Fully connecting directly attached datastores in an ESXi cluster?

[echoshaw]

I have deployed two identical ESXi 5.1 hosts (Dell PowerEdge r720xd servers) each possessing 5.46 TB of direct-attached storage. They are both currently registered to our vCenter 5.1 Server and participate in an HA cluster. Their respective datastores are also members of a datastore cluster.

Each host is connected to its own datastore, but not to the other host's datastore. This effectively disables most HA/SDRS features, and the host connection status for each datastore is flagged with a warning for the missing connections. We desire VM migrations and load balancing between the two hosts and datastores to be as seamless and transparent as possible.

My question is simple: what is the most practical and effective way to establish the connections required to achieve a fully-connected state for both hosts and datastores?

[vPatrickS · Accepted solution]

Hi

in this case you need something like a virtual appliance which uses your local storage to turn it into a shared storage. Your hosts then can access the storage via iSCSI/NFS. In the end you will have the space of one node left(~5.46 TB), because the appliance(s) will mirror your data to be safe against host failures.

Probably the easiest way would be the vSphere Storage Appliance

But there are also others solutions like a virtual DataCore setup or HP StoreVirtual VSA.

Regards

Patrick

[echoshaw]

Follow-up question: when configuring the vSphere Storage Appliance for the first time, the final stage indicates: "This VSA Installer will delete the existing data on the local hard disks of each host."

Does this mean that all existing virtual machines will be destroyed by the process, or only that the space allocated in the previous step (specifying storage capacity) will be cleared?

[vPatrickS]

Hi

Sorry echoshaw I can't help you here, because I haven't deployed a VSA yet.

But if I remember right, there should are two ways to deploy it. A greenfield as well as a brownfield setup process. So you may want to check out the brownfield process. But to be completely sure you should wait for some feedback of a experienced VSA user.

Regards

Patrick

[echoshaw]

I am following the brownfield process. It turns out there is a KB article on what the VSA setup process is referring to when it warns of erasing data:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=204805...

Existing VMs not stored on the VSA appliances were not harmed by the deployment.