40 storage spaces manual
TRANSCRIPT
Published: 4th September, 2012
Windows Server 2012: Storage
Module 1: Storage Spaces.
Module Manual Author: Rose Malcolm, Content Master
Microsoft Virtual Academy Student Manual ii
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Contents
CONTENTS .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. III
MODULE 1: STORAGE SPACES. ........................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Module Overview ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 4
LESSON 1: FILE AND STORAGE SERVICES MANAGEMENT ...................................................................................................................... 5
CHALLENGES FOR STORAGE MANAGEMENT ............................................................................................................................................... 6
GOALS FOR FILE AND STORAGE SERVICES MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................................... 8
Unified Experience ................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Device Management ................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Robust Automation ................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Multi-Server Management ........................................................................................................................................................ 9
MANAGING WINDOWS SERVER 2012 STORAGE ...................................................................................................................................... 10
FILE AND STORAGE SERVICES MANAGEMENT COMPONENTS .......................................................................................................... 11
Task-Based Operations .......................................................................................................................................................... 11 Diagnosis and Investigation ................................................................................................................................................... 11 Automation and Scripting ....................................................................................................................................................... 12
UNIFIED MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS .............................................................................................................................................................. 13
Physical Disks ........................................................................................................................................................................ 13 Storage Pools ......................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Virtual Disks ........................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Making the Disk Usable to Windows ...................................................................................................................................... 14 File Server Capabilities .......................................................................................................................................................... 14
UNIFIED MANAGEMENT OF STORAGE .......................................................................................................................................................... 15
LESSON 2: MANAGING FILE AND STORAGE SERVICES ........................................................................................................................... 16
POWERSHELL AND WMI ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 17
ADDITIONAL MANAGEABILITY NOTES .......................................................................................................................................................... 18
MMCs ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 18 Cluster Administration ........................................................................................................................................................... 18 Best Practice Analyzer ........................................................................................................................................................... 19 System Center Management Packs ......................................................................................................................................... 19
FURTHER READING AND RESOURCES ........................................................................................................................................................... 20
Module 1: Storage Spaces.
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Module 1: Storage Spaces.
Module Overview
Windows Server® 2012 enables storage management that is comprehensive and fully scriptable—
and administrators can manage it remotely. A unified interface provides a single mechanism through
which to manage all storage, including intelligent storage subsystems from vendors other than
Microsoft, and virtualized local storage, known as Storage Spaces. Additionally, management
applications can use a single Windows® application programming interface (API) to manage different
storage types by using standards-based protocols such as Storage Management Initiative –
Specification (SMI-S).
This module introduces unified storage management.
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Lesson 1: File and Storage Services Management
This lesson discusses the challenges and goals for managing storage and introduces unified storage
management and its components.
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Challenges for Storage Management
The challenges for creating an effective storage management system in Windows Server 2012
revolve around making the administrative experience less complex. Currently, administrators work
with a different management tool for each server or role they are managing, often focusing on one
server at a time. If administrators choose to work at the command line, there are multiple
command-line interfaces that they can use.
Key challenges for storage management:
Discrete UIs
Single-server focus
Multiple command-line interfaces
To meet these key challenges, the storage management tools have been redesigned to provide a
smoother, more contiguous administrative experience that helps administrators to focus on the task
they are performing.
Windows Server 2012 enables administrators to work in a task-based manner, focusing on achieving
a particular task, such as creating a share, provisioning storage, or making storage accessible.
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The Windows Server 2012 approach to troubleshooting focuses on diagnosis and investigation.
Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 provides easily accessible tools and information to assist in
troubleshooting.
Windows Server 2012 also provides enhancements to automation and scripting, with a new version of Windows PowerShell™—Windows PowerShell 3.0—and additions to Windows Management
Instrumentation (WMI).
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Goals for File and Storage Services Management
The new integrated file and storage services management design focuses on providing a simple way
for administrators to manage end-to-end scenarios. The overall goal is to enable the administrator to
perform even complex tasks from a single, unified environment.
