VSphere 5.1 Infrastructure update solution SAN or NAS?

[Syed_Mazhar]

Need urgent advice

We are a small business where our total data is < 3TB including all servers and internal data. We currently have two vSphere 5.1.0 hosts with local host storage (SAS disks) that is holding guests VM data but there is no replication or VSA between two hosts. We now want to upgrade our hosts with two new servers with failover solution with or without NAS/SAN?  We want to be able to do do vMotion, VSA or mirroring. The purpose of this is that if one host fails, we can still run Guest VMs from the second host,

I am really confused between whether we should go for SAN or NAS and wondering if someone can shed some light on this?  I am thinking of two scenerio please correct me if I am wrong or suggest best to your experience/knowledge?

We have VSpehere 5.1 essentials plus pack

1. How can I determine if I need 1GbE or 10GbE or Fiber Channel ? Currently we run SQL, EXCH, DC1, DC2, FileSrv, CRM and RDS Guest VMs (connected to 25 thin clients).

2. Shall we use VSA or vMOTION for this purpose?

3. Can we install VSA manager on VMware 5.1.0 version?

4. Do I really need a SAN ? as it is expensive and also does not it add a single point of failure?

Solution 1

Two servers with enough RAM to run all Guest VMs (server1+server2). Both server will use SAN storage to run Guest VMs and locally they will only have enough storage to run OS (through SD card?). Both Servers redundantly connecting with SAN over iSCSI (1GbE or 10GbE) or Fibre channel. If one server goes down, we can run Guest VMs of failed server from SAN. However what if motherboard of SAN fails, no server can serve the Guest VMs. I think this is not good solution, is it?

Solution 2

This solution seems good as both servers running independently with their local storage and running Guest VMs. Now we have two options here for fail over, VSA or vMotion or Veeam backup server instead of NAS.

5.  Two servers with local storage running the Guest VMs. Both servers running  Vsphere 5.1.0, is it possible we can use NAS for data replication for purpose of vMotion or VSA. instead of putting more disks on servers for VSA?

6.  There is no single point of failure in this case. Even if NAS or Server1 goes down, VMs can still be running through shared NAS storage via VSA or  vMotion?

7. Also instead of using NAS, can;'t we simply use Veeam backup server as failover solution. Incase server 1 goes down we can restore the Guest VMs on Server 2 using Veeam backup? So we won't need VSA?

Looking forward for your thoughts?

Thanks
Mazhar

[bykreddy]

Hi Syed,

Here are my views :

1. How can I determine if I need 1GbE or 10GbE or Fiber Channel ? Currently we run SQL, EXCH, DC1, DC2, FileSrv, CRM and RDS Guest VMs (connected to 25 thin clients).

No need of FC as SAN is not preferred for your purpose.

2. Shall we use VSA or vMOTION for this purpose?

VSA - Can be used to make the local disks of the multiple ESX hosts in a cluster as a NAS datastores. This I think you cannot do now, as to configure the VSA, you have to start fresh installation of the ESX host which should not have any VMs and it should consists of the default networking configuration.

You can attach any NAS device and try it.

3. Can we install VSA manager on VMware 5.1.0 version?

Apart from the above question, to install VSA manager, there are few prerequisites, vCenter should not be a VM and you can install VSA manager on the vCenter 5.1

4. Do I really need a SAN ? as it is expensive and also does not it add a single point of failure?

No need of SAN.

Solution 1 should work good.

[Syed_Mazhar]

I think you meant Solution 2, as Solution 1 does uses a SAN.

[bykreddy]

Syed,

You can still use the Solution 1, using NAS as a shared storage and having the ESXi servers in one cluster. The solution 2, if both servers are not in cluster, then you have to use Site Recovery Manager to enable disaster recovery, this would become more complex.

.

[Syed_Mazhar]

Thank you Yash.

Two servers in one cluster based on VSA? Any idea how much storage we will need on each server to make 5TB useable storage?

Also, can we use Veeam Backup server as NAS device and use NAS as backup device incase both servers fail ? and then use Veeam backup offsite replications for DR?

[Syed_Mazhar]

SMB (small and medium sized business) deployments

Two node cluster

• Option 1:
  • Two ESXi 5.x hosts, and
  • A third standalone ESXi 5.x host, running a virtual vCenter Server, on which vCenter Server and VSA Manager are installed.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=204378...

As per  specs above for two node  VSA cluster, can we use the third standalone ESXi 5.x host installed with vCenter, VSA manager and also same physical server to host another Guest VM for "Veeam backup and replication" to act as the backup server?  Can we do this, install all three services on same third stand alone Esxi?

[Syed_Mazhar]

Is VSA 5.1 still available, as far as I understand two node VSA 5.1 isn't available anymore after 10/09/2014?

Vmware VSA 5.1 is no longer a supported product as per the links below.

End of General Support 10/09/2014

https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/support/Product-Lifecycle-Matrix.pdf

Would we use NAS for iSCSI shared storage between both servers for replication or we will use this as cluster data centre for fail over?