p2v & san

Ok, so I am new to enterprise virtulization, I am watching the vmware nuggets on streaming subscription.

My company wants to look into virtualizing, so i am using powerrecon to do my workload analysis.

question 1. I am looking at using acronis to do my p2v, how does the p2v image get on my san data store / where does the image go immediatly?

question 2. I need approx. 2tb of data store I have been looking some of dell's san boxes and they are quite expensive, like 15k range, can anyone reccommend a good san solution Iscsi or Fibre that won't break the bank?

question 3. If I use a Iscsi hardware initiator does that connect directly to my Iscsi san device or some kind of special switching equiptment similar to fibre channel?

question 4. this is kinda out of the scope of my post title so forgvie me, but when I present the details of the project I am going to include training for vmware. Can anyone tell me of their experiences with training through vmware?

Thanks everyone, as always I appreciate your help.

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astorrs

slinuxuzer wrote:

Ok, so I am new to enterprise virtulization, I am watching the vmware nuggets on streaming subscription.

My company wants to look into virtualizing, so i am using powerrecon to do my workload analysis.

question 1. I am looking at using acronis to do my p2v, how does the p2v image get on my san data store / where does the image go immediatly?

question 2. I need approx. 2tb of data store I have been looking some of dell's san boxes and they are quite expensive, like 15k range, can anyone reccommend a good san solution Iscsi or Fibre that won't break the bank?

question 3. If I use a Iscsi hardware initiator does that connect directly to my Iscsi san device or some kind of special switching equiptment similar to fibre channel?

question 4. this is kinda out of the scope of my post title so forgvie me, but when I present the details of the project I am going to include training for vmware. Can anyone tell me of their experiences with training through vmware?

Thanks everyone, as always I appreciate your help.

I just realized from your other post that I never replied to this one although I meant to.

1. If you're using PowerRecon have you considered using PowerConvert (also from PlateSpin) to do the P2V conversions? They have a Project Edition that is quite affordable (~$200 per conversion). Using Acronis would require a separate copy of True Image for each server being converted, otherwise you would be violating the EULA (and unless you already own them the cost is going to be way higher for this option).

As for how you get them onto the SAN, when you create the VMware VMFS datastore (I'm assuming you're using ESX here), you will do so on the SAN, if the conversion tool is ESX aware (like PowerConvert) it will prompt you for which ESX host and the associated VMFS datastore you want to store the virtual machine on and you can just select it. If you are using another product you will probably need to copy the files onto the ESX server (and the associated SAN based VMFS volume) using SCP (Secure Copy Protocol - a part of the SSH suite). This can be done most easily in the VMware ESX world by using Veeam FastSCP (free), which is designed specifically for ESX environments and doesn't have the issues you will usually encounter with other products (lack of root access, etc).

2. I would say rule fiber channel out, since the cost of a pair of FC switches (since you want redundancy) will bring the price above your limit. As for options in the sub $15k range it will depend on the feature set you are wanting and the workload you are planning on putting on the array. You mention needing 2TB of storage, but there are many other questions that need to be addressed as well:

- number of spindles (what are the anticipated IOPS?) - do you require redundant controllers in the array (you do if you want high-availability) - how many virtual machines will you be hosting and what kind of workloads do they have? - how many ESX servers will need to connect? - what kind of room for expansion do you require? - are you planning on adding any additional non-ESX servers to the array (physical Oracle DB servers lets say)? If you can answer a few of those to the best of your ability we can probably point you at a few options you can evaluate. Also knowing your budget would be beneficial (all you mention is that $15k breaks the bank - what is the bank?

).

3. This will depend on the number of ESX hosts you want to connect (I'm assuming you will want redundant connections for each ESX host as well). Depending on the array you choose and the number of hosts you may or may not be able to direct attach the hosts. If not you will require some Gigabit Ethernet switches that support iSCSI, most managed Gigabit switches these days support this. Another option, although less desirable would be to use a VLAN on your existing switches to partition off the storage network.

