Solved Windows 7 Enterprise and running multiple diskless nodes.

[Colby]

Can anyone point me to a tutorial on how to properly set up a diskless node cluster under Windows 7 Enterprise?

Have poked around various forums and can't seem to get a solid grasp of the steps needed in order to get it setup.

Thanks1

 

[brady]

Are you asking for the entire topology layout? or just what NIC you'll need in order to boot to TS?

 

[Colby]

No I'm fine with the topology and hardware.

I need to understand how to set it up. In other words, I have the Win 7 ent disk, the OS server and diskless nodes. Now what?

BTW, I'm not interested in setting up thin clients. The nodes will do all the processing (hence the need to have the OS, or at least the needed portion, served to each node.). The data, however, will be sent back to the OS server.

 

[Colby]

Think I may have found what I need:

Diskless servers can boot and run from the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target using a regular network card! - Windows Storage Server - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

 

[brady]

Quite a project you've got there, may I ask how large the company is? Is this setup for all employees or certain business units?

 

[cluberti]

Yes, you're either going to need to use iSCSI to hit a backend SAN hosting the disks or a fiber channel card over a fiber network to the same sort of backend. It would be no different than booting a Windows server diskless - you need a network card and bios capable of connecting over iSCSI and booting off of that remote LUN, or a FC card capable of doing the same thing over fiber.

VDI is generally the way forward from this sort of thing (you're going to need a LUN and drive for each machine you want to boot, so that can get pretty hairy on the backend if you need a lot of LUNs), but this is still a valid way to boot diskless clients or servers - you just need to have a backend SAN environment capable of handling it as well.

 

[Colby]

Sheesh what a complicated mess. No wonder there is so little documentation out there. Thanks for the replies...probably easier to just stick with local disks (for now).

 

[cluberti]

Well, that depends. You have to understand how the boot process itself works on the client, and the kinds of hardware requirements behind it, before you can truly understand how complicated (and in some cases, not) that this is. The hardware requirements alone make this really only viable for servers, and why thin clients and VDI are taking the place of "diskless" clients (it's far easier to put "clients" into an existing or new VDI virtual machine farm than it is to actually boot them diskless).

Is there a specific reason you want diskless clients? That might help us find you an alternative if the overhead necessary to do diskless doesn't work for you.

 

[Colby]

Its for my bitcoin mining cluster. Can't run thin clients because each node is running significant GPU processes. The rest of the rig basically sits idle.

 

[cluberti]

Understood. You could do a VDI solution with RemoteFX, but if you're looking to use existing nodes you're going to have to use local disks. Remote boot is still really only viable for servers, unless you have a very small number of clients.

 

[brady]

Would highly suggest waiting on this

 

[vdimaster]

Also using diskless workstation you don't have to pay the RDP CAL nor the VDA annual fee ($100).

 

[cluberti]

No, but you still need to pay to launch Windows, and if you're using iSCSI from a Windows host to boot off of, you need a CAL for that access as well. The VDA CAL covers the thin client and the RDP connectivity into the VDI infrastructure (and other things, like access to multiple VMs at once) so I'm not sure you aren't just shifting the cost into complexity elsewhere by using diskless clients running Windows. If you want to avoid paying for what you do and still stay legal, just don't use commercial products.