Virtual SAN

mrx9000

Trying to setup a Virtual Lab to test products like VMware’s Vmotion has proved to be difficult without iSCSI HBA interfaces however I have stumbled across something interesting – Xtravirt Virtual SAN which seems to be free.

I am not sure exactly what it is, I have literally just found it and hope that it may be the key to testing advanced VMware products without acquiring additional hardware.

Have a look if you are interested:
http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=95&Itemid=123

Other interesting VM related tools there too.

dynamik

You can setup an iSCSI SAN with OpenFiler and a couple others as well. They show you how to do this in the Trainsignal ESX series, but it's pretty easy to figure out on your own.

Astorrs also suggested this because OpenFiler seemed a bit buggy. I'm not sure if the free version is enough to work or not.

I'll check out that. It might just be a preconfigured installation of one of the open source iSCSI packages.

astorrs

The newest version the IET in OpenFiler seems to be okay now with SCSI reservations (that was what caused problems with VMotion and such in the past), you can get details on how to configure it here: http://www.petri.co.il/use-openfiler-as-free-vmware-esx-san-server.htm

The free version of StarWind Target isn't enough to do VMotion, you'll need at least Professional.

Also if you're doing VI3 in a box, here is a guide to installing the OpenFiler piece http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=75&func=fileinfo&id=18

tiersten

Use NFS instead of iSCSI. There are quite a few benefits from doing so and its all still supported for VMotion. Thin provisioning is a major benefit.

astorrs

While I have no issues with running NFS in production for VMware (especially on NetApp Filers - "they're great!") I would suggest using iSCSI in a eval scenario so you can experience VMFS and Storage VMotion as well as how to configure storage adapters, etc.

mrx9000

Thank you for your help. Will give it a go.