Hosting Oracle Database Storage from other platform on VSAN ready nodes

[syilmazer]

Hi all,

Would it be possible or technically feasible to host only the storage of an Oracle Database Server cluster on VSAN ready nodes?

Thanks for your help.

Kind regards,

Enes

[GreatWhiteTec]

You could host Oracle in vSAN, but I wouldn't split the vmdks from the VM, if that is what you are referring to.

Keep in mind that in order to have Oracle perform well, there are some requirements for VM and vmdks, such as thick provisioning, sharing (multiwriter), etc. On the vSAN side,  you will need to have OSR (space reservation) to 100% for the Oracle VMDKs.

[TheBobkin]

Hello Enes,

Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say only store the 'storage' on vSAN - Did you mean to store all the disks on vSAN but run it on a physical box or on another non-vSAN ESXi host?

Or do mean that you only wish to store only some disks of the VMs on vSAN?

If you want to run on physical boxes but store on vSAN then iSCSI Targets from vSAN might be a solution.

What type of Oracle cluster are you working with here?

If Oracle RAC then here is some info on limitations and requirements:

https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2121181

Bob

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[syilmazer]

Hi Bob,

The aim is to store some disks of the Oracle Database VM on vSAN. The ESXi server who hosts the DB VM reside in a different platform/network. It is not going to be Oracle RAC.

Do you think iSCSI target would be the right approach?

Thanks,

Enes

[syilmazer]

I understand, my aim was to store some disks of the Oracle VM on vSAN where this VM is running on different platform but they are both in the same Data Centre

[TheBobkin · Accepted solution]

Hello,

No, unfortunately I don't think this will work as a solution for you here.

- Only hosts that are part of a vSAN cluster can access storage on vsandatastore.

- iSCSI Targets cannot (currently) present direct to ESXi hosts, only really useful for physical boxes at the moment.

You *could* have the node(s) running Oracle in the vSAN cluster as compute-only nodes and they would be able to access the vsandatastore, but this is not ideal and also if they are not locally located this may not be great performance.

Bob

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[syilmazer]

Thanks Bob for the clarification. I understand, it makes sense.

Kind regards,

Enes