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PowerStore: 1,500 VMware Horizon VDI users
Executive summary Introduction Connectivity
Introduction
Block storage
Networking
Storage design Data encryption Test results Summary Appendix: Technical support and resources

Block storage

Home > Storage > PowerStore > Virtualization and Cloud > PowerStore: 1,500 VMware Horizon VDI users > Block storage

Block storage

  • PowerStore presents storage to external hosts through either block or file interfaces. Block storage is the most common datastore path for virtual machines. The various speeds and protocols offered make it ideal for performance. NFS is also used but is less common. PowerStore supports 25 GbE and 32 Gb FC connections for broad compatibility and performance requirements. For instructions and best practices for configuring hosts, see the Dell EMC PowerStore Host Configuration Guide on the PowerStore Info Hub.

    Configuring multipath I/O (MPIO) is critical to achieving the best performance from VMware hosts and should be configured properly. For MPIO configuration guidance, see the document Dell EMC PowerStore: VMware vSphere Best Practices.

    The large number of small I/Os generated from VDI environments benefit greatly from MPIO round robin and rapid-path switching. The use of rapid-path switching can help improve VM performance.

    The MPIO configuration used for this configuration is as follows:

    Path selection policy: Round Robin (VMware)

    Storage array type policy: VMW_SATP_ALUA

    This configuration provides optimal pathing with failover protection and path discovery.

    See the Dell EMC PowerStore VMware Best Practices Guide and Dell EMC PowerStore Host Configuration Guide on the PowerStore Info Hub for guidance on setting MPIO and other VMware best practices.

    iSCSI

    Using iSCSI for block storage allows convergence of storage and networking infrastructure. It requires careful planning to ensure adequate bandwidth and fault tolerance. Redundant networks are preferred for data availability.

    With iSCSI, increasing the maximum transfer unit (MTU) size from a 1,500-byte standard frame to a 9,000-byte jumbo frame is also highly recommended. The use of jumbo frames allows greater packet efficiency for higher bandwidth. Using jumbo frames is not a requirement but should be considered. Combined with the 25 GbE connectivity available in PowerStore, iSCSI can handle demanding workloads and high throughput requirements. All devices in the iSCSI data path in this configuration (hosts, switches, PowerStore) are configured for jumbo frames with an MTU of 9,000. This change reduces network switch loads as a smaller number of large packets are processed.

    Another benefit of using Ethernet infrastructure for iSCSI is the ability to share the network with file services. This use requires planning to ensure that there is enough bandwidth for all services, but it also reduces the hardware requirements. The use of different VLANs allows traffic prioritization to ensure that block traffic has the highest priority.

    In this environment, iSCSI traffic is configured to use two dedicated 25 GbE ports in I/O Module 1 on each PowerStore node, for four ports total. Jumbo frames are enabled on all network devices in the data path with MTU = 9000 bytes. PowerStore automatically configures ports in redundant pairs across I/O modules for redundancy and to optimize throughput.