App Vol 3.0 Redundancy

[lvanek]

So i have a large View/Federated Pod/Multi Site deployment. I set it up with App Vols 2.10 and did multiple App Vol servers behind load balancers, SQL always on and so forth to provide Application HA.

Since 3.0 came out i decided i would download it last night and deploy it to see if we could use that before the customer starts building App Stacks.

am i correct in noticing that there is NO way to provide redundancy/HA/Load Balance 3.0? since there is no external DB i am assuming this is not possible.

does anyone know more on HA with AppVol 3.0? if i cant provide redundancy i guess they will have to built the Stacks in 2.10, and switch to 3.0 later and hopefully there is a migration path.

Since it is days old, there is no documentation that i could find on how to provide HA with 3.0

[Ray_handels]

They said that it is possible to use Load balancing and connect to a shared database. Haven't seen documentation that states this or tried it myself. Trying to get to that next week.

2.10 Appstacks ar NOT compatible with 3.0, that's why upgrading from 2.x to 3.0 is not an option. When you download the software it is clearly stated that this version is more of a view where things are going instead of a product that can be used in production so I would not suggest using this in production..

[lvanek]

yea i know there is no upgrade path, that is why they wanted to switch gears to 3.0 as this is the opportune time for them to do so as they are just getting ready to build app stacks.

however the HA capability is a must for them to do so, so unless i can figure out how to connect to external DB, and load balance the 3.0 they are going to go with 2.10.

if you figure it out please let me know! i am also messing around with it to see if i can figure out the external DB piece.

[vManiaEK]

What is the point of releasing a product that doesnt have HA capability out of the box? There is nothing in the docs at all.

3.0 seems to be one step forward and two steps back.

What is an enterprise supposed to do when one product seems to be end of lifed but the replacement doesnt meet certain minimum standards of the existing/old version.

To start building out app stacks that arent compatible with the new version? Re-work. Where is the value in this new version? :smileyconfused:

[lvanek]

i could not agree more. why day 1 this does not support external db and load balancing, or if it does why they did not release the instructions is beyond me. no one is going to deliver their applications and have it be the only way users get applications if it is not built with redundancy.

[Smoke14]

All,

In the release notes it states "AppScaling with Multizones – Allows integrated application availability across datacenters with replication of AppStacks across sites. Automatic import services scan file shares to populate AppStacks into data stores across VMware vCenter® instances." that to me implies that it is now integrated, with no more having to manually configure.

I to have not had a chance to test yet, I also have a client that needs this multi data center  solution. But I would never put something that is clearly marked not ready for prime time production.

[lvanek]

that part talks about the replication of the App Stacks between datacenters by using a standard share on a file server, and then app vol snags the app stacks and copies them to vCenter allowing you to have the stacks in both pods without using storage groups and a shared datastore across pods.

However there is no mention of the DB, either it would have to be external or they would need to have some sort of replication mechanism built in that when you connect more than one AppVol Manager Appliance together they would all have updated copies of the DB to provide the application.

there is also no mention yet of how to use a load balancer to with multiple appliances to provide HA.

[alsmk2]

I'd really like to see an official response to this, as it does seem to be a rather large oversight right now!

[Jason_Marshall]

AV3 is the first release of an integrated platform with some significant changes. It is the future of app delivery. However in doing so does requires some additional work to get feature parity on the 2.x platform. That said 2.x will continue to be supported and additional releases with features and bug fixes are planned throughout 2016 while the 3.x platform is built up to feature parity and beyond.

There is external db support in 3.0 today limiting its HA capabilities. That will be coming soon and the platform is designed to be even more scalable, easier and more robustly than the 2.x platform but needs some time add those additional features to this integrated platform. In the meantime if you are looking to deploy in production please use the 2.x platform and continue to play with and provide constructive feedback on how we can improve 3.x and what features are missing.