Multiple vCenters Registered to App Volumes Managrs

[jeffrobinson85]

I'm in the process of adding new hosts to our Horizon environment. I'm adding the new hosts to a new vCenter. I have added the new vCenter to our App Volumes Managers and copied our App stacks to a datastore attached to the new vCenter. When I look at storage locations I see the datastores attached to the new vcenter but the datastore with the AppStacks doesn't show that it has any Appstacks. I feel like I'm missing something really simple. Do I need to setup a storage group to have two vCenter's present the same AppStacks to VM's in the individual vCenter's?

[Ray_handels]

You need to keep 2 things in mind with Appstacks in Appvolumes. You have the physical locations of the Appstacks whihc normally is <datastore>cloudvolumes\apps and you have the database.

If you only copy the appstacks to the datastore you do need to import the physical appstacks into the database.

Just go to Appstacks, choose Import, select the new datastore and they will be added to the database.

If you want to add the datastore as a new locations to store the exact same files i'd suggest romoving then and creating a storeage group, appstacks will be synced automatically between datastores, which keeps it simple for yourself.

[jeffrobinson85]

Ray,

Thanks for the information that helps. I do have some questions around storage groups.

For Distribution Strategy, is round robin the correct option if I want the same copy of AppStacks in two datastores?

What is the purpose of Template Storage?

When selecting storage do I need to select the two datastore's I want to I want to replicate to and from?

Thanks

[Ray_handels]

It depends on what you choose to do.

If you create a storage group and add multiple multiple datastores the appstacks will be automatically be synced (it is just a copy btw) to the other storage locations. I believe this is done once every 4 hours. So no round robin there, it just adds them to all datastores. The way you connect them is up to you. you could use the mount local options "When mounting, check VM's datastore for local copies of volumes.If present, mount those local copies of the volumes instead." it will then check local datastores to see if the appstack resides there. Do keep in mind that if you have large amounts of appstacks and writables this could cause a logon delay. We eventually decided not to use it due to a lot of writables and they are only stored at 1 location.

Template storage is just a template VMDK that you copy to create a new appstack. It just adds it to every datastore you add. Regarding appstacks it does not matter which datastore location you use first, it will sync it anyways. Regarding writables it could be an issue if your datastores fills up with writables. You do need to plan where to create those.

Hope that's enough info..