VSAN with an existing SAN

Mikei · Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:13 pm

We have a two node 2012 R2 Hyper-V cluster serving about 30 VMs, which are on our FC SAN. We have plenty of space, but performance is an issue at times. There's enough CPU and RAM.

Could the Free or Commercial version help regarding performance if a single SSD (no more space) would be installed in each host and used as Server-Side Cache? I've read https://www.starwindsoftware.com/caching-page, but would appreciate additional guidance if this is the way to go, we wouldn't host any VMs on these SSD's they'd just be used to boost performance. Does having a single SSD in each host (no RAID) spell out trouble if one of those fails? Any additional information would be welcome.

Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:20 pm

Technically you can do that. Just layer StarWind virtual disks on top of your existing FC LUNs (wrapped with NTFS) and feed now StarWind-overwrapped storage to consumers. We'll add RAM & flash caches (if present) and Log-Structured File System (if configured LSFS and not FLAT).

Run Intel I/O Meter on raw FC LUNs and overwrapped StarWind-managed LUNs and compare results. We'd be happy to help.

Mikei wrote:We have a two node 2012 R2 Hyper-V cluster serving about 30 VMs, which are on our FC SAN. We have plenty of space, but performance is an issue at times. There's enough CPU and RAM.

Could the Free or Commercial version help regarding performance if a single SSD (no more space) would be installed in each host and used as Server-Side Cache? I've read https://www.starwindsoftware.com/caching-page, but would appreciate additional guidance if this is the way to go, we wouldn't host any VMs on these SSD's they'd just be used to boost performance. Does having a single SSD in each host (no RAID) spell out trouble if one of those fails? Any additional information would be welcome.

Mikei · Thu Mar 12, 2015 3:51 pm

Thank you for the fast reply.

Would I need a Commercial version to achive this (what's the pricing for our scenario), what kinds of SSDs are recommended/supported? Are there any sizing recommendations/calculators. If we'd go this route I'd probably create a new CSV to test this on and then storage migrate the workloads to this new volume.

Let me say, I just came across this idea today and haven't had a chance to read up on your VSAN offering. Could you please point me to some documentation on this particular topic so I have a better understanding. of what's involved. I see your Library https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library has a lot to offer.

Thu Mar 12, 2015 4:02 pm

Depends on your config. Basic two-node setup is free of charge. See:

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/styles ... s_Paid.pdf

So you can build an equivalent of your dual-controller SAN for free if you're fine with some restrictions (forum support, MCP or MVP or MCT title for Hyper-V scenario etc).

We're not comfortable to discuss pricing on public (sales model...) so please drop a message to sales@starwind.com and they would be happy to help

What's your hypervisor of choice?

Mikei wrote:Thank you for the fast reply.

Would I need a Commercial version to achive this (what's the pricing for our scenario), what kinds of SSDs are recommended/supported? Are there any sizing recommendations/calculators. If we'd go this route I'd probably create a new CSV to test this on and then storage migrate the workloads to this new volume.

Let me say, I just came across this idea today and haven't had a chance to read up on your VSAN offering. Could you please point me to some documentation on this particular topic so I have a better understanding. of what's involved. I see your Library https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library has a lot to offer.

Mikei · Thu Mar 12, 2015 4:09 pm

Understandable I'll contact sales, MCP status is not a problem, we're using Hyper-V (as mentioned in the original post and also referencing Cluster Shared Volumes).

Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:17 pm

Good. You're pretty much all set

Mikei wrote:Understandable I'll contact sales, MCP status is not a problem, we're using Hyper-V (as mentioned in the original post and also referencing Cluster Shared Volumes).

Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:28 pm

I will get in you a direct contact with the best person who can give you the proper license.