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PowerVault™ MD32X0, MD32X0i, and MD36X0i Series of Storage Arrays: Implementing Hyper-V
The Module Disk Storage Manager comes with the device specific module (DSM) for Microsoft multi-path
I/O (MPIO). MPIO provides load-balancing between the two ports of one RAID controller module. For
best performance, make sure that load-balancing is enabled and active. Load-balancing allows you to
use up to 4Gb/s for each virtual disk on the MD32X0i or MKD36X0i storage array.
For more information about the MD32X0i storage array, go to this website:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pvaul_MD3200i?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz
&dgc=IR&cid=14054&lid=407200
Need MD36X0i link
For more information about how to plan for an IP SAN network, refer to the IP SAN Best-Practices at
this website:
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/public/white_papers/IP-SAN-BestPractice-WP.pdf
You can choose one of these load-balance policies to optimize I/O performance.
Round Robin with Subset
The round-robin with subset I/O load-balance policy routes I/O requests in rotation, to each available
data path to the RAID controller module that owns the virtual disks. This policy treats all data paths to
the RAID controller module that owns the virtual disk equally for I/O activity. Data paths to the
secondary RAID controller module are ignored until ownership changes. The basic assumption for the
round-robin policy is that the data paths are equal. With mixed-host support, the data paths might
have different bandwidths or different data transfer speeds.
Least Queue Depth with Subset
The least queue depth with subset policy is also known as the least I/Os, or least requests, policy. This
policy routes the next I/O request to a data path that has the least outstanding I/O requests queued.
For this policy, an I/O request is simply a command in the queue. These types of command, or the
number of blocks that are associated with the command, are not considered. The least queue depth
with subset policy treats large block requests and small block requests equally. The data path selected
is in the path group of the RAID controller module that owns the virtual disk.
Least Path Weight with Subset
The least path weight with subset policy assigns a weight factor to each data path to a virtual disk. An
I/O request is routed to the path with the lowest weight value to the RAID controller module that owns
the virtual disk. If more than one data path to the virtual disk has the same weight value, the round-
robin with subset path selection policy is used to route I/O requests between paths with the same
weight value.
Changing the Load-Balance Policy Using the Windows Server 2008 Disk Management Options
From the desktop of the host, right-click the My Computer icon, and select Manage to open the
Computer Management dialog. Select Disk Management to view the list of virtual disks that are
attached to the host. Right-click the virtual disk on which you want to set the load- balance policy, and
select Properties. From the MPIO tab, select the load-balance policy that you want to set for this
virtual disk.
Enabling the Hyper-V Role on the Parent Server
After you have installed the Windows Server® 2008 Release 2 operating system on the servers, you can
enable the Hyper-V role on those servers.
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