c200 M2 RAID Setup for CUCM

[dlcharville]

Trying to follow the documentation on setting up a c200 M2 for Communication Manager install per the Cisco Unified Communications Manager on Virtualized Servers document.  Confused on how the RAID should be setup.  In the documents it states the RAID should be setup as follow.

•RAID 10 array for logical drive 0

•RAID 10 volume of 4 drives

Then it states on step 6:

"Install and configure VMware ESXi on the smaller of the two available disks."

My issue is that I only have one available disk to install software on.  Do I install the host (ESXi) and guest (CUCM) software on the one disk?

Document I am following is here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/virtual/servers.html#wp53643

Installing Cisco Unified Communications Manager on Cisco UCS C200 Rack-Mount Servers

Thanks,

Dan

[Jason Aarons]

You would never want a server running anyting on just 1 drive;

Re-read the instructions, you should have put first 2 disks in RAID1 (mirror) and remaining in RAID 5.

The required configuration is two drives in a RAID 1 array for logical drive 0, and for servers with more drives, the remaining drives in a RAID 5 array for Logical drive 1. If the RAID configuration is wrong, continue with this procedure.

Only maybe my laptop has a single drive. My home PC running Windows 7 runs 2 drives in a software mirror for redundancy. I don't want a disk failure to cause me to have to rebuild my PC!

[dlcharville]

Jason - appreciate the responese.  I do agree with you in that it doesn't make sense to install the host plus guests on one drive.

With that said, I believe the instructions that you were reading about the RAID 1 and RAID 5 setup were for the C210 RAID setup and not the C200.  According to the documentation, these two different servers RAID setup are different from each other.

Thanks,

Dan

[richard.pugh]

There will only be 1 disk available for the C200 as you are using all 4 possible drives in a RAID1+0 (10) setup. ESXi will only use about a gig of the volume with the remainder being for the CUCM application once ESXi is installed.

[zsafawi]

For best practices and for a supported Cisco Configuration, you'll need to have 4 x 1TB 7200 rpm drives.

Cisco UCS C200 M2: Tested Reference Configuration 1 (UCS-C200M2-VCD2 or UCS-C200M2-BE6K)

Local disk drives: Local disk drives are required for installation of both VMware software and Cisco Unified Communications applications. No other storage options (NAS or diskless servers) are supported at this time. The disk quantity must exactly match the quantities listed in Tables 1 and 9. The configuration of RAID, including the mapping of physical volumes to logical volumes, must exactly match Cisco Unified Communications application requirements as described in the installation guides. The choice of hardware RAID controller card, including battery backup, must exactly match the options listed in Table 9. Disk size (for example, 1 TB) and access speed (for example, 7,200 rpm) must both be same as or higher than the values listed in Table 9.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6790/ps5748/ps378/solution_overview_c22-597556.html

Thanks,

Zouheir

[Roman Rodichev]

C200M2 must be running with RAID 10 (1+2 in RAID1, 3+4 in RAID1, and then RAID0 stripe the two groups), I always use the preboot CLI:

·       Press CTRL+Y to enter preboot CLI

o   http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/virtual/servers.html#wp53962

o   See current RAID configuration: -ldinfo -l0 -a0

o   Clear configuration: -cfgclr -a0

o   Determine device ID of the enclosure (it should be 252): -encinfo -a0 -page 20

o   Determine starting slot number in the enclosure (if good output drives start at slot 0, if error output drives start at slot 1; on C200M2 it should start at 0): -pdinfo -physdrv [252:0] -a0

o   Configure RAID array: -CfgSpanAdd -r10 -Array0[252:0,252:1] -Array1[252:2,252:3] -a0

o   Initialize the logical volumes (clears data on drives and initializes new array, make sure to allow this command to finish running): -ldinit -start -full -l0 -a0

§  Instructions say use FULL but it takes a long time, I always do without FULL, it’s quick initialization and it works fine.

o   Display progress of the previous command: -ldinit -showprog -l0 -a0

o   If progress shows that no initializion is running, it is safe to quit the preboot CLI

o   "q" to exit