I am trying to following the netapp vmware storage best practices guide () in configuring datastores to be used by my ESX3.5 hosts and guest VMs so that I can use netapp snapshots for backups. Specifically, I'm having problems with the following:
The guide states "For example, if you have a group of VMs that creates a Snapshot copy three times a day and a second group that creates a Snapshot copy once a day, then you need a minimum of four NetApp volumes."
And then a subsequent page has the figure shown at the bottom of my post. My question is, if you assume VM#1 below is snapshot copied 3 times per day (Flex Vol 1), and then I add VM #2 to the diagram below that needs to be snapshot copied once per day, how is it necessary to add two more netapp volumes? Shouldn't I just be able to add one more netapp volume (Flex Vol 3), with a LUN that will become Datastore3 and store the VMDK for VM#2, which will be snapshot copied on the once per day schedule? And then just store the VSWP, Logs, and windows/linux temporary data for VM#2 on the already existing Datastore1?
Essentially, can it not end up looking like:
Flexvol1 (snapshotschedule1) --> Datastore1 --> VMDK File 1
Flexvol2 (snapshotschedule2) --> Datastore2 --> VMDK File 2
Flexvol3 (no snapshots) --> Datastore3 --> VSWP File 1, VSWP File 2, VM#1-logs, VM#2-logs, VM#1-tempdata, VM#2-tempdata (where tempdata is either linux guest OS swap or windows guest OS pagefile and system/user temp directories)
