|
Under what circumstances would Shared LUN be an advantage ?
The Shared LUN feature allows more than one server to read and write to a virtual drive (also known as LUN) at the same time. The ability to read/write to a shared drive is required for applications such as clustering or virtual machine migration.
Shared LUN can be used only with a cluster-aware client such as Microsoft Cluster and VMWare VMFS, etc. Sharing a LUN between two or more servers without using a cluster aware software will likely result in corruption of the data on the virtual drive because the multiple read/write operations from the various servers will not be synchronized to ensure data integrity.
What benefits does Shared LUN give to customers with multiple Compute Modules?
The Intel® Modular Server is an ideal system to take to perform clustering or server virtualization, because it accommodates up to 6 servers which can access a common storage area. Without shared LUN, customers would have to handle the cost and complexity of an external infrastructure to created the shared storage area which is required for clustering applications, and for features such as VMWare V-Motion or Live Migration of Virtual Machines.. With shared LUN (and the appropriate clustering service or virtualisation OS installed) multiple servers can share one virtual drive.
What limitations are there for Operating Systems when using Shared LUN?
An operating system or hypervisor must have clustering services installed in order to properly use the shared LUN without causing data corruption.
How do you setup a Cluster using Shared LUN?
Please refer to your OS manufacturer for instructions how to set up clustering.
Can Shared LUN be used with External devices?
No, shared LUN will only a virtual drive to be shared between the compute modules within a chassis.
What happens if the hard drives in a Shared LUN fail?
If a hard drive fails with or without shared LUN, if the storage pool that the failed drive was a part of has a dedicated or global hot spare, the spare will immediately take the place of the failed drive and a rebuild operation will start automatically. This, combined with the RAID capability, ensures that servers will see no disruption of I/0 to the Shared LUN due to the failure of a drive as long as the virtual drive was created with a suitable RAID level (such as RAID5) which can sustain the failure of a single physical drive. There is no difference between hard drive behaviours if shared LUN is enabled.
Can a Shared LUN be used in more than one Modular Server Chassis?
The shared LUN license covers one chassis only. A shared LUN key must be activated for each chassis individually.
This applies to:
| 
