iSCSI Storage Server with Windows Storage Server 2008

indows Storage Server 2008 (hereinafter referred to as WSS2008) is a storage server version in the Windows Server 2008 series and is an enterprise-class file server platform that supports the optimization features associated with multi-administrator file storage, Replica management, as well as iSCSI functionality. Simply put, you can install the WSS2008 on an ordinary server, which can be used as an iSCSI storage server. In the past, the storage server hardware, software costs are very expensive, with WSS2008, to build a low-cost, easy to manage the storage server is possible. This section describes WSS2008 as an iSCSI server and its applications in the network.

Tip: ISCSI (Internet Small computer system Interface, Internet small Computer system interface), developed by IBM Research, is a set of SCSI instructions that can be run on the upper layer of the IP protocol for use by hardware devices. This set of instructions enables the SCSI protocol to be run on an IP network to establish and manage the connectivity between IP storage devices, hosts and clients, and to create a storage area network (SAN).

1 Version Selection

Windows Storage Server has 32-bit and 64-bit two versions, of which 64 bits have basic (Basic), Standard Edition, Enterprise (corporate), and Workgroup (workgroup) editions, and 32-bit only basic edition. To use WSS2008 as an iSCSI server, you need to install the 64-bit Enterprise Edition or Workgroup Edition.

WSS2008 server requirements are also relatively simple, as long as you can install 64-bit Windows Server 2008 computer, you can. Use WSS2008 to do storage server, mainly on the speed of the hard disk, capacity, and the speed of the network card is relatively high requirements. In general, with 64-bit CPU (no need for virtualization support), 2GB of memory, gigabit network cards and Gigabit networks, 40GB hard disk space, you can install and run WSS2008, but to do storage server, but also need more hard disk space for other devices on the network (or computer) allocation, This can be configured according to the needs of the enterprise, or you can add the configuration at any time later. Need special attention, unless the experiment, WSS2008 hard disk must be data redundancy, that is, at least to do RAID1, recommended to use more than 3 hard disk to do RAID5, or more than 6 hard drives to do RAID50.

In the following sections, we will describe the use of WSS2008 as an iSCSI storage server through a few typical cases.

2 Basic configuration of WSS2008

After installing WSS2008, log in with the default administrator account, note that its default password is "wss2008!", note that the 1th letter is lowercase, the last two letters capitalized, and finally an "exclamation point".

In this example, the IP address of the WSS2008 server is 192.168.1.88 and the storage space is 300GB. During the installation process, the operating system is divided into about 45GB of space, the remaining space for storage use (about 255GB left). As shown in 1.

Figure 1 Available storage space for WSS

If you want to make WSS2008 an iSCSI storage server, you will also need the "iSCSI software Target" software provided by Microsoft, which is a 3738KB-size software named Iscsitarget.msi, which currently has only 64-bit versions. The installation of the software is relatively simple, exactly the default value, that is, the installation can be completed, as shown in 2.

Figure 2 Installing the iSCSI target software

After the installation is complete, run the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target program from the administrative tools and go to the ISCSI Storage Management program. The process for using iSCSI disks is as follows:

On the iSCSI storage server, create a "target"

Create a "virtual disk" on the iSCSI storage server and establish a connection to the "target"

On the iSCSI client, connect the iSCSI storage server to the assigned "target" and connect to the virtual disk

In the iSCSI server, for the expansion of virtual disks, snapshots and other maintenance work

On the iSCSI client, flush the iSCSI disk and see the capacity changes.

3 using WSS2008-provided virtual disks in operating systems such as Windows 7

In this example, for a Windows 7 computer with an IP address of 192.168.1.11, on the WSS2008 storage server, allocate a disk about 12GB, and after the workstation connects to and uses the disk, it expands the disk to about 20GB and creates a snapshot on the server and restores it.

3.1 Creating an iSCSI target

On an iSCSI server, the steps to create an iSCSI target are as follows:

(1) in the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target console, right-click iSCSI Target, and in the shortcut menu that pops up, choose Create iSCSI Target, as shown in 3.

