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Provisioning in SMB environments

Contributors netapp-bingen netapp-chrisgeb

ONTAP provides resilient and high performance NAS storage for Hyper-V virtual machines using the SMB3 protocol.

When an SVM is created with the CIFS protocol, a CIFS server runs on top of the SVM that is part of the Windows Active Directory Domain. SMB shares can be used for a home directory and to host Hyper-V and SQL Server workloads. The following SMB 3.0 features are supported in ONTAP:

  • Persistent handles (continuously available file shares)

  • Witness protocol

  • Clustered client failover

  • Scale-out awareness

  • ODX

  • Remote VSS

Provisioning SMB shares on Windows Server

Prerequisites

Using NetApp storage in NAS environments in Windows Server has the following requirements:

  • ONTAP cluster have a valid CIFS license.

  • At least one aggregate is created.

  • One data logical interface (LIF) is created and the data LIF must be configured for CIFS.

  • A DNS-configured Windows Active Directory domain server and domain administrator credentials are present.

  • Each node in the NetApp cluster is time synchronized with the Windows domain controller.

Active Directory Domain Controller

A NetApp storage controller can be joined to and operate within an Active Directory similar to a Windows Server. During the creation of the SVM, you can configure the DNS by providing the domain name and name server details. The SVM attempts to search for an Active Directory domain controller by querying the DNS for an Active Directory/Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server in a manner similar to Windows Server.

For the CIFS setup to work properly, the NetApp storage controllers must be time synchronized with the Windows domain controller. NetApp recommends having a time skew between the Windows domain controller and the NetApp storage controller of not more than five minutes. It is a best practice to configure the Network Time Protocol (NTP) server for the ONTAP cluster to synchronize with an external time source. To configure the Windows domain controller as the NTP server, run the following command on your ONTAP cluster:

$domainControllerIP = "<input IP Address of windows domain controller>"
cluster::> system services ntp server create –server $domainControllerIP

Deployment

  1. Create a new SVM with the NAS protocol CIFS enabled. A new SVM can be created with any of the following methods:

    • CLI commands on NetApp ONTAP

    • System Manager

    • The NetApp PowerShell Toolkit

  2. Configure the CIFS protocol

    1. Provide the CIFS server name.

    2. Provide the Active Directory to which the CIFS server must be joined. You must have the domain administrator credentials to join the CIFS server to the Active Directory.

  3. Assign the SVM with LIFs on each cluster node.

  4. Start the CIFS service on the SVM.

  5. Create a volume with the NTFS security style from the aggregate.

  6. Create a qtree on the volume (optional).

  7. Create shares that correspond to the volume or qtree directory so that they can be accessed from Windows Server. Select Enable Continuous Availability for Hyper-V during the creation of the share if the share is used for Hyper-V storage. Doing so enables high availability for file shares.

  8. Edit the share created and modify the permissions as required for accessing the share. The permissions for the SMB share must be configured to grant access for the computer accounts of all the servers accessing this share.

Host integration

The NAS protocol CIFS is natively integrated into ONTAP. Therefore, Windows Server does not require any additional client software to access data on NetApp ONTAP. A NetApp storage controller appears on the network as a native file server and supports Microsoft Active Directory authentication.

To detect the CIFS share created previously with Windows Server, complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to Windows Server as a member of the administrator group.

  2. Go to run.exe and type the complete path of the CIFS share created to access the share.

  3. To permanently map the share onto the Windows Server, right-click This PC, click Map Network Drive, and provide the path of the CIFS share.

  4. Certain CIFS management tasks can be performed using Microsoft Management Console (MMC). Before performing these tasks, you must connect the MMC to the NetApp ONTAP storage using the MMC menu commands.

    1. To open the MMC in Windows Server, click Computer Management in the Tools section of Server Manager.

    2. Click More Actions and Connect to Another Computer, which opens the Select Computer dialog.

    3. Enter the name of the CIFS server or the IP address of the SVM LIF to connect to the CIFS server.

    4. Expand System Tools and Shared Folders to view and manage open files, sessions, and shares.

Best practices

  • To confirm that there is no downtime when a volume is moved from one node to another or in the case of a node failure, NetApp recommends that you enable the continuous availability option on the file share.

  • When provisioning VMs for a Hyper-V-over-SMB environment, NetApp recommends that you enable copy offload on the storage system. Doing so reduces the VMs' provisioning time.

  • If the storage cluster hosts multiple SMB workloads such as SQL Server, Hyper-V, and CIFS servers, NetApp recommends hosting different SMB workloads on separate SVMs on separate aggregates. This configuration is beneficial because each of these workloads warrants unique storage networking and volume layouts.

  • NetApp recommends connecting Hyper-V hosts and the NetApp ONTAP storage with a 10GB network if one is available. In the case of 1GB network connectivity, NetApp recommends creating an interface group consisting of multiple 1GB ports.

  • When migrating VMs from one SMB 3.0 share to another, NetApp recommends enabling the CIFS copy offload functionality on the storage system so that migration is faster.

Things to remember

  • When you provision volumes for SMB environments, the volumes must be created with the NTFS security style.

  • Time settings on nodes in the cluster should be set up accordingly. Use the NTP if the NetApp CIFS server must participate in the Windows Active Directory domain.

  • Persistent handles work only between nodes in an HA pair.

  • The witness protocol works only between nodes in an HA pair.

  • Continuously available file shares are supported only for Hyper-V and SQL Server workloads.

  • The SMB multichannel is supported from ONTAP 9.4 onwards.

  • RDMA is not supported.

  • ReFS is not supported.

Provisioning SMB shares on Nano Server

Nano Server does not require additional client software to access data on the CIFS share on a NetApp storage controller.

To copy files from Nano Server to a CIFS share, run the following cmdlets on the remote server:

$ip = "<input IP Address of the Nano Server>"
# Create a New PS Session to the Nano Server
$session = New-PSSession -ComputerName $ip -Credential ~\Administrator
Copy-Item -FromSession $s -Path C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log -Destination \\cifsshare

  • cifsshare is the CIFS share on the NetApp storage controller.

  • To copy files to Nano Server, run the following cmdlet:

    Copy-Item -ToSession $s -Path \\cifsshare\<file> -Destination C:\

To copy the entire contents of a folder, specify the folder name and use the -Recurse parameter at the end of the cmdlet.