Comments on: FC@Home – Redux…. http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/ Ranting and raving about storage and technology Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:36:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: nc http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/comment-page-1/#comment-6570 nc Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:54:12 +0000 http://www.50micron.com/?p=403#comment-6570 Hey, glad to hear that my blog post on the PV660 was helpful for you.. yeah, those things are beasts! I've still got one downstairs that I keep planning on eBay'ing - should get around to that one of these days. ;) -Nate Hey, glad to hear that my blog post on the PV660 was helpful for you.. yeah, those things are beasts! I’ve still got one downstairs that I keep planning on eBay’ing – should get around to that one of these days. ;)

-Nate

]]> By: william bishop http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/comment-page-1/#comment-6566 william bishop Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:42:36 +0000 http://www.50micron.com/?p=403#comment-6566 Jesse, if you have any questions (that was actually an easy one), you can go to the vmware forums (where most of us hang out). Ask a question, get an answer in 15 minutes! I'm glad your first dmotion went well, I sweated bullets the first few dozen or so, but now it's SOP. I've only had two instances flake out on me, and out of the dozens upon dozens of times I've done this while in production (our systems can't see downtime), I'm more than pleased with it. As to the very beginning, yes virtualizing VC itself is acceptable, if you are super paranoid, you can always set it up in a 2 node cluster of it's very own (although it will cost you), or you can put it in a vm for portability, but only put the one vm on a host out of a pair of hosts, not managed by VC. Yes, you'll have to start it manually if it dies on one host, but it's not a big deal, as you can go days without VC if necessary. Jesse, if you have any questions (that was actually an easy one), you can go to the vmware forums (where most of us hang out). Ask a question, get an answer in 15 minutes!

I’m glad your first dmotion went well, I sweated bullets the first few dozen or so, but now it’s SOP. I’ve only had two instances flake out on me, and out of the dozens upon dozens of times I’ve done this while in production (our systems can’t see downtime), I’m more than pleased with it.

As to the very beginning, yes virtualizing VC itself is acceptable, if you are super paranoid, you can always set it up in a 2 node cluster of it’s very own (although it will cost you), or you can put it in a vm for portability, but only put the one vm on a host out of a pair of hosts, not managed by VC. Yes, you’ll have to start it manually if it dies on one host, but it’s not a big deal, as you can go days without VC if necessary.

]]> By: Jesse http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/comment-page-1/#comment-6537 Jesse Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:53:55 +0000 http://www.50micron.com/?p=403#comment-6537 You are the first person, in or out of EMC, who has been able to really answer that question. Of course I've not been asking it as widely as I could have. I did my first "Storage VMotion" move last night. SWEET! Downloaded the GUI plugin for it because I'm getting lazy in my old age... Works like a champ. You are the first person, in or out of EMC, who has been able to really answer that question.

Of course I’ve not been asking it as widely as I could have.

I did my first “Storage VMotion” move last night. SWEET! Downloaded the GUI plugin for it because I’m getting lazy in my old age…

Works like a champ.

]]> By: InsaneGeek http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/comment-page-1/#comment-6536 InsaneGeek Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:32:59 +0000 http://www.50micron.com/?p=403#comment-6536 ESX HA actually is a derivative of Legato AutoStart. It is installed onto the ESX servers themselves, and doesn't require virtual center to be there to deal with a server failure. ESX HA actually is a derivative of Legato AutoStart. It is installed onto the ESX servers themselves, and doesn’t require virtual center to be there to deal with a server failure.

]]> By: TimC http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/comment-page-1/#comment-6509 TimC Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:45:15 +0000 http://www.50micron.com/?p=403#comment-6509 LOL, gotta love ebay! Seeing your post motivated me to re-rack some of my own gear last night and try throwing on an expansion shelf only to find out I had incompatible hardware. BOO@that. Guess I'll live with some 70GB LUNS for now. LOL, gotta love ebay! Seeing your post motivated me to re-rack some of my own gear last night and try throwing on an expansion shelf only to find out I had incompatible hardware. BOO@that. Guess I’ll live with some 70GB LUNS for now.

