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Misterto
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VSAN 6.6 / VSAN Tracelogs & Scratch Folder

Hi there.

I'm deploying a brand new stretched cluster. 2 Fault Domain (+1 for winess), 3 nodes each. Servers are Dell R740Xd with 2 disk group per server, all drives dedicated for Vsan  Storage / Cache.
Systems are booting from SD cards, and there is no persitent device for Trace log.
I was thinking about saving logs to NFS share, but here is my concern.
* I know that it's totaly forbiden to save logs directly on vsan Storage.

* I have no NFS share or Syslog servers available outside of my vsan infrastructure.

* Not possible to think about adding persistent storage on server.

I'm kind of stucked.

Here is my question, i would like to have your inputs.

What do you think about creating 2 VMs, one per fault domain, hosting them on the VSAN itself. I was thinking about dedicating these VM for NFS share and redirect Scratch Folder to there.

I know that it's not ideal, but at least, it would be a way for me to bypass that issue.

Also, could someone tell me what happens if NFS share becomes innacessible ?Thank you for  your feedback.


Thomas.

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TheBobkin
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Hello Thomas,

Welcome to Communities! Some useful info on participating here:

VMware Community Code of Conduct

The first thing that needs to be established is: how much is persistent-logging worth to you/customer here?

"* I know that it's totaly forbiden to save logs directly on vsan Storage."

Correct, don't do this.

Also some controllers have limitations of not functioning well when you have vSAN and VMFS on the same controller even when the VMFS is just used for logging e.g. H730P controllers - you should be avoiding these anyway, get HBA330.

VMware Knowledge Base

"* Not possible to think about adding persistent storage on server."

Why? Are you using all of the disk-slots already? I don't see how this would be possible with only 2xDG per node even if using 3.5 inch drives, sure all front-accessible slots maybe, but from the spec-sheet of R740xd these appear to have more than just these.

http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/poweredge-r740xd_reference%20guide3_en-us.pdf

Do these nodes come with a SATADOM option? I ask as I can only find this option for 630/730 etc.

If so, are these reasonably priced or exorbitant?

"* I have no NFS share or Syslog servers available outside of my vsan infrastructure."

How much would a small NFS/syslog set-up cost to buy/steal/borrow and/or is this a no-go for other reasons? I can see that multi-site might make this problematic also.

"What do you think about creating 2 VMs, one per fault domain, hosting them on the VSAN itself."

This is essentially just logging to vSAN but through another potentially problematic nested scenario - this isn't going to "bypass that issue" and really could just add more problems.

"Also, could someone tell me what happens if NFS share becomes innacessible ?"

It won't be able to save anything there until it comes back - only non-active zipped log files are actually committed to disk really IIRC.

Bob

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TheBobkin
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Hello Thomas,

Welcome to Communities! Some useful info on participating here:

VMware Community Code of Conduct

The first thing that needs to be established is: how much is persistent-logging worth to you/customer here?

"* I know that it's totaly forbiden to save logs directly on vsan Storage."

Correct, don't do this.

Also some controllers have limitations of not functioning well when you have vSAN and VMFS on the same controller even when the VMFS is just used for logging e.g. H730P controllers - you should be avoiding these anyway, get HBA330.

VMware Knowledge Base

"* Not possible to think about adding persistent storage on server."

Why? Are you using all of the disk-slots already? I don't see how this would be possible with only 2xDG per node even if using 3.5 inch drives, sure all front-accessible slots maybe, but from the spec-sheet of R740xd these appear to have more than just these.

http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/poweredge-r740xd_reference%20guide3_en-us.pdf

Do these nodes come with a SATADOM option? I ask as I can only find this option for 630/730 etc.

If so, are these reasonably priced or exorbitant?

"* I have no NFS share or Syslog servers available outside of my vsan infrastructure."

How much would a small NFS/syslog set-up cost to buy/steal/borrow and/or is this a no-go for other reasons? I can see that multi-site might make this problematic also.

"What do you think about creating 2 VMs, one per fault domain, hosting them on the VSAN itself."

This is essentially just logging to vSAN but through another potentially problematic nested scenario - this isn't going to "bypass that issue" and really could just add more problems.

"Also, could someone tell me what happens if NFS share becomes innacessible ?"

It won't be able to save anything there until it comes back - only non-active zipped log files are actually committed to disk really IIRC.

Bob