VI3 Planning help

[EllettIT]

Couple of quick questions I'm hoping the knowledgeable folks here can help me sort out:

- Can I run Virtual Center from the same server I'm running VCB from or should they be seperate?

- With that in mind how does VCB access the shared storage? Will it need direct access or does it access via the ESX host server?

- iSCSI HBA's, do I need them? We've been running our production Virtual Environment on GSX and local storage (73GB SCSI drives in RAID 10) for several years now with no major issues, will an dedicated HBA make that much of a difference?

- I'm a little confused about how I route the networking side of this. My hope had been to use a physical seperate switch(s) for the iSCSI SAN however if both the VCB server and the Virtual Center server need direct access to the shared storage it may get more complicated than I had hoped, take a look at my attached drawing and help me understand if I'm doing this right.

Thanks!

[Milton21]

Can I run Virtual Center from the same server I'm running VCB from or should they be seperate? -- Yes , Notsure I have never seen anything like that.

With that in mind how does VCB access the shared storage? Will it need direct access or does it access via the ESX host server? --Needs direct access... Sends snapshot command to the Virtual center server, mounts disk on VCB system using VMware driver of some kind.

iSCSI HBA's, do I need them? --If you do not want to run the systems off of a SAN you do not have to just need these to boot from. We've been running our production Virtual

Environment on GSX and local storage (73GB SCSI drives in RAID 10) for

several years now with no major issues, will an dedicated HBA make that

much of a difference? Well disk speed will always be how many disks do you have. Would also depend on the ISCSI hardware. I would say you will not notice.

With the PDF: I would put the ISCSI in the same switch module as the ISCSI nics. Yes you will have to share this drive with a windows box. Make sure you read how this is done or good bye to the VMFS volume.

[Milton21]

I would run hardware ISCSI not Software

[dconvery · Accepted solution]

You can NOT mix the VIM (AKA Virtual Center) server and the VCB server on the same host. There are virtual disk drivers that conflict with each other. I have even seen posts where people have (unsuccessfully) tried to run VIM server inside a VMware Server VM on the same box as the VCB server. If you need to save hardware, you will need to make the VIM server a VM inside the ESX cluster. I believe VMware has a whitepaper detailing using the VIM server in a VM.

The VCB server needs access to the VMFS LUNs, so it will also need an iSCSI initiator. I have not tried VCB with iSCSI, but have done it numerous times with fibre channel SANs. MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW THE INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS.

You do not NEED iSCSI HBAs, but you will need them if you want to take advantage of the enterprise features of VMware ESX, such as DRS, HA, DPM, VMotion, etc. These make your server environment more available and will pay off in the long run by greatly minimizing planned downtime. Your local VMware Rep can explain these or, better still, attend a local VMUG meeting.

You network diagram is almost right. The pair of NICs dedicated to SC and VMotion do not need to be on the storage network switches. They would be better on a VLAN or isolated/firewalled internal network.

Dave

[EllettIT]

That's what I was thinking but I'm glad to have it confirmed. I should have some leftover hardware with the consolidation project to seperate these out. I think the consensus is that it's "OK" for your VIM server to be virtual itself which would be better as I'm trying to reduce the amount of physical servers in our data center.

I think this is an area where I'm confused, should I multihome the VCB server (dual NIC's one pointing to my production network one to the iSCSI SAN)so that it has access to the SAN and I have access to it? Or maybe I should use a iSCSI HBA for it as well?

I'm still not sure on the iSCSI thing myself however I am leaning towards it just because it makes setup easier (or so I've heard)

I originally had the SC/Vmotion links going to the core switch but wasn't sure if they would need direct access to the SAN or if the would access it via the ESX host servers.

Thanks!

[dconvery]

Your VCB server will need at least a single iSCSI connection to the VMFS. It will directly mount the VMFS or VMDK files for each job. It will also need to have network connectivity to communicate with the VIM server and the ESX hosts. The iSCSI will need to be on different NICs than the SC/VMotion for bandwidth. The production VM network should also be separated from both. Just as you have diagrammed.

I have not used iSCSI myself, but have implemented Fibre Channel many times. It may be a little more expensive to run FC, but the performance and MTBF of FC disk is currently better than GbE.

Dave