Unified Experience The large set of existing tools that an administrator would use to complete a task has been
rationalized. Often tasks would involve the use of more than one tool, requiring the administrator to
switch between discrete UIs and lose focus on the task. Now in Server Manager, administrators have
an environment where it is much easier to manage tasks end-to-end within the same UI. Where
separate, discrete Microsoft Management Consoles (MMCs) still exist, they are accessible from the
Server Manager UI. For example, the administrator can launch an MMC by using the Tools menu.
Device Management Device management is integrated into the file and storage services management experience, with
devices now easily accessible and managed from within Server Manager.
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Robust Automation Ease of robust automation is a key administrative goal throughout Windows Server 2012, with the
aim of providing more flexible options for server management. You can automate file and storage
services management in Windows Server 2012 by using Windows PowerShell.
Multi-Server Management Most administrators are responsible for multiple servers, often geographically dispersed. The file and
storage services management experience must be centralized to provide the easiest access to all
servers within the administrator’s remit.
For administrators who manage clusters, the cluster management interface has also been integrated
into the unified experience. Cluster management tools now sit alongside those for stand-alone
servers.
Finally, remote management of servers has been enhanced. Remote management is now considered
the default option for managing multiple servers, so the unified management experience has been
designed to reflect that.
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Managing Windows Server 2012 Storage
Every server in Windows Server 2012 has the ability to manage the storage subsystem—volumes,
disks, and storage pools.
Server Manager integrates the many discrete UIs for file and storage management into a single
page: File and Storage Services. This page enables you to view and manage the storage subsystem
entities.
As you add file service capabilities, such as data deduplication or file sharing, those services are also
displayed on the File and Storage Services page. New information relating to those services will be
accessible, enabling you to manage the services effectively.
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File and Storage Services Management Components
Integrating file and storage services management into Server Manager provides the benefits that are
associated with the new Server Manager design, including multiple-server management, unified UI
and Windows PowerShell management, and the unified management of storage.
Task-Based Operations Task-based operations are enabled by providing:
Easy-to-find areas of management, such as the File and Storages Services page.
Context-sensitive wizards to guide you through complex tasks.
Diagnosis and Investigation Diagnosis and investigation procedures are supported through an interface that:
Provides filters to enable you to find relevant information at a glance.
Enables you to pivot easily between related activities, such as pivoting between shares,
volumes, and quotas.
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Automation and Scripting Automation and scripting are supported by providing Windows PowerShell and WMI tools that you
can use to manage the storage subsystem, file servers, and clusters.
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Unified Management Concepts
Windows Server 2012 introduces Storage Spaces, a new storage subsystem that enables you to
group industry-standard disks into storage pools. You then create virtual disks known as Storage
Spaces from the available capacity in the storage pools.
Using storage pools and Storage Spaces helps to reduce administration costs by decreasing the time
that administrators spend provisioning and managing storage. Storage pools and Storage Spaces
simplify administration tasks, enabling administrators to set up and manage resilient and high-
availability storage easily. Storage Spaces also saves hardware costs by enabling the use of industry-
standard disks for resilient storage with high availability.
Physical Disks The term physical disk is used to describe the physical storage that is presented to Windows.
You can manage physical disks directly, through Storage Spaces, or through a Storage Management
Provider (SMP)/SMI-S subsystem.
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Storage Pools A storage pool is a container that is used to group physical disks. You can add physical disks to one
or more storage pools and then create virtual disks from available capacity in a storage pool. This
aggregation of disks enables you to make more efficient use of the disk capacity that you have in
your environment. Additionally, by using storage pools, you can easily add storage without impacting
users, and you can delegate administration of storage. You can create storage pools on storage
subsystems from vendors other than Microsoft and on subsystems that use the SMI-S standard.
Virtual Disks With storage pools, instead of managing each disk individually, you add physical disks to one or
more pools and then create virtual disks from the available capacity in a storage pool. You then
create volumes on the virtual disks, as if they were physical disks. When you run low on the
available capacity in the pool, simply add more disks.
