ESXI Local disks SSD for database

[pan1268]

Hello Experts,

Need some advice on ESXI hosts ( version 6.5 )  configuration for hosting a Cassandra database VM. The DB VM ( Linux ) configuration I will be hosting is

64 GB Memory

12 vCPU

DB/App partition - 1.5 TB

OS - 50 GB

Swap - 16 GB

Will host the VM on SSD that is - OS + Swap = 1 SSD ( with RAID 1)  and DB/App partition = 2 SSD (with RAID 1). I am placing a vCPU to CPU ratio for VM to 1:1. Would like to understand if there is any best practice to place this VM onto cloud infrastructure such as any recommendation on number of ESXI disk controllers ( because I will also be placing other VMs onto the same ESXIS host. ) and any other recommendation I should follow.

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers

[daphnissov]

I'm assuming that since this is a fairly beefy Cassandra DB that it's a fairly business-critical system, correct? Running with that presumption, you probably don't want that to run locally on just a single host and should look at shared storage instead of the all-flash variety. If something either happens to that host or its controller, your DB is dead. When you start getting into systems like this, host-local storage becomes more and more of a bad idea.

[pan1268]

Dear,

Actually, yes you are right. to mitigate the risk seems I need provision VSAN as it seems SSD is the best recommend for such critical dB and VSAN lifts up the cost substantially and therefore would like to go for local SSDs with RAID1. Assuming I go with the risk of local SSD is there any specific ESXI congfiguratuon I should choose Or any best practices in terms of number disk controllers in ESXI as this solution will be hosted on SoftLayer and seems they have software disk controller.

Also if you could guide me of any best practices guide to go for hosting this dB in softlayeR

Many thanks for your quick reply.

[daphnissov]

Notice that I didn't say anything about vSAN. I said shared storage which is external to the host. Yes, it's more expensive, but it's appropriate in this case. Look at not only the cost of that storage but the cost if this system is down for 12 hours. How about 24 hours? How about longer?

In any case, if you absolutely must host a critical database system on local storage, these are my recommendations.

1. Do so with a server that is on the HCL, not some whitebox you threw together in a garage.
2. Use an enterprise-class storage controller also on the HCL.
3. Use enterprise-class SSDs also on the HCL. (You see where this is going?)
4. Make sure firmware is updated on everything per HCL.
5. Ensure you have regular, image-based backups of this VM which requires a paid license to ESXi.
6. Do not attempt to do any of this on the free version and ensure you have support for everything in this list.

I have no experience with Softlayer and so cannot give you any advice there.