4. You would want to have at least one or two of your IT staff go through the Install and Configure course or potentially the Fast Track course, depending on the level of depth you want to get into (be warned the Fast Track course is very fast paced if you're new to the world of VI3).

Some of the members training experiences can be found in the following threads:

http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=38185
http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34303

Hope this helps.

Andrew

slinuxuzer

number of spindles (what are the anticipated IOPS?) 2745 IOPS (projecting 14 spindles in san) 50 spindles currently in use.

- do you require redundant controllers in the array (you do if you want high-availability) Yes

- how many virtual machines will you be hosting and what kind of workloads do they have?
13, if you could Pm me your email addy I could send you some power recon reports

- how many ESX servers will need to connect?

2 at first and then potentially three

- what kind of room for expansion do you require?

if I get 2 tb only maybe 20% over the next 2.5 years

- are you planning on adding any additional non-ESX servers to the array (physical Oracle DB servers lets say)? No

P.s. Thanks for all your help I really appreciate that.

tiersten

Does your reseller not have any VMware certified engineers or sales people? This is the sort of thing you go through with them at the purchasing stage to size the hardware and software correctly.

When we purchased our ESX clusters we had over a month of planning and meetings just to see what we'd need and what to anticipate for in the future.

slinuxuzer

Astors Thanks for your help, I did some extra research and worked with power recon some more, and I think I got my equipment properly sized, actually I think I got alot more than I needed, but with the amount of data I had it limited my options, So I think I can handle way more IOPS than I will ever need, and I was right on the edge of need 17 gig of memory so I had to go up to 24, plus I am going to condense some sql servers into one instance of sql and I should have plenty of room for scaleability.

I presented it all to managment at around 56k for this solution including software + hardware, as opposed to keeping our data center contract at 31k a year and refreshing our in house systems at 48,500.

So 246,000 vs. 56,000 we will see what managments wisdom comes up with this time.

Thanks for everyone's help.

astorrs

slinuxuzer wrote:

Astors Thanks for your help, I did some extra research and worked with power recon some more, and I think I got my equipment properly sized, actually I think I got alot more than I needed, but with the amount of data I had it limited my options, So I think I can handle way more IOPS than I will ever need, and I was right on the edge of need 17 gig of memory so I had to go up to 24, plus I am going to condense some sql servers into one instance of sql and I should have plenty of room for scaleability.

I presented it all to managment at around 56k for this solution including software + hardware, as opposed to keeping our data center contract at 31k a year and refreshing our in house systems at 48,500.

So 246,000 vs. 56,000 we will see what managments wisdom comes up with this time.

Thanks for everyone's help.

I'm curious, can you post a summary of the proposed solution?

slinuxuzer

Two power edge 2950's with 24 gig memory. I belive 2.6 ghz quad core's local storage of 73 gig drives.

Servers will have six nic's, will try to utilize etherchannel for ISCSI multi-pathing in active/active
(couldn't get an answer from dell on my San supporting Active/active multipathing)

Dual Powerconnect switches for san only

Vmware standard (currently has a promo that includes two license with virtual center for decent price)

PowerRecon says 38.x meg a second peak on my disks, and If I remember correctly I have 10 - 12 300 gig 10k disks.

Here is my san model, Dell AX4-5I DP (Dual Storage Processor) Array (223-4736)

So unless I am looking at it wrong I have plenty of Size on my san drives to handle disk I/0 and my ISCSI San network.

Planning on using power convert for my P2V.

So if I remember correctly I think powerrecon projected my peak memory usage at 60% and this was when I had it set to 16 gig and my processor at 18% peak. My main problem is we are slightly bloated on servers, we utilize more disk space than anything else., but if my projections are correct we should be able to grow our server infrastructure by 40% with out buying more hardware.

Also, I have a 2850 I am gonna max out on memory and use as a standby for my ESX

Let me know if you see anything that looks way off here.