Virtual disks can also be thinly provisioned, which means that pool capacity is used only according to
the size of the files that you copy to the virtual disks, not the size of the virtual disk you create. For
example, a 10-terabyte virtual disk might consume 100 megabytes (MB) of pool capacity if you have
not copied many files to the disk yet.
Making the Disk Usable to Windows When the virtual or physical disk is available to Windows, you make it usable by creating volume(s)
on the disk and formatting the volume so that it is ready for use and accessible.
At this stage, you will make the disk available to a file server or a Windows cluster, depending on
your requirements.
File Server Capabilities File server capabilities add an additional layer of management to your storage subsystem. File server
capabilities include sharing the volumes through Internet small computer system interface (iSCSI),
creating Server Message Block (SMB) or network file system (NFS) shares, or making the volume
available through File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) and Distributed File System (DFS). File
server capabilities also include role services such as data deduplication.
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Unified Management of Storage
The approach to managing storage in Windows has changed in Windows Server 2012 with the
introduction of the unified management environment.
The new environment includes a unified storage management layer, based on the Windows Storage
Management API. This layer has the ability to natively manage Storage Spaces that are presented on
a storage array that is compatible with Storage Spaces, such as a “just a bunch of disks” (JBOD)
array.
The Windows Storage Management API also enables third-party companies with either SMP or SMI-S
devices to register those devices in the unified storage management layer. This enables you to
manage SMP and SMI-S devices in the same way that you would manage Storage Spaces.
Regardless of the type of storage you are managing, unified management enables you to manage
that storage in a consistent manner, by using the GUI, Windows PowerShell, and WMI. This is
available to Microsoft applications and applications that independent software vendors (ISVs) write.
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Lesson 2: Managing File and Storage Services
This lesson describes additional storage management capabilities, such as Windows PowerShell and
other manageability features.
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PowerShell and WMI
One major goal for Windows Server 2012 is for administrators to be able to manage storage form the
command line as easily as they can through the GUI of Server Manager.
Windows PowerShell provides a scripting interface for administrators, and WMI provides a
programming interface.
By using these two features, you can manage every component that you have on your instance of Windows Server. You can manage every component—from file sharing through SMB or NFS to
deduplication and cluster services—through Windows PowerShell. Windows Server 2012 includes
many Windows PowerShell cmdlets for performing the majority of administration tasks for file and
storage servers.
Instead of using a variety of snap-ins or disparate command-line utilities, administrators can manage
servers by using Windows PowerShell commands and scripts. This enables administrators to
automate common administration tasks by using Windows PowerShell scripts.
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Additional Manageability Notes
Improvements to storage manageability in Windows Server 2012 extend further than the new unified
storage management environment of Server Manager and unified storage management.
MMCs There are features with existing MMCs, such as DFS Management and FSRM, and you can launch
these MMCs from within Server Manager. The MMCs are available through right-clicking the object
you want to manage, so that they launch in the appropriate context.
Where possible, functionality has been integrated into the GUI; for example, FSRM quota details are
visible in Server Manager and in the New Share Wizard.
Cluster Administration Cluster administration is now integrated into Server Manager storage management. Cluster
resources also appear in the New Share Wizard for a consistent experience.
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Best Practice Analyzer Every component has a Best Practice Analyzer (BPA) associated with it. Administrators can run the
BPA on the file server components, view the reports, and take any actions that are required.
System Center Management Packs Monitoring is a critical part of understanding the health of your environment. Server Manager
provides considerable health information, but this can be extended and automated through the use
of Microsoft® System Center. System Center Management Packs are available for all of the file
server components.
Next step watch the End to End Management video.
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Further Reading and Resources
For further information about the topics covered in this session, see the following resources:
Storage Team Blogs
http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/
Windows Server Blogs
http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/
Windows Server 2012 Home Page and Product Download
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/2012-default.aspx