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Edo_Grasselli
Contributor
Contributor

Cluster Split

Hi guys,

I have a 6 host ESX made up of 6 HP DL585 / 32 Gb Ram on netapp NAS via iSCSI. HA & DRS enabled.

Due to a reorganization in the company I need to split the farm in 2 farms 4+2 hosts. I'm thinking about it since weeks now and this would be my sequence of actions.

1) Evacuate one machine, disconnect it and pick it out from the farm.

2) Reinstall ESX on this machine, install a new cluster, connect to another NAS with a 1Tb over iScsi disk.

3) Using the VMConverter, bring less critical machines into new new formed single-node cluster.

4) Repeat point 1 for a second machine

5) Reinstall the second machine, join it to the single-node clsute. Enable HA and DRS

6) Once HA and DRS are enabled, using the converter bring the machine from the old cluster to the new one.

What do you think about it? I'm particularly in doubt about points 3 and 6, that is the way to bring machine from one storage to another. Would you use a NAS2NAS copy rather than VMConverter? Or even a network copy? (dd if=/dev/xx/yy | ssh user@newmachine dd of=...)

Tnx to everybody

Edo

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WillemB
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Some more questions should be answered

- Do you need to split the iSCSI NAS aswell or will this still be one iSCSI NAS.

- Are you using the same Virtual Center.

If the first is NO and the second is YES you could take the following approach.

1. Remove one host from the environment (maintenance mode etc.).

2. Create a new Datacenter in VC.

3. Add host to new datacenter.

4. Stop a VM you want to migrate from environment 1 to environment 2

5. Delete from inventory (NOT from disk)

6. In new environment browse the LUN and add the machine.

You should now have a new Datacenter with a migrated host and machine. Minimal downtime.

Note: If anyone notes a mistake please say so.

Edo_Grasselli
Contributor
Contributor

Willem, first of all thanks.

1) The two NAS are separated; nevertheless I can do a NAS2NAS copy that is quite efficient

2) No, it'll be another VC

Ciao and tnk

Edo

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WillemB
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ok well then i'd suggest an approach as follows.

1. Limit your cluster by one host machine. Put in maintenance and move all VM's to other hosts or brinng them down.

2. Create a new cluster using the new NAS and freeed Host.

3. Setup Virtual Center if not already done.

4. You should now have 2 clusters, 2 vritual centers and 2 NAS'es. One cluster has most hosts and all VM's. The other is empty.

5. Temporarily map LUN1 on NAS2 to th first cluster (cluster1 can see both NAS'es). If networks are not interlinkable use a Linux laptop at step 7 as a temp disk.

6. Bring down a VM.

7. From service console copy the complete VM from Lun1 on NAS1 to Lun1 on NAS2 using secure copy (scp command in the linuxish service console).

8. On the second cluster browse the datastore and add the machine.

9. You should repeat this process until you can shift another host from cluster 1 to cluster 2.

10. When all is done remove the iSCSI connection from the first cluster to the second NAS to make the split final.

Hope this idea helps

Edo_Grasselli
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you WIllem, that helped a lot!

Ciao

Edo

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