HP P4500 SAN

[seamusob]

I am looking to deploy a stretched vsphere cluster between two Datacenter's that are only about 350 metres apart. It will consist of six BL 460G7 with three in each site. We will also be using a two node HP P4500 San that will be configured as one cluster with read/write nodes in each site. The site links have enough bandwidth for storage replication. The FOM will be located in a third site.

We will be using ESX 4.1 U2 for this solution. I have seen plenty of demos with this kit whereby they demo FT across two sites and they fail one site and the secondary vm continues in the other site but not HA.

The client cannot afford SRM and I know that HA is not site aware and that VM-Host affinity rules are not supported with 4.1 stretched clusters.

I suppose my question is would VMware support a stretched vsphere 4.1 HA cluster (with drs switched off)   utilizing the HP P4500 SAN

Thanks in advance

Plus any tips from people who have installed this solution would be helpful

[depping · Accepted solution]

As far as I this is supported with both HA and DRS. I thought I had a KB article for it, but I cannot find it. I think as long as you stick to these guidelines you should be good:

1. VMware vCenter server must be able to connect to vSphere hosts at both locations.
2. An IP network with a minimum bandwidth of 622 Mbps for vSphere hosts participating in vMotion.
3. Maximum latency of 5 milliseconds (ms) between hosts participating in vMotion.
4. Source and destination vSphere hosts must have a network interface on the same IP subnet and broadcast domain.
5. The same IP network on which the virtual machines reside must be accessible to vSphere hosts at both data center locations.
6. Datastores on which the virtual machine boot drives must be accessible to vSphere hosts at both data center locations.
7. The maximum number of vSphere hosts in a HA enabled cluster must not exceed 8, with 4 hosts residing at each site.

I would still recommend to get an official statement from HP though. I would also recommend to use vSphere 5 instead. The HA architecture has been completely revamped which for instance removes the "8 host limit" and also means you can have 10ms of latence on your vMotion network when using Enterprise Plus.

[seamusob]

Thanks Duncan for taking the effort to reply to this post. Some great information here I have asked the storage consultant to approach HP to see if they will support this solution.

Once again thanks