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Virtualized Installation Scenarios
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Added by mperzl, last edited by mperzl on Jul 18, 2006  (view change)
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We consider the following virtualization installation scenarios for Virtual SCSI and Virtual Ethernet:

Virtual SCSI

  • Scenario #1: One VIO server providing one virtual disk to clients
  • Scenario #2: One VIO server providing multiple virtual disks to clients (more secure setup)
  • Scenario #3: Two VIO servers providing virtual disk(s) to clients (HA-setup)
  • Scenario #4: Two VIO servers providing virtual disk(s) (LUNs in the SAN) to clients (HA-setup)

The following table shows the details of the three virtual ethernet installation scenarios:

VIO Scenario #1 VIO Scenario #2 VIO Scenario #3 VIO Scenario #4

Scenario #1

  • Simplest setup
  • Failure of VIO server causes failure of all clients
  • Failure of disk which provides the disc space for the client causes also client to fail

Scenario #2

  • More elaborate setup
  • Requires SW-RAID (RAID-1) setup on clients
  • Failure of VIO server causes failure of all clients
  • Failure of one of the two disks (must be separate physical disks) which provide the disc space for the client does not cause client to fail

Scenario #3

  • Most elaborate setup
  • Requires SW-RAID (RAID-1) setup on clients
  • Failure of one VIO server causes no failure of clients
  • Failure of one of the two disks (each VIO server provides one) which provide the disc space for the client does not cause client to fail

Scenario #4

  • Very flexible and reliable setup
  • Requires SAN attachment to VIO and mdadm with multipath personality on clients
  • Failure of one VIO server causes no failure of clients, VIO reboot no additional actions on clients (there is no need to re-add a disk to the RAID device)
  • Both VIO servers are providing different paths to the same disk (which is a LUN in the SAN)
  • You can easily exchange hardware, just attaching the new VIO server to the SAN and mapping the same LUN for the client
  • It is a kind of a SAN boot, but virtualized and without any SAN boot complexity

Virtual Ethernet Installation Scenarios

  • Scenario #1: One VIO server with single ethernet device as Layer 2 router
  • Scenario #2: One VIO server with multiple ethernet devices as Layer 2 routers
  • Scenario #3: Two VIO servers with single ethernet device as Layer 2 routers
  • Scenario #4: Two VIO servers with multiple ethernet devices as Layer 2 routers

The following table shows the details of the four virtual ethernet installation scenarios:

VLAN Scenario #1 VLAN Scenario #2 VLAN Scenario #3 VLAN Scenario #4

Scenario #1

  • Simplest setup
  • Failure of network adapter in VIO server causes also network failure for all clients with same VLAN ID

Scenario #2

  • More elaborate setup
  • The difference to scenario #1 is that additionally channel bonding (also known as CISCO EtherChannel) is used on the VIO server

Scenario #3

  • Very elaborate setup
  • Requires channel bonding (also known as CISCO EtherChannel) setup on clients
  • Failure of one VIO server causes no failure of clients
  • Failure of network adapter in one VIO server causes also no network failure for clients with same VLAN ID

Scenario #4

  • Most elaborate setup
  • The difference to scenario #3 is that additionally channel bonding (also known as CISCO EtherChannel) is used on the VIO server

 
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