DS3400 Storage Configuration Advice?

[Project951]

Hello everyone,

We are going to be implementing our first SAN-based VMware solution. We purchased vSphere Essentials Plus and are particularly interested in the High Availability feature. The hardware is as follows:

(2) IBM x3850 M2 Servers (each with 64GB of RAM) with QLogic 4GB FC HBAs (IBM P/N:39R6525)

Both of these servers have a 146GB RAID1 Array with Hotspare drive using the embedded LSI Logic controller. The ESX 4.0 U1 operating system will be loaded on and boot from these internal RAID1 Arrays. These servers will be direct attached to an IBM DS3400 Dual Controller FC SAN.

My question lies in the setup of the DS3400. The DS3400 will be populated with (6) 450GB SAS 15K RPM drives, the seventh 450GB drive will be a Hotspare for the array. I was planning on creating one large RAID 10 array with the 6 drives and using that array to store all my VMs. This will be the Guest OS layout for the 2 physical ESX hosts:

x3850 Server 1:

Exchange Server 2007 running Windows Server 2008 64-bit

Field Terminal Server running Windows Server 2008 64-bit (light usage)

FTP Server running Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit

x3850 Server 2:

Pervasive SQL Database Server running Windows Server 2008 64-bit

Office Terminal Server running Windows Server 2008 64-bit

File and Print Server running Windows Server 2008 64-bit

Any red flags with this configuration? I've seen other posts suggesting multiple LUNs... Are multiple LUNs necessary if I'm booting my ESX hosts from the internal RAID1 arrays? Will the HA feature work correctly if the DS3400 is configured in this manner?

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!

[jasco]

Then planning Exchange and SQL servers on VMware you should you should look on to the docs here:

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/exchange/resources.html

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/sql/resources.html

And by the way why are you planing on exchange 2007? Exchange 2010 have a much lower I/O reqiurements.

There is a recommendation about making LUN not more that 500 GB, but it is to prevent multiple reservations it there are many VMs on them with many ESX hosts.

But maybe it would be good to make separate LUNs for exchange and SQL databases.

HA will work ok in this config, just make sure both hosts have access to the LUNs on DS3400.

[Project951]

Thanks for the response jasco.... I read in the DS3400 configuration guide that LUN sharing is only supported for VMotion-enabled VMs. We are not using VMotion, so I'll create a separate LUN for each VM and map each LUN to my ESX Host Group on the SAN. Thanks for the tip on Exchange 2010!