migrate from local storage to iSCSI

[sencha]

Hello, I have ESX 3.5 running on an HP DL360 attached locally to 1.5TB of storage on an MSA60. I am currently running 5 virtual machines and VC 2.5 as well. Everything is running great but now that I've demonstrated that VMware is a good investment, I'd like to add in a second ESX host for redundancy and to be able to use vmotion, drs and ha.

As I understand it (I am still fairly new to this) I will need to purchase some shared storage such as an HP AIO server and use software iSCSI or buy something like an HP StorageWorks Smart Array with iSCSI cards and then connect both ESX servers to the shared storage.

My question is whether it's possible to use storage vmotion to move the VMs I have on my local attached storage to the new iSCSI storage?

Any input is appreciated.

[weinstein5]

yes you can use storage vmotion to move form local storage to shared iSCSI LUNs -

[Troy_Clavell]

question.... don't both source and destination need to see the shared storage for sVMotion to work?

[weinstein5]

no - at least the way I read the documentation - it does not differentiate between local and shared storage -check page 245 of

- amd also one misconception poeple have about sVMotion is that the VM changes ESX Hosts it does not - from the same doc -

The virtual machine does not change execution host during a migration with Storage VMotion.

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

taken from the admin guide, page 246

Storage VMotion Requirements and Limitations

Storage VMotion is subject to the following requirements and limitations:

Virtual machines with snapshots cannot be migrated using Storage VMotion.

Virtual machine disks must be in persistent mode or be raw device maps.

The host on which the virtual machine is running must have sufficient resources to

support two instances of the virtual machine running concurrently for a brief time.

The host on which the virtual machine is running must have a VMotion license,

and be correctly configured for VMotion.

The host on which the virtual machine is running must have access to both the

source and target datastores.

VMware Infrastructure 3 supports a maximum of four simultaneous VMotion or

Storage VMotion accesses to a single datastore. A migration with VMotion

involves two simultaneous accesses to the datastore, by the source and destination

hosts. A migration with Storage VMotion involves one access to the source

datastore and one access to the destination datastore. Therefore, if no other

migrations are occurring, up to four concurrent Storage VMotion migrations

involving the datastore can occur simultaneously.

[JRink]

Just an FYI.... I have an AIO1200 with esx3.5, it works via iSCSI fine, however it is not yet on the HCL. My HP contacts told me however they ARE working with VMware to get it certified and expect it to be on the HCL mid-July or so.

[caterpillar]

Do you know if the hardware qlogic ISCSI card will work installed in the VM host connecting to the AIO?

Is this what the HCL is refering to when it talks about hardware iscsi?

[weinstein5]

yes - but confirm that the model qlogic card you are looking at is in the HCL - also sometimes referred to as a TOE card -

[jaygriffin]

If you are looking at an AIO, I would also encourage you to look at the MSA2012i. If cost is a factor you can do a single controller. I was actually able to get a single controller MSA2012i for less than a comparable AIO. I use the single controller MSA for disk backups and it provides some LUNS to some other windows servers. I have a dual controller MSA 2012i with 7 ESX servers and 50 virtual servers on it .

[Bruklis]

HP also has a replication and failover software product that runs on the AiO - HP Storage Mirroring for AiO. You can use the product to migrate but also for failover - so HA and DR (because it works over any distance). I have customers that will use the product for migration and then transfer the licenses to newer machines to setup failover between 2 or more servers/AiOs (the transfer is OK under the end user license agreement)

There is a VM license to run migration/replication within multiple VMs and an ESX virtual infrastructure replication product that runs at the dsk level. Except for the VI replication product. All servers/AiOs require a license

Food for thought

[ProppsJ]

Just to wrap up the original question:

When VMware originally announced/previewed Storage VMotion, it was advertised as Any-to-Any (local vmfs, F/C SAN, iSCSI, NAS) live migration. They have sinced pulled back and are stating that ONLY F/C-to-F/C Storage VMotion is "supported".

As always, "supported" and "will it work" are two different concepts.

In conversations with some of our VMware territory SE's, we have heard that the real issues occurs with NAS-Based SVMotions. Personally, we have had great success in SVMotions involving local VMFS, F/C, and iSCSI (in all combinations of Source and Target vmfs volumes) - Just don't call for support if there is an issue.

Also - to clarify: a Storage VMotion is actually a "Self VMotion". In other words, the Virtual Machine does not change hosts. If it was originally running on host "ESX01" and stored a local vmfs partition named "esx01-vmfs", and you wanted to SVmotion it to a partition called "iscsi-vmfs1", then all you have to do (besides having the appropriate capacity and VMotion license for that host), is make sure that ESX01 can see both vmfs partitions.

Good luck.