Heartbeat/Synchronization setup

[Alexey Sergeev]

Hello!

I'd like to verify network configuration for 2-node Hyper-V cluster.
Both nodes have:

4 x 1 Gb NIC Intel i350 (built-in) - 3 ports teamed and connected to Hyper-V virtual switch with 3 vNIC's for Management, Cluster and Migration.

4 x 1 Gb NIC Broadcom 5719 - 2 ports for iSCSI connections with MPIO and fail-over only policy + 2 ports for Synchronization in case 10 Gb NIC go down.

2 x 10 Gb NIC Broadcom OCE-14102-NX - straight connection for synchronization between nodes.

What do you think about this setup? Can I use vNIC for management as additional heartbeat channel?

[Ivan (staff)]

Hello Alexey,
Thanks for interesting in StarWind solution
I recommend to use:
4 x 1 Gb NIC Intel i350 (built-in) - 3 ports teamed and connected to Hyper-V virtual switch with 3 vNIC's for Management, Cluster and Migration + additional heartbeat in StarWind
4 x 1 Gb NIC Broadcom 5719 - do not use it for iSCSI and Sync.
2 x 10 Gb NIC Broadcom OCE-14102-NX - one channel for HeartBeat/iSCSI and another one for Sync. Also, you can use iSCSI/Heartbeat channel for Live Migration (which is better than 3x1Gb NIC)
Configure your storage with Failover only MPIO policy and mark loopback connection as active.

[Alexey Sergeev]

Thank you, Ivan!

So if I want to make my synchronization channel redundant I need to add another 10 GB NIC?
By the way I've tried configuration with 2 x 10 GB NIC + 2 x 1 GB for synchronization - it works.

Could you clarify about additional heartbeat channel?
Can I combine this role with management vNIC, for example? Or should I use dedicated port for it?

Is there any way to configure synchronization/heartbeat channel with Powershell?
I've tried to add several IP's in your "CreateHA(two nodes)" script, something like:

$firstNode.SyncInterface = "#p2=10.10.3.3:3260;#p2=10.10.4.3:3260"
$firstNode.HBInterface = "#p2=10.10.6.3:3260;#p2=10.10.7.3:3260"

$secondNode.SyncInterface = "#p1=10.10.3.2:3260;#p1=10.10.4.2:3260"
$secondNode.HBInterface = "#p1=10.10.6.2:3260;#p1=10.10.7.2:3260"

But it seems it takes only first one address.

[Ivan (staff)]

Hello Alexey,
1) Regarding the HB Interface - yes, you can use management vNIC, Hyper-V Virtual Switch and dedicated port as well
2) PowerShell script will be available soon where you will be able to add additional interfaces via StarWindX
3) Synchronization channel - technically it will work, but I would like to notice that in such configuration 10 Gbps could be not fully utilized. Please note if you have HA configured the StarWind make redundancy on a NODE level, so you will not lose your production if you lost the Synchronizations channels.

[Alexey Sergeev]

Synchronization channel - technically it will work, but I would like to notice that in such configuration 10 Gbps could be not fully utilized

Of course you right! In that case maximum bandwidth I'll get would be the slowest one. Excuse me, I totally forgot about it.

[Alexey Sergeev]

By the way, how can we use this nice script "CreateHA(two nodes).ps1" in case of partner node total failure?
For example, I'd like to synchronize survived node with new server?
I've tried to use Add-HADevice with -initMethod "SyncFromFirst", but it's only create a new image file on the second host without replication established.

[Ivan (staff)]

Hello Alexey,
It is on our roadmap now and it will be available in next builds.