Figure 3 Creating an iSCSI target

(2) on the iSCSI Target Identification page, in the iSCSI Target Name text box, type the name of the iSCSI target that you want to create, in this case ws001, and in the Description text box, type the relevant description information, as shown in 4.

Figure 4 Setting the target name

(3) on the iSCSI Initiator identifiers page, click the Advanced button, in the Advanced Identifiers dialog box that pops up, click the Add button, in the Add/Edit Identifiers dialog box that pops up, select IP address in the identifier Type drop-down list, and type the IP address of the workstation. This example is 192.168.1.11, and then click the OK button, as shown in 5.

Figure 5 Adding identifiers

(4) After returning to the iSCSI initiator identifiers page, click the Next button; In the Completing the Create iSCSI Target Wizard page, click the Finish button.

3.2 Creating a virtual disk and connecting to an iSCSI target

After you return to the Microsoft ISCSI software Target console, create a virtual disk with the following main steps:

(1) With the right mouse button "Device", select "Create Virtual Disk" in the popup shortcut menu, as shown in 6. Go to the Create Virtual Disk Wizard page.

Figure 6 Creating a virtual disk

(2) On the Files page, select the partition where the virtual disk is saved and set the virtual disk file with the VHD extension, specifying the save location, as shown in this example, d:\ws01.vhd,7.

Figure 7 Creating a virtual disk

(3) On the size page, set the size of the virtual disk, in this case, set to 12345MB (about 12GB or so), as shown in 8. On this page, the maximum value of the current drive capacity and free space is shown.

Figure 8 Setting the virtual disk size

(4) On the description page, add descriptive information for the virtual disk.

(5) On the Access page, click the Add button and in the Add Target dialog box that pops up, choose to connect the newly created disk to an iSCSI target, as shown in the previous section, the target named ws001, 9.

Figure 9 Adding an iSCSI target

(6) On the Completing the Create Virtual Disk Wizard page, click the Finish button.

If the Firewall service is enabled for WSS2008, you will need to add (open) TCP port 3260 to service the client, as shown in 10.

Figure 10 Adding a TCP 3260 port

3.3 Connecting iSCSI disks on workstations

On a Windows 7 workstation with an IP address of 192.168.1.11, perform the following steps to add the iSCSI disks provided by WSS2008.

(1) in the Windows 7 operating system, run iSCSI initiator from Administrative tools, and if it has not previously been run, a dialog box will appear prompting you to run Microsoft iSCSI services, as shown in 11.

Figure 11 Running the Microsoft iSCSI Service

(2) in the iSCSI Initiator Properties dialog box, go to the Discovery tab, click the Discovery Portal button, and in the Discover Target Portal dialog box that pops up, type the IP address of the iSCSI server, in this case 192.168.1.88, and then click the OK button, as shown in 12.

Figure 12 Adding an iSCSI server

(3) Click the Destination tab, and you can see that you are connected to the iSCSI server, click the Connect button, and in the Connect to Destination dialog box that pops up, click OK, and 13 is shown.

Figure 13 Adding a target

(4) Click on the "Favorite Targets" tab to see the target of the collection, click the "OK" button to complete the iSCSI disk additions.

Figure 14 Favorite Connections

Then go to Computer Management → storage → Disk Management to initialize the newly added disk (based on the iSCSI protocol) and create the volume, as shown in 15.

Figure 15 Creating a new simple volume

After the volume is created, you can see that a new 12.05GB disk is added, as shown in 16.

Figure 16 the newly added disk

You can use the same disk that you saved on the WSS2008 server later, just as you would with a local hard disk.

3.4 Disk expansion on the iSCSI server

In the beginning, the workstation was assigned a 12GB network disk, if after a period of time, customers think the hard disk is relatively small, you can on the server, the hard disk "capacity", the main steps are as follows:

(1) in the Microsoft ISCSI software Target Console, in the Devices list, right-click the virtual disk that you created for your workstation, and in the shortcut menu that pops up, choose extend Vdisk, as shown in 17.

Figure 17 Extending the virtual disk

(2) On the size page, in the additional virtual disk capacity (MB) text box, type the size of the expanded capacity, as shown in this extension 8000mb,18.

