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TIM02210
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VMware - SAN verses Server for Guest OS

We setup our VMware environment about 4 years ago and are looking to replace the hardware and upgrade to VSphere. We are now part of a larger organization and they are questioning our original setup with regards to using a SAN for hosting the Windows server guests in this environment. They feel that a SAN is only for storage and that the VMware guests should live on a server. I’m just looking for confirmation that we are using “best practices” by having the guest OS systems on a SAN rather than a server. I’d really love something from VMware that says to use a SAN and why. This is our setup; we have 4 ESX 3.5 servers with dual quad core processors, 32 GB ram and quad port network adapters. The ESX servers connect to the SAN via redundant fiber connections via HABs. The SAN has 6 TB of storage space and we host 24 Windows 2003 guests. I say we have it right and they say I should be hosting the guests on a server and not a SAN. My argument is why have the overhead of the server OS and all that comes with it such as patching and antivirus and multiple HBA when I can just get a SAN form HP at the same or lower cost. I just need help in making my case.

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Shared storage is a requirement for features such as vMotion, DRS and High Availability.

One can certainly run a guest on local storage, but what happens if you have a host issue or need to perform maintenance?   If you're using shared storage and need to do host maintenance you can simply vMotion the VMs to another host and there is no service interruption.   Without shared storage you either take the VMs offline or have to spend the downtime to migrate them to another host.   If a host fails, your VM on local storage is down until the host is repaired.  With HA and shared storage, another host will restart the VM and it'll be online within minutes.

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Shared storage is a requirement for features such as vMotion, DRS and High Availability.

One can certainly run a guest on local storage, but what happens if you have a host issue or need to perform maintenance?   If you're using shared storage and need to do host maintenance you can simply vMotion the VMs to another host and there is no service interruption.   Without shared storage you either take the VMs offline or have to spend the downtime to migrate them to another host.   If a host fails, your VM on local storage is down until the host is repaired.  With HA and shared storage, another host will restart the VM and it'll be online within minutes.

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