best software defined storage for 2-node vmware ess+ cluster?

[imadam]

Hello,

besides VMWARE VSAN solution, there are several other solutions in this area. If use case dictates use of SSD drives for storing workload (not only optimization of magnetic drives), what would be best solution to use for this. Is there somebody with compiled comparation for StorMagic, StoreVirtual, StarWind, Nexenta, Datacore, in terms of features, licencing and cost :-)?

Use case would be:

- 2-node cluster

- set of SSD drives for OLPT workload in each server

- set of NL-SAS drives for file/email stuff in each server

If we can take a bit of these SSD drives and use it with NL-SAS for adaptive optimization, it would be great but it is not required.

Thanks,

imadam

[Anton_Kolomyeyt]

StarWind vSAN It's free (production use = OK) and with the latest update there's a Linux-based VSA so there's no need in Windows licenses anymore.

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san-vsa

Good luck!

[imadam]

Hello Anton,

StarWind is on our list to check out. Can you please asnwer few questions:

1. Is there difference between your Windows based and Linux based VSA in terms of features, stability ...?

2. How long is Linux-based VSA on market ?

3. Where StarWind shine comparing to Nexenta, StorMagic, StoreVirtual ? I am trying here to understand differences without going month-to-month testing of each solution

4. What features are included in StarWind like inline dedupe, replication ... ?

Thank you,

Imadam

[PCTechStream]

- Did you try Openfiler: A powerful networked storage appliance.

- Openfiler offers a community edition and a commercial edition.

- virtualization environments such as XenServer and VMware.

Unified storage: NAS/SAN

iSCSI target functionality

CIFS, NFS, HTTP, FTP Protocols

RAID 0,1,5,6,10 support

Bare metal or virtualization installation

Journaled filesystems

Filesystem Access Control Lists

Point In Time Copy (snapshots) support

Dynamic volume manager

Powerful web-based management

Block level remote replication

High Availability clustering

Storage area networking

IP Storage Gateway

Disk-to-disk Backup

Video Surveillance

Oracle 10g raw volume

Virtual Machine migration

Continuous Data Protection

Network attached storage

Heterogeneous File Sharing

Exchange Server backend

Virtual Machine storage backend

Network User home directories

Media archiving

About Openfiler & FAQ

LINK: http://www.openfiler.com/products

Download Openfiler

LNK: http://www.openfiler.com/community/download 

How to configure OpenFiler iSCSI Storage for use with VMware ESX.

LINK: https://www.vladan.fr/how-to-configure-openfiler-iscsi-storage-for-use-with-vmware-esx/

Raul.

VMware VDI Administrator.

http://ITCloudStream.com/

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[imadam]

Hello Raul,

I read long time ago about openfiler, we tested and we went with FreeNAS for NAS purposes. So this is something we will evaluate again for this purpise (iSCSI). Thanks for bringing this back from past :-).

Are you using it in any production enviroment?

Thank you.

[PCTechStream]

I use Openfiler on a lab environment & testing, for production it will not be suitable for my infrastructure simply because I got around 2000 VMs in a Horizon View Suite.

For - 2-node cluster Openfiler would be great for you, we have it running with 8 host 2 cluster lab, it's free, very reliable & easy to use. Remember Openfiler is an Enterprise network storage solution compared to others free apps. The Web GUI is pretty nice and, in theory anyway, makes it fairly easy to set up some of the more difficult configurations such as RAID arrays, high availability, LDAP user authentication, or Windows Active Directory authentication. You got 2 options Openfiler offers both community and commercial support if you wanna go commercial Openfiler's pricing is more than fair. Support options range from about $1,000 to $5,500 per year, which are not out of line for a high-end enterprise product. 

Raul.

VMware VDI Administrator.

http://ITCloudStream.com/

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[Anton_Kolomyeyt]

Imadam,

1) Yes, Windows-based VSAs have more features (SR-IOV support for RDMA and some other performance tricks mostly). Our primary platform is Windows so Linux-based has 6-9 gap typically.

2) First release was in 2010 AFAIK. We didn't sell anything Linux-based before 2017 though.

3) We sell what we develop, we don't repackage ZFS or Linux MDM + DRBD. We do things like RDMA iSCSI, vVols, 4K in-line dedupe and have the most complete storage & management protocols list on the market. I'd encourage you to contact sales engineers (ping me off-line for direct path) for the demo and full story.

4) Everything you listed. Again, for Windows Vs Linux versions I'd suggest to talk to SEs off-line, I don't think others will be interested

Good luck!