Figure 18 Expansion 8000MB

(3) Additional Select default values to complete the extension wizard.

3.5 Refreshing a disk expansion volume on a workstation

Then, go back to the Windows 7 Workstation, and in Computer management → storage → Disk Management, right-click and select Refresh (19) in the popup shortcut menu to rescan the disk. After the scan, you can see that the existing volume is incremented with the 8000mb,20 shown.

Figure 19 Refresh

Figure 20 newly added disk space

For the newly added disk space of the workstation, you can select the partition you have created, right-click, select "Extend Volume" in the Popup shortcut menu, expand the size of the existing volume, or go to the command prompt to expand the size of the volume. The difference between using these two methods is that if you use the graphical interface, after the extension, you will see two partitions that are all J disks, and use the DiskPart command extension to display a partition letter after the extension. Of course, for the operating system, whether it is to display a partition or two partitions, the capacity of the expanded volume, the use of the same method.

(1) Enter command prompt, execute diskpart command

Then execute select disk 2, select the iSCSI disk, and in Disk Management, the newly added hard disk number is 2.

Then execute list partition, display the current partition name, the number, you can see the following prompt:

Partition # # # type size offset

------------- ------------ ------- -------

Partition 1 primary GB (KB)

Then execute SELECT partition 1 and select the first partition.

Executes the extend command to extend an existing volume, the extension completes, and execution exit exits.

The execution procedure is shown in 21.

Figure 21 executing the DiskPart extended hard drive

(2) After the extension, return to "Disk Management", you can see that the current disk volume size has become 19.87gb,22 shown.

Figure 22 the expanded volume size

3.6 Creating a snapshot on the server

On the WSS2008 storage server, you can create multiple "snapshots" of the virtual disks that are assigned to the user and "roll back" the snapshot when the user needs it, restoring the virtual disk data to the state of the snapshot.

The way to create a snapshot is simple, you can complete the creation of a snapshot by right-clicking the virtual disk in the Devices list, selecting Create Snapshot (23) from the shortcut menu that pops up, and you can create multiple snapshots at any time.

Figure 23 Creating a snapshot

However, to recover the snapshot, it is more "troublesome", the main steps are as follows:

(1) Delete the disk: in iSCSI target, select target using snapshot, right-click in the list of virtual disks on the right, and select Delete Virtual Disk from iSCSI Target in the shortcut menu that appears, 24.

Figure 24 Deleting a virtual disk

(2) After deletion, the virtual disk's status becomes "idle".

(3) in snapshot → active snapshot, in the active snapshot list on the right, select a snapshot, right-click, and choose Roll back to Snapshot in the popup shortcut menu, as shown in 25.

Figure 25 Rollback to Snapshot

(4) Click the "Yes" button in the Pop-up dialog box, 26 is shown.

Figure 26 Determining the rollback snapshot

(5) After the rollback is complete, in iSCSI target, re-add the existing virtual disk for the iSCSI target, as shown in 27.

Figure 27 Adding an existing virtual disk

(6) In the "Add Virtual Disk" dialog box that pops up, select the virtual disk that you deleted in step (1), as shown in 28.

Figure 28 Adding a deleted virtual disk

(7) on the workstation, refresh or reconnect the iSCSI virtual disk, you can see the "rollback" after the data.

3.7 Using external disks on Windows xp/2003

The iSCSI initiator is integrated in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 2008, and its subsequent operating systems, and is not integrated in Windows XP and its previous operating systems, if you are in Windows XP, On Windows 2003 workstations, using iSCSI virtual disks provided by WSS2008, you need to install the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator (iSCSI Initiator) on these operating systems, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Web site, The current maximum version is 2.08, including the x86 version running under 32-bit Windows and the x64 version running under 64-bit Windows, as well as the IA64 version running on the "Itanium" system. This software installation is very simple, after the installation of the use of Windows 7, similar to the use of this is no longer described too much.

This article is from the "Wang Chunhai blog" blog, make sure to keep this source http://wangchunhai.blog.51cto.com/225186/287653

iSCSI Storage Server with Windows Storage Server 2008