MPIO Configuration with ServerManagerCmd and MPClaim

My last post touched on automating the installation and creation of a failover cluster on Windows Server 2008.  In this post, I want to touch on adding additional redundancy by installing Multipath I/O.  With MPIO, you can have multiple paths to your disk that are masked together to provide high availability and redundancy in your cluster configuration.

In Windows 2008, you can use ServerManagerCmd to automate the installation of the MPIO feature from the command line:

C:\> SERVERMANAGERCMD.EXE -install Multipath-IO

Once the role is installed a reboot will be required, but if you have additional configuration that you want to do with MPIO before that reboot, you can do that first.

Interestingly enough I was looking for a way to add the hardware vendor ID for MPIO disk devices.  You can pre-configure MPIO to look for particular disk devices based on their hardware ID to automatically use MPIO on those devices.  You will have to use this procedure for storage devices that are not SPC-3.

For example, if I wanted to configure MPIO to automatically multipath any disk device on a Compellent Storage Center, I can use MPCLAIM.EXE, which is part of Windows Server 2008.  Specifying a hardware ID will also require a reboot upon completion.  MPCLAIM.EXE can initiate that reboot for you when it’s done.

C:\> MPCLAIM.EXE -r -i -d COMPELNTCompellent

You can couple this with the cluster creation by running this script first.  Once MPIO is installed, configured and the servers have rebooted, you can use the script to create the cluster and you’re ready to go MPIO and all!

UPDATED 07/28/2009

The Hardware ID specified for a Compellent volume was incorrect.  This article has been corrected to show the correct hardware ID for a Compellent Storage Center disk when used with MPCLAIM.

Cluster Quickness

It seems that the day of entering everything via DOS commands have come full circle as larger enterprise environments take advantage of high availability technologies like Windows Failover Clustering.

I was setting up a test environment today which consisted of eight nodes in a Windows 2008 Server Environment.  The days of using the GUI and your mouse to click around get pretty annoying when you have to repetitively follow these processes across a number of servers. 

Here are a couple of quick commands that can be used in setting up your clusters on Windows Server 2008.

Install the Failover Clustering role using the Server Manager Command Line:

C:\> servermanagercmd -install Failover-Clustering

Once you have installed the Failover Clustering role on all of your nodes, you can also automate the creation of the cluster itself from the command line.  Specify a few parameters and you are set to go!

C:\> cluster.exe /cluster:newcluster /create /nodes:”ws08node1 ws08node2 ws08node3″ /ipaddress:192.168.1.10/255.255.255.0

Remember that after the cluster is created, you still have to setup your disks.  This can also be done via command line, but In the case of this cluster, I prefer to do it in the Failover Clustering MMC.  If you are adding a large amount of disks and want to automate that process, the cluster.exe command offers the functionality you need to accomplish that.

Once I had my disk provisioned, the process of installing the role and creating the new cluster (for eight nodes even) only takes a few minutes.