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moku
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Software Mirroring for ESX Storage (Luns) on SAN

Can ESX provide software mirroring for luns stored on network strorage (ie, AoE, iscsi, fc)?

thanks!

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weinstein5
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No ESX can not mirror - you will have to rely either on the storage or RAID controller to do drive(LUN) mirroring -

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weinstein5
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No ESX can not mirror - you will have to rely either on the storage or RAID controller to do drive(LUN) mirroring -

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patricko
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Hi moku,

ESX do not offer mirroring as weinstein5 already pointed out, but why would you want this facility when most SANs and other storage systems come with RAID as standard?

Website: http://www.virtualcomputing.net

Website: http://www.virtualcomputing.net
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mreferre
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I think what's discussed here is a step forward. I.e. ESX being able to mirror 2 x LUNs coming from two different storage servers: obviously each LUN would be Raided "inside" each of the two storage boxes but that's another point.

See this old doc for additional info/ideas:

http://it20.info/files/3/documentation/entry2.aspx

(specifically the HA).

Massimo.

Massimo Re Ferre' VMware vCloud Architect twitter.com/mreferre www.it20.info
patricko
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Thanks for that King, I will have a look at it.

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Website: http://www.virtualcomputing.net
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depping
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Just wondering why you want to have a software mirrored LUN on network storage which usually already is protected via RAID.

Duncan

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mreferre
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Duncan,

as I said it's for Storage HA scenarios.

Massimo.

Massimo Re Ferre' VMware vCloud Architect twitter.com/mreferre www.it20.info
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moku
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Everyone, thank you for your help and bringing up great questions. I personally wanted to be sure if soft mirroring was an option, or not, via ESX natively. The company I work for (a san vendor) has a had few customers ask this question so it was important to me I was 100% informed.

Why?

We have some customers that have unique needs or other customers that have very tight budgets but still need the HA with barebones equipment. Obviously going the hardware route has lower risk with a fault-tolerant setup, but having a software HA option, especially in regard to a heterogeneous SAN environment may be beneficial to some environments as Massimo pointed out. Thanks again!

Moku

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wila
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Hi,

You also might want to take a look at XVS, the xtravirt virtual storage appliance:

http://engineering.xtravirt.com/products/phd-technologies/xtravirt-virtual-san.html



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Wil

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| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
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