Shared LUN

[esxilearner]

Hello,

I would like to test vmware's HA, FT and BL but am not sure how I should based on my hardware.  I have two advanced desktop and i just found that installing ESXi on the local hard disk, is actually private LUN. Can someone please advice how i can use my 2 desktop and still do HA, FT or BL.

Spec of Desktop 1:

X3450 Processor

1 x 500GB - Sata Hard disk 7200rpm

1 x 4GB - ECC RAM

2 Ethernet port

Spec of Desktop 2:

E6550 Processor

1 x 500GB - Sata Hard disk 7200rpm

1 x 2GB - RAM

1 Ethernet port

Advance Thanks!!

Abdul

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You can create a virtual machine that provides iSCSI or NFS storage to your ESXi host.  There are a number of options for this not limited to - Windows NFS server - HP virtual storage applicance - http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/vsa/index.html - Openfiler - FreeNAS

[samansalehi]

Dear friend, just use Openfiler, it is free, easy to install, and work on VMware features, please read this doc too:

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-14384

for how to do that, i think i have a video with no sound, if u want i can share it to u.

this is the link download for openfiler:

http://www.openfiler.com/community/download/

If it is useful, would u please mark it "Helpful" or "Correctt"?

Thank u

Saman

[samansalehi]

This is how to install SAN Openfiler:

If it is useful, would u please mark it "Helpful" or "Correctt"?

Thank u

Saman

[esxilearner]

Dear Dave and Saman,

Thanks for the replies.  Just to be clear, can i install esxi on a 4GB thumb drive on desktop 1 and then combine both the 500GB into desktop 2.  But when i install esxi on desktop 2, it will detect only one hard disk. 

Dave, I like what you has advised but it has a 60 days trial period. I am also not sure how i should do it as a Virtual machine. Is there any other free ways i can do it?

Saman, i read your post and am concerned with the installation and would i be able to perform HA or vMotion.  Have you tried it and does it would fine?

Thanks alot,

Abdul

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

You might not be able to run all the features on the hardware you mentioned, at least not on the second one (BTW, what is meant by "BL"?)

To configure HA and FT your hosts need at least ~2.3GB RAM, in addition to that you will need RAM for the VM's running on the host. I would also recommend to add at least one more NIC dedicated to the shared storage your will need. Don't forget to setup a DNS server, because features like HA rely on DNS!

André

[samansalehi]

Dear Friend, for running a test environment, I use two System (host)

First one:

     Core i5 CPU Intel, 8GB RAM DDR3, 1 TB Storage, 2 NIC

     Win 7 Ultimate on top, running VMware Workstation 7.1.3, Create 3 VM: 1, For ESX 4.1, Second one for ESXi 4.1 (each ESX Host has 4GB vRAM and two vCPU, 40GB vDisk, up to three vNIC) and third one 500 GB SAN Openfiler

     Bridge one of NIC with VMs.

Second One:

     Core 2 Duo CPU Intel, 6 GB RAM DDR2, 200GB Storage with 1 NIC.

     Win 7 Ultimate on top, running VMware Workstation 7.1.3, Create 2 VM: AD 2008 with 40GB vDisk and 1GB vRAM, 1 vCPU, and another one is windows server 2008 that running vCenter 4.1 AD 2008 with 40GB vDisk and 4GB vRAM, 1 vCPU.

     Use the host os as client and running vSphere Client 4.1

With these systems, i can run features of VMware, specially FT, VMHA, DPM, vMotion, svMotion, VMDirect Path.

Before these systems, i use hardware like u, but it makes problem for me, low performance, unable to do all features, it stops working and i have to restart.

With this info, I think i can help u.

If it is useful, would u please mark it "Helpful" or "Correctt"?

Thank u

Saman