Looking to switch from hyperv to vmware cluster how do i setup storage?

[redbaron28]

Hi Im new to the forums! I have had experence using vmware but i havent been able to get a hold of vcenter for clustering. I have got all the tools needed for clustering vmware but id like to know if my setup will work and or how to make it work.

vsphere1       vsphere2         vsphere3

    |                         |                        |

     \                        |                      /

                          vcenter

                         /            \

Hp D2700 jbod             Hp msa70 jbod

My main questions is how to create storage pools or however you call it in vmware for redundant storage for the esx hosts.

My current setup

Hyperv1            hyperv2

    \                           /

       \                      /

            HpD2700(Sas cables are redundant to each host)

Thanks for your help!

[MattiasN81]

Well, for starters your vSphere design should look something like this

What type of redundency are we talking about?

Is it between the arrays or disk level? you mentioned jbod, thats why im wondering

Br

[redbaron28]

Right now the d2700 is connect to two hyperv host for disk redundancy. I want to add in the mas70 which has higher capacity drives in the new vmware cluster but i want to make sure that this is supported by vmware. because the d2700 will be attached to esxi1 and 2 with hba cards and the msa70 would be connected by raid controller for a replication datastore.

[MattiasN81]

Okey, scrap my last post

didnt realize is was DAS expansions, different ball game then.

None of these expansions are on the HCL so you can end up with multipathing problems on the d2700, or it can work just fine

I wouldn't go with unsupported hardware in a production environment though

Still, you stated these was JBOD expansions. VMware doesn't work with plain JBOD unless you are using vSAN so you need to have an expansion that can create raidgroups/storagepools and hook it up the ESXi'es via an Passthrough HBA

or an JBOD expansion hooked up to a RAID controller in the server (i understand this is the case for the MSA70), this will count as local storage though and can't be shared with other hosts

[redbaron28]

Hmm. What can I do to achieve redundant storage because I'd like to be able to take out one or more of the thee but still have my vms online?

[MattiasN81]

You ll need shared storage for vMotion, it seems like your D2700 does that, just verify that you have enough SAS ports to hook up a third host to it.

Your MSA on the other hand can only be hooked up to one of the hosts, then you can use vSphere Replication or VDP and use it as a replication/backup target if you like

[redbaron28]

So i can have 2 hosts to the d2700 with 2 sas connections to each and have the msa70 be directly raid controlled to one of the hosts in the cluster or is it possible to have the msa70 attached to another esi host that is not in the cluster and be able to setup replication? Or but i dont think this is smart but i have 4 sas ports on the d2700 put 1 sas cable in each host and have one host with 2?