Forgot I had this, this is what I gave to managment, what I just wrote has a few more tech details in it.

VMware project

Cost to keep I-bn and refresh current in house systems traditionally 224,600

1. I-bn hosting fee’s 2,800 a month for 60 months totals 168,000
2. Cost of refreshing current in house server infrastructure traditionally 9 servers at an average of 5,400 EA. Totals 48,600
3. Additional energy costs 8,000 over five years (Energy cost for current in house systems; cost will rise if Axapta is brought in house in a traditional scenario)

Cost to virtualize based on five year life cycle 58,043.65

1. P2V migration software 2,400 (Software to convert existing servers to virtual)
2. VMware training for network operations 6,000
3. Extra memory for Riexg00 1,000 (need to make ready as standby server)
4. Servers two power edge 2950’s 11,727.83 (VMware servers)
5. Shared storage 21,950.22 (ISCSI Storage that will house production data & virtualized server Images)
6. Dell Gigabit Switches 2,214.82 (High speed switches for VMware servers to connect to storage & Nas box for backup purposes)
7. Tape drive 5,714.52 (Offsite backup and business continuity planning)
8. VMware Standard edition for 4 processors (sockets) 7,036.26 (Virtualization software)

Cost Savings from implementing VMware: 166,556.35

Benefits of virtualizing

1. Axapta will be brought in house
2. Mission critical servers will be under service contracts
3. Server infrastructure can be expanded by 33% with out purchasing additional hardware
4. Substantial cost savings
5. Server consolidation project will result in spare equipment; allowing us to build testing environments completely segregated from our mission critical systems.

Servers to be Virtualized

1. VMware server one will house
Dcaos01
Riexg02
Ripdc01
RISQL01
RISQL02
RIKRONOS

2. VMware server two will house
DCCTX01
DCCTX02
DCSQL01
RIEXG00
RIFSV01
RIPDC02
RIUTL01

Overview of mission critical systems after Virtulization

1. Two VMware servers (these servers control the processing for all virtualized machines)
2. One shared storage system housing all production data
3. One Server as a standby; to be used only in the event one of our VMware servers should fail
4. Existing Nas box will be utilized for onsite backup
5. PowerVault tape drive will be used for offsite data backup and business continuity planning
6. Two high speed switches will connect the VMware servers to the Shared storage and the Nas box for data backups and connection to production data.

astorrs

A couple of things before we get to the heart of it...

You will want to configure the 6 NICs as follows:

2 pNIC for virtual machines
2 pNIC for vmKernel (software iSCSI)
1 pNIC for service console
1 pNIC for vmKernel (Vmotion, etc)

With the later two setup as backup paths for each other.

The AX4 is supported for both SP and NIC failover in ESX 3.5, it is an active/passive array. Don't use FEC or LACP.

I have some serious concerns about the IOPS you listed before (2745 IOPS), this equates (assuming a 30% write/70% read ratio) to 26 x 10K disks in RAID10 and 38 x 10K disks in RAID5. Maybe you can send me those PowerRecon reports you mentioned previously as you might be misinterpreting something, I will send you my email address again in a PM.

Given that you are obviously looking at Dell as your provider (since you can buy the servers, storage, switches, tape library, VMware and PlateSpin software through them) - I have to agree with tiersten at this point, use Dell's Storage Engineers to make sure what you are designing will meet your needs.

You may also want to consider getting them to do the initial setup/config of both the array and VI3. If you're in no rush to buy you could wait until they start booking their end-of-quarter deals (when they can get better pricing) and see if they will eat all or some of the services fees (not sure how much you'll get given the price point you're looking at).

slinuxuzer

Hey, astors sorry, I have been working out of the office for a few days, I was incorrect 2745 was the sum of IOPS not the average, Power Recon has some great reporting but, they display in an awkward way. I will be in tommorrow and send these over.

Thanks again for your help.