are claimed in the storage pool, the CapacityPhysicalUnpooled is 0 B. The storage rebalance job might take a few minutes. You can monitor the process by using the Get-StorageJob cmdlet.
3. Go to Configuration > Storage Configuration > Virtual Disk Configuration, and then click Create Virtual Disk. Figure 22. Create a virtual disk 4. Provide a virtual disk name and select BOSS M.2 devices in the physical disks. Figure 23.
Figure 24. Set Physical Disks 5. Click Add Pending Operations. 6. Go to Configuration > Storage Configuration > Virtual Disk Configuration. Figure 25. Initialize configuration 7. Select the virtual disk, and then select Initialize: Fast in Virtual Disk Actions. 8. Reboot the server. NOTE: The virtual disk creation process might take several minutes to complete. 9. After the initialization is completed successfully, the virtual disk health status is displayed.
Figure 26. Virtual disk health status Operating system recovery This section provides an overview of the steps involved in operating system recovery on Dell EMC Solutions for Azure Stack HCI. NOTE: Ensure that the RAID 1 virtual disk created on the BOSS M.2 drives is reinitialized. NOTE: To help reduce repair times when the node is added back to the same cluster after recovery, do not reinitialize or clear the data on the disks that were a part of Storage Spaces Direct storage pool.
