Category Archives: 3 Virtual SAN

IndonesianCloud and VSAN

Indonesian-CloudIT service providers can be some of the most demanding IT users on the planet.

Why?  They serve very demanding customers.  And there are plenty of competitors doing similar things.

At the same time, they have to keep a watchful eye on costs, as margins can be thin.  Better, faster, cheaper — they demand all three!  As a category, IT service providers generally spend serious effort evaluating technology as part of their core business model.

Recently, Duncan Epping posted a deeper look at what IndonesianCloud is doing today with VSAN.  So far, they’re quite happy — and are planning to do much more.

An interesting read!

Horizon View 6.0.2 and VMware Virtual SAN 6.0 Hybrid Reference Architecture

VSAN-Horizon-ViewThis new reference architecture is base on the latest versions of VMware Horizon View 6.0.2 and VMware Virtual SAN 6.0. Virtual SAN’s 6.0 hybrid storage architecture is the focus of the storage design and configuration with real-world test scenarios, user workloads, and infrastructure system configurations.

The hardware utilized in this reference architecture is based on Extreme Ethernet switches and SuperMicro rack mount servers with locally attached storage devices designed to support a scalable architecture and a cost-effective linked-clone desktop deployment model on VMware vSphere 6.0.

This technical paper highlights the results collected from the extensive user experience and operations testing performed, including Login VSI and desktop performance testing of up-to 1,600 desktops, and desktop provisioning operations of up-to 2,400 desktops.

The performed tests reveal the world-class performance and value of the solution at low cost. Virtual SAN’s technology allows easy scalability while maintaining superior performance at a competitive price point. The official document will be publicly available soon from the VMware technical resources page.

In the meantime, you can get early access to the final draft of the white paper directly from the link below.

– Enjoy

For future updates on Virtual SAN (VSAN), vSphere Virtual Volumes (VVol) and other Software-defined Storage technologies, as well as vSphere + OpenStack, be sure to follow me on Twitter: @PunchingClouds

Running Microsoft Business Critical Application on Virtual SAN 6.0

VSAN-BCAVMware Virtual SAN 6.0 enables customers and partners to host Microsoft business critical applications such as Exchange Server, SQL Server, SharePoint, etc with consistent performance levels and constant availability. As part of the effort to extend the awareness of VMware Virtual SAN 6.0 ability to host business critical applications we have put together a solution white paper which covers the design, and configuration of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, SQL Server 2014, and SharePoint 2013 and tested the solution’s capabilities and supported features of these Microsoft business critical applications on Virtual SAN 6.0 as Proof of Concept.

In this technical white paper we describe how concurrent Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server workloads are configured to deliver the performance levels they demand as a Tier 1 application on VMware Virtual SAN. In the paper we cover the configuration procedure for Exchange Server 2013 with Database Availability Groups (DAG), SQL Server 2014 with AlwaysOn Availability Groups (AAG) and Microsoft SharePoint 2013 on an eight-node VMware Virtual SAN 6.0 cluster.

This proof of concept and test consists on the deployment and configuration has all three applications deployed in the same VMware Virtual SAN 6.0 cluster, along with other management components such as Active Directory and DNS servers. We used industry-standard test tools for both Exchange Server and SQL Server to generate simultaneous application load on the storage subsystem. During our testing and analysis, we discovered that performance for Exchange Server 2013 and SQL Server 2014 running on VMware Virtual SAN 6.0 was comparable to that of enterprise-class network-attached storage (NAS) and storage-area network (SAN) storage.

Continue reading →

20+ Common VSAN Questions

questions2VMware’s Virtual SAN radically simplifies storage in vSphere clusters.  Even though the product has been available for about a year, we still continue to get all sorts of interesting questions.

What follows are the list of interesting questions we encounter most often, along with quick answers.

I hope you find this helpful! Continue reading →

Get hands-on with Virtual SAN – download the free 6 month evaluation!

Starting today you can download Virtual SAN for a free 6 month evaluation through VMUG. Sign up here: http://vmug.hs-sites.com/virtual-san-trial

Having seen the tremendous interest in learning more about VSAN, we think this would be a great way to test drive the product and play with all the features in your own lab or test cluster. Find out how easy and automated the policy-based management actually is or how VSAN just works with all your existing vSphere features like vMotion, HA, DRS etc….. Go check it out and see what other VSAN users rave about!

If you need any guidance around deployment, hardware, best practices check out the VSAN resources page: http://www.vmware.com/products/virtual-san/resources.html

Remember, if you are not already a VMUG member you can join for free at: http://www.vmug.com/Join and then download the VSAN evaluation.

Fujitsu Integrated System PRIMEFLEX for VMware VSAN

Fujitsu and VMware are pleased to announce the certification of PRIMEFLEX for VMware VSAN for VMware Virtual SAN 6.0. This Virtual SAN certification for Fujitsu is available now.

This will further expand the strategic Fujitsu/VMware collaboration with Virtual SAN Ready Nodes based on the latest Fujitsu Server PRIMERGY platforms. Fujitsu has updated their Virtual SAN Ready Node profiles for Server Medium, Server High, VDI Linked Clone and VDI Full Clone profiles for Virtual SAN 6.0- click here.

