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Configuring Windows Server 2008 R2 for i SCSI SAN Boot with Equal Logic Storage A Dell Equal Logic Best Practices Technical White Paper Dell Storage Engineering February 2013
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© 2013 Dell Inc. All Rights Reserved. Dell, the Dell logo, and other Dell names and marks are trademarks of Dell Inc. in the US and worldwide. Broadcom® is among the trademarks of Broadcom Corporation...
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Table of contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................................................
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9.2 Installing the Equal Logic Host Integration Tool (HIT) Kit ....................................................................................... 35 9.3 Configuring the Microsoft i SCSI initiator...
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Acknowledgements This best practice white paper was produced by the following members of the Dell Storage team: Engineering: Nirav Shah Technical Marketing: Guy Westbrook Editing: Margaret Boeneke Add...
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1 Introduction This paper demonstrates Dell best practices for implementing i SCSI boot from a SAN for the 11th generation (11G) and 12th generation (12G) of Dell Power Edge servers and Dell Equal Log...
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1.1 Objective The goal of this whitepaper is to: • Provide guidelines and best practices for configuring Dell Power Edge servers and supported network adapters for i SCSI SAN boot from Equal Logic arr...
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1.2 Terminology 11G Power Edge Servers or 11G– 11th generation of Dell Power Edge servers 12G Power Edge Servers or 12G— 12th generation of Dell Power Edge servers Arrays – Refers to i SCSI Equal Logi...
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2 Process overview To configure i SCSI boot from SAN, there are four major steps which are explained in detail in the following sections. These steps include: 1. Configure Equal Logic storage arrays a...
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2.1 Before you begin Before you start the configuration process, you should complete the following steps: 1. Use a configuration tracking worksheet similar to the example provided in Appendix A. a. No...
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2.3 Restrictions for Broadcom adapter drivers The Broadcom network drivers included on the Windows 2008 R2 media do not support booting from an i SCSI SAN volume for Broadcom adapters other than Broad...
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3 Extracting drivers for a Windows 2008 R2 installation Before you begin the installation steps, download and extract the latest network adapter drivers from http://support.dell.com. Copy the extracte...
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3.3 Extracting Broadcom NIC drivers (Optional) 1. Download Broadcom NIC drivers from http://support.dell.com. 2. Download the Bcom_LAN_*.exe file for your configuration and double click it to unpack t...
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4 Configuring the Dell Equal Logic Storage System This section describes the process of configuring the Equal Logic storage arrays to host the i SCSI boot volumes for a Windows host. Perform the follo...
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Figure 2 Configuring the volume size via Equal Logic group manager 5. Select one or more of the following i SCSI access modes for the volume you are going to present the Array Disk to: a. Authenticate...
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Figure 3 i SCSI access window allows you to choose the access type 6. Keep the default Access type set to “read-write”. Note: It is usually not necessary to enable shared storage except when the iqn n...
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5 Preparing Intel Network Adapters for i SCSI boot Note: Intel network adapters are not shipped with i SCSI enabled in the Boot ROM. You must enable i SCSI so that Intel network adapters are detected ...
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Figure 4 This screen shows the steps to program the flash with “bootimg.flb” file 7. Reboot to apply the new configuration. Boot to the DOS bootable key created previously. 8. Change to the directory ...
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Figure 5 Running commands to configuring Intel network adapter ports as Primary and Secondary source for i SCSI boot 19 BP1043 | Configuring Windows Server 2008 R2 for i SCSI SAN Boot with Equal Logic...
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6 Configure Dell Power Edge servers for i SCSI boot The following sections describe the process for configuring the server BIOS and NICs to support boot from i SCSI targets. 6.1 Preparing 11G Power Ed...
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c. Internal SD Card Port: Off (To prevent a conflict during Windows 2008 install process.) d. Embedded NIC: If using an embedded NIC then enable i SCSI Boot for that particular NIC only. Select “Enabl...
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Note: The USB drive and Virtual CD are detected if they are loaded. Figure 8 Changing Hard-Disk drive sequence in System Bios 6. Under Boot Option Enable/Disable, add a check mark to the network adapt...
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7 Configure Network Adapters for Power Edge Servers Once the system is configured, configure the network adapter to connect to an i SCSI volume and later boot from the same. The following steps descri...
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Figure 9 i SCSI boot configuration menu for Intel network adapters 5. Select i SCSI CHAP configuration and press [Enter] to configure CHAP if needed. 6. Save changes and exit. 7. Configure other Intel...
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Figure 10 Intel network adapter logging to Equal Logic volume after configuration 9. Continue to section 8 for steps to install Windows 2008 R2. 7.2 Configuring Qlogic network adapter for i SCSI boot ...
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Figure 11 Qlogic network adapter configuration menu 2. In the Function Configuration menu, change the Protocol type to IBFT for network adapter ports used for i SCSI Boot as shown in Figure 11. 3. Hig...
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Figure 12 Initiator settings for Qlogic network adapters 6. Exit the Initiator Settings menu and enter the Target Settings menu. Enter the Target iqn Name, Target IP, Target Port (3260) as shown in Fi...
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Figure 13 Target Settings for Qlogic network adapter 7. Exit to the Function Configuration menu and enter information for other network adapter ports as needed. 8. Once complete, press [ESC] and selec...
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Figure 14 MBA Configuration Menu for Broadcom network adapters 5. Choose i SCSI Boot Configuration. Select General Parameters and press [Enter]. 6. Under General Parameters, ensure that all settings m...
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Figure 15 General parameters for a Broadcom network adapter enabled for i SCSI boot 7. Press [ESC] to return to i SCSI Boot Main Menu, select Initiator Parameters, and press [Enter]. 8. Under Initiato...
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Figure 16 1st Target Parameters configuration for a Broadcom network adapter 11. Press [ESC] to return to the Main Menu. Enter the 2nd Target Parameter if needed or ensure that there is no information...
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Note: i SCSI boot must be enabled on Intel network adapters prior to this configuration. See Section 5 for more information. 1. Start or reboot the system and during System boot press [F2] to enter Se...
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8 Installing Windows on the i SCSI volume Perform the following steps to install the Windows 2008 R2 OS on the i SCSI volume: 1. Insert the Windows Server 2008 R2 media into the system. 2. Turn on or ...
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Figure 18 Selecting location for Windows 2008 R2 installation 14. Select the drive and click Next to start the Windows installation. Note: When redundant network adapter ports are configured for i SCS...
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9 Post Windows 2008 R2 OS installation steps The following section contains additional steps that should be performed after Windows 2008 R2 SP1 is initially installed on the bootable i SCSI volume. Th...
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9. Select Launch Remote Setup Wizard and click Finish. 10. When the window for Remote Setup Wizard appears, choose Configure MPIO settings for this computer and click Next. 11. Include only the subnet...
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3. Optional: If the Volume access is controlled by i SCSI Initiator name, then add the Microsoft i SCSI Initiator name in the Access control record for the volume with Equal Logic Group Manager using ...
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10 Recovery from degraded network interface When the host system is booted with a single active link to the boot volume (degraded boot), reestablishing the failed connection does not create redundant ...
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11 Conclusions Configuring a Windows 2008 R2 server to boot from an Equal Logic i SCSI SAN has several advantages for management of the server and network. It also provides high reliability for the IT...
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A Configuration worksheet You can use the following worksheet to capture configuration information for your boot from i SCSI SAN environment. Note: Always use fully-qualified IQN format: <iqn>&l...