]]> By: Jesse http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/comment-page-1/#comment-6506 Jesse Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:14:20 +0000 http://www.50micron.com/?p=403#comment-6506 That was always my objection to a virtual VC server. However the same limitation applies to a regular server so I'm not sure if there is any net loss of functionality. Without VirtualCenter, VMotion/DRS or VMotion/HA don't work, right? Doesn't that then mean that if the host that is housing the VirtualCenter VM dies the other hosts won't / can't take over for it? Unless as you say HA is set up at the host level, which given some of the configuration machinations that goes on when you configure it, wouldn't surprise me. First and second hardware failures came out of the work yesterday. One drive failed - hot-spare invoked perfectly and even kept to the same bus so that the IO would remain balanced. Found a bad Emulex LP9802 HBA in one of the ESX hosts. Considering I got them for about $7.50 each, I'm not entirely surprised. ;-) That was always my objection to a virtual VC server. However the same limitation applies to a regular server so I’m not sure if there is any net loss of functionality.

Without VirtualCenter, VMotion/DRS or VMotion/HA don’t work, right? Doesn’t that then mean that if the host that is housing the VirtualCenter VM dies the other hosts won’t / can’t take over for it?

Unless as you say HA is set up at the host level, which given some of the configuration machinations that goes on when you configure it, wouldn’t surprise me.

First and second hardware failures came out of the work yesterday.

One drive failed – hot-spare invoked perfectly and even kept to the same bus so that the IO would remain balanced.

Found a bad Emulex LP9802 HBA in one of the ESX hosts. Considering I got them for about $7.50 each, I’m not entirely surprised. ;-)

]]> By: TimC http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/comment-page-1/#comment-6505 TimC Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:43:14 +0000 http://www.50micron.com/?p=403#comment-6505 @Andrew: So HA is occurring at the esx server level then? I was under the impression that HA was managed by the vCenter server itself, so if it were to go down, none of the VM's would go anywhere, since there was nothing to manage the moves. @Andrew:

So HA is occurring at the esx server level then? I was under the impression that HA was managed by the vCenter server itself, so if it were to go down, none of the VM’s would go anywhere, since there was nothing to manage the moves.

]]> By: Andrew Storrs http://blog.50micron.com/2008/12/01/fchome-redux/comment-page-1/#comment-6502 Andrew Storrs Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:13:15 +0000 http://www.50micron.com/?p=403#comment-6502 Actually a "virtual" VirtualCenter is not only supported, for the most part these days it's recommended. It requires a little bit of knowledge if the host running vCenter goes down (i.e. tell DRS to never VMotion your vCenter virtual machine or you'll have to guess which ESX host to connect to - needle in a haystack in a large data center). By doing this it allows you to take advantage of VMware HA for increased availability and it allows you to take a snapshot prior to performing an upgrade - both are really handy. Have a look at this whitepaper for the benefits and caveats: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_vc_in_vm.pdf Duncan Epping also has some good tips here you should have a read through: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/11/19/make-virtualcenter-highly-available-with-vmware-vi3/ Dave Lawrence also blogged about it a few weeks back and covers some of the pros nicely: http://vmguy.com/wordpress/?p=67 (Note: Both Duncan and Dave work for VMware as Senior Consultants/Systems Engineers) Actually a “virtual” VirtualCenter is not only supported, for the most part these days it’s recommended. It requires a little bit of knowledge if the host running vCenter goes down (i.e. tell DRS to never VMotion your vCenter virtual machine or you’ll have to guess which ESX host to connect to – needle in a haystack in a large data center). By doing this it allows you to take advantage of VMware HA for increased availability and it allows you to take a snapshot prior to performing an upgrade – both are really handy.

Have a look at this whitepaper for the benefits and caveats: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_vc_in_vm.pdf

Duncan Epping also has some good tips here you should have a read through: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/11/19/make-virtualcenter-highly-available-with-vmware-vi3/

Dave Lawrence also blogged about it a few weeks back and covers some of the pros nicely: http://vmguy.com/wordpress/?p=67

(Note: Both Duncan and Dave work for VMware as Senior Consultants/Systems Engineers)

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