These reference architectures are based on Fujitsu x86 servers, which hold as of February 2015, 10 of the 15 number one positions in VMware’s VMmark® benchmark, and enable Fujitsu to continue their leadership position. Additionally, by using Fujitsu configuration tools like SystemArchitect, the complete configuration of an entire Virtual SAN environment can be quickly set up (rack, switch cabling, etc.) and adapted down to the level of each component to meet individual customer needs.

PRIMEFLEX for VMware VSAN provides the following benefits:

  • Easy setup of an entire Virtual SAN environment
  • Fast and easy design, at minimum risk
  • Built on reliable, efficient and agile Fujitsu x86 servers
  • Expansive scaling and sizing

Check out the following resources for the PRIMEFLEX for VMware VSAN

Please work with your Fujitsu sales representative to quote and order PRIMEFLEX for VMware VSAN listed on FTS’s.

Cache and All-Flash Virtual SAN

flash_cardMost of us are familiar with the role that flash cache plays with hybrid storage systems that are a mix of flash and traditional disk.  Cache is there as a performance accelerator: storing recent reads, and buffering writes to disk.

But when VSAN 6.0 announced its new all-flash configuration, there was a still a recommendation for cache in addition to flash devices used for capacity.  Why is this — aren’t the capacity flash devices fast enough?  And why the 10% recommendation?

With all-flash VSAN, cache is used to extend the life of less-wear-endurant (and less expensive!) capacity flash devices.  Unlike hybrid configs, cache is not about performance — it’s about economics.

Recently, Cormac Hogan put together an excellent post explaining how cache works differently with all-flash VSAN, and — more importantly — explains the logic behind the 10% usable capacity sizing recommendation.

If you’re into optimized configuration of VSAN — or just want to understand how things work behind the scenes — it’s excellent reading!

http://cormachogan.com/2015/05/19/vsan-6-0-part-10-10-cache-recommendation-for-af-vsan/

The Future Of Hyperconverged Is Already Here

One of my favorite William Gibson quotes is “the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet”.  That statement could easily be applied to the work Gabriel Long is doing on behalf of his employer.

ulltradimmsHere’s the story in a nutshell: he’s built a serious VSAN cluster that uses Diablo’s Memory Channel Storage™  technology for flash storage, which means he’s well ahead of the pack.  No, it’s not officially supported yet.  Regardless, very impressive stuff — and a great example of hyperconverged architectures to come.

Gabriel (or Gabe as he prefers) was kind enough to speak to me about what he’s doing: the motivations, the thinking and the experience that resulted.  It was an amazing story.

I hope you’ll agree as well …
Continue reading →

Intel and VSAN Team Up At EMC World

At EMC World 2015, Intel brought serious game to the industry’s largest storage show — demonstrating a slick, all-flash 32-node VSAN configuration — complete with a cool, animated bezel.

In initial testing, the configuration shows ~3.25 million IOPS for 4K random reads, and an impressive ~2 million IOPS with a 70r/30w 4K random mix.  Amazing performance in a single, dense rack designed to support 3200 VMs.

You could almost feel the “drool factor” as people crowded around to ask questions about the configuration.  Our CEO Pat Gelsinger even stopped by for a quick photo!

PatG_VSAN_Intel

Click here for more details on this powerful combination of Intel and VMware technology.

 

VMware Virtual SAN Health Check Plug-in Now Available

The VMware Virtual SAN team is proud to announce the general availability of the new VMware Virtual SAN Health Check Plug-in.

The Health Check Plug-in was created to address one of the pain points many storage solution suffer from – hardware health and configuration – and VSAN is no different in that respect. The Health Check Plug-in will address this issue and in the same time maintain one of Virtual SAN’s core benefits  – keeping things simple. The simplicity aspect comes into effect in two ways:

  • It’s a simple vCenter plug-in seamlessly integrating with the rest of the vCenter UI – maintaining the single pane of glass benefit
  • It provides clear and detailed warnings and alerts including suggested ways to solve issues when they appear

Virtual SAN Health Check Plug-in implements several checks including:

  • Hardware Compatibility – scans your VSAN cluster and detects components not on HCL. Also will make sure you have the right drivers and firmware
  • Networking Configuration – checks for potential hosts getting disconnected, cluster partitioning and other network related issues
  • Limits Health – makes sure the cluster stays operational in cases like a host failure
  • Storage Device Health – checks for disk capacity issues, congestion, metadata health and other potential device problems
  • Virtual Machines Objects health – checks for objects metadata health, and other potential object complications

Overview screen of Virtual SAN Health Check Plug-in:

hc plugin

 

In addition to the ongoing monitoring of the Virtual SAN 6 cluster health, the Health Check Plug-in enables a set of proactive tests like:

  • VM creation
  • Storage Performance
  • Multicast Performance

Check out this short demo video to see how the Health Check Plug-in helps overcome a networking problem:


The Health Check Plug-in is a free vCenter Plug-in that is downloadable under the drivers & tools tabs in the Virtual SAN download page. If you are not a Virtual SAN 6 customer, you can still try out the plug-in by downloading your free 60 days evaluation copy – www.vmware.com/go/try-vsan-dl-en

You can also try our hosted evaluation by going to the Virtual SAN 6 hands on lab – www.vmware.com/go/try-vsan-hol