libvirt users - Jan 2011 - libvirt and shared storage SAN Fiber Channel

Hi,

I'm looking information about using libvirt with san (fiber channel) 
based storage and googling for a while i don't see anything about it.
I send this email in order to get advices about libvirt and shared storage

We use here, for 3 years now, 8 linux centos server connected to an 
hitachi FC SAN (multipath devices).
Each server run Xen dom0 and use SAN LUNs to store Virtual machine 
filesystem ( basically one LUN per VM).
For each LUN we create an LVM VolGroup. On each VolGroup we create 
Logical volumes (one for swap, one for root filesystem).
We present to the vm the 2 Logical Volume as it was raw disk.
In this system we can make live migration between host using local 
scripts which assume than one VolumeGroup is used only by one host at 
the same time on the 8 node "cluster". We don't use any clustered
aware
environment like CLVM.

We plan to migrate to kvm and libvirt with the new centos release 
(CentOS 6).
Reading the upstream documentation and libvirt i don't find anything 
about using libvirt with san storage except for iscsi.
Do you have any link or idea about using kvm + libvirt + SAN FC storage 
that permit to make live migration between node (we think about RHCS 
with GFS2 but it seems very complex to set up) ?

Do you think i can use the LUN's SAN as local storage on each node. For 
each LUN create an LVM Volume Group (same on each node, like that we 
doing now with xen) and use it as volume pool in libvirt.
Is volume pool in libvirt is 'cluster aware' (Can i access it 
simultaneously from different node) ?

I'm beginner in kvm so any advice will be great.

regards

-- 
Frederic Soulier

DSI / Service Syst?me
Universit? Toulouse 1 Capitole
2 rue du doyen Gabriel Marty
31 042 Toulouse Cedex 9
Tel: +33 5 61 63 39 98 Fax: +33 5 61 63 37 98

Hi,

is anyone using libvirt with SAN Fiber Channel storage and multiple hosts ?

is rhcs and gfs the only reliable solution ?

i will test rhel 6 with one LUN shared by two hosts and try to make a 
libvirt-pool on it.
is libvirt-pool and libvirt-volume "metdata" stored on the physical
disk
like with LVM ?
Can anyone explain or point me to the info which explain how libvirt is 
used in multi hosted environment ?

Thanks for tour help.

Regards


On 11/01/2011 21:30, Frederic SOULIER wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking information about using libvirt with san (fiber channel) 
> based storage and googling for a while i don't see anything about it.
> I send this email in order to get advices about libvirt and shared 
> storage
>
> We use here, for 3 years now, 8 linux centos server connected to an 
> hitachi FC SAN (multipath devices).
> Each server run Xen dom0 and use SAN LUNs to store Virtual machine 
> filesystem ( basically one LUN per VM).
> For each LUN we create an LVM VolGroup. On each VolGroup we create 
> Logical volumes (one for swap, one for root filesystem).
> We present to the vm the 2 Logical Volume as it was raw disk.
> In this system we can make live migration between host using local 
> scripts which assume than one VolumeGroup is used only by one host at 
> the same time on the 8 node "cluster". We don't use any
clustered
> aware environment like CLVM.
>
> We plan to migrate to kvm and libvirt with the new centos release 
> (CentOS 6).
> Reading the upstream documentation and libvirt i don't find anything 
> about using libvirt with san storage except for iscsi.
> Do you have any link or idea about using kvm + libvirt + SAN FC 
> storage that permit to make live migration between node (we think 
> about RHCS with GFS2 but it seems very complex to set up) ?
>
> Do you think i can use the LUN's SAN as local storage on each node. 
> For each LUN create an LVM Volume Group (same on each node, like that 
> we doing now with xen) and use it as volume pool in libvirt.
> Is volume pool in libvirt is 'cluster aware' (Can i access it 
> simultaneously from different node) ?
>
> I'm beginner in kvm so any advice will be great.
>
> regards
>

-- 
Frederic Soulier

DSI / Service Syst?me
Universit? Toulouse 1 Capitole
2 rue du doyen Gabriel Marty
31 042 Toulouse Cedex 9
Tel: +33 5 61 63 39 98 Fax: +33 5 61 63 37 98