Setting up the right datastore for speed/stability

[xlancealotx]

Morning all, I have 2 production esxI 4 servers that are running out of emergeny need, but the reason for this post is the propper setup of a datastore. I am replacing our 2 core database servers with new Dell R610 servers which come with an onboard hypervisor as well as (4) 150 10K drives. These machines might have a 2nd or 3rd gues OS like a basic bind server, but it's core function will be database. I will be reading more to undstand things, but in my head, I wish to make snapshots of this device weekly (if it's even necessary) but more important get the snapshot off, as well as backup the database and also move that off, in the event of a failure I can restore to the other server and just use him. So poking around, I see how the .vdi files get put, but is there a good FAQ on backing up a complete server?

The other Q, is the actual OS. Is it reccomended or even possible to put the OS on a datastore, setup the server, then somehow create another mount point for the data. The thought is if the OS get's corrupted, and I have a snapshot, I can spin up a new instance of that server, mount to the data and be right back in business or is it not possible, or discouraged.

Thanks. Also, if there is some good readings weather online or print, feel free to pass along that as well as I do have my work ahead of me!

[RParker]

Well if I understand correctly you are buying 2 new Dell 610 servers, and they have ESXi pre-installed. The function is to run DB VM's, right?

ESX does not need to be saved, it's just a basic OS, the VM's run inside ESX. Not even a reason to save an ESX settings or any of that either, in the time it takes to restore an ESX host and copy the OS files, you can rebuild one in less time. So you don't need to backup the complete server, just the VM'.

The snapshots are for the VM's themselves. If you have a SAN you can put the OS on the lun, but ESX is so small, that would be a waste of SAN storage. I am sure some people do it, but really it's just as easy to put the OS on the server. I know many new servers probably don't ship with any drives, so booting from SAN would make sense, but you said you have local drives, so you can use those.

Make the entire server 1 big OS install, ESX will take care of the partition of VMFS, but you will probably end up putting VM's on the SAN anyway, and use the local storage as data recovery appliance, or backup of the VM's.

[DSTAVERT]

Have a look at the following.

Webcast QuickStart

Webcast ESXi Webstart

You might want to familiarize yourself with what a snapshot is.

Understanding Snapshots

The preinstalled ESXi is either on an internal USB stick or SD card. It is quite easy to replace if you ever had problems. The preinstalled installations are very reliable.

[Josh26]

If I understand correctly, you are considering taking a snapshot, and leaving it lying around as some form of DR.

This is in direct contradiction to your speed/stability request - snapshots are meant to be a short term implementation.