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.

Module 1: Storage Spaces.

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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.

Module 1: Storage Spaces.

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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