The second part of this blog series is focused around the vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 shared storage architecture as well as the configuration process and capabilities provided for Brownfield deployments. Some of the key values provided by the vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 are around new capabilities shared storage capabilities such as dynamic storage allocation. This new capability makes it possible to deploy vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 solution into already existing vSphere infrastructures with running virtual machines.
The vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 shared storage architecture is design to support two or three node cluster configurations which are collectively known and identified as a VSA Storage Cluster. All members of the VSA Storage Cluster will host an instance of the VSA Appliance which will use the available space on the hosts local disks or direct attached storage in order to present them as a single mirrored NFS volumes per hosts. The mirrored NFS volume are then presented to all members of the VSA cluster which are managed by vCenter Server.
Three Node vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 Brownfield Logical Architecture
Before you get to the vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 storage configuration settings the VSA Installer needs to complete all the requirement validation check points process as discussed in part I of this blog series. As previously mentioned, before jumping into the storage configuration settings and recommendations, let’s pick up where part I of the blog series left off, network configurations. The vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 network configuration requirements are very strict in terms of their naming convention and NIC configurations as previously discussed in part 1. The VSA Installer requires configuration for the following network segments:
VSA Cluster Management
VSA-Front End
VSA-Back End
The vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 network configuration requires a certain range and number of IP addresses. The total number of IP addresses needed is defined by the number of hosts that will be used (two or three) by the VSA Cluster and whether or not DHCP will also be used.
VSA Management Network Configuration
The VSA Cluster IP Address requires the assignment of a static IP address. This address is assigned to the member of the VSA Cluster who holds the leader role in the cluster. An option not illustrated above is the VSA Cluster Service (VSACS) IP address. That option is only available in two node cluster configurations. Neither one of them should be configured with private subnet IPs or an IP range that is not accessible by the production (VM Network) network.
VSA Cluster Members Network Configuration
The cluster members have three different type of IP requirements. Both, the Management IP Addresses which are used for the management networks of the VSA Cluster members and the Datastore IP Addresses which are used for the NFS volumes that are exported as the VSA datastores require static IP addresses. The vSphere Feature IP Addresses which are used to access the hosts (ESXi) feature networks can be dynamically or statically assigned. VLAN IDs can be used and defined if the network has been logically isolated. The use of VLAN IDs is not a requirement for the use of vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1. The remaining members of the VSA cluster require the same type of unique configuration as the one illustrated above.
Now to the storage configuration section. In Brownfield deployments virtual machines are stored and running on the hosts local VMFS datastores. The vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 Installer is now able to detect the currently utilized capacity by running virtual machines as well as the remaining capacity on the local VMFS datastores. The remaining capacity can now be present it to the VSA Appliances to use as shared storage.
VSA Storage Capacity Configuration
Initially, I recommend adding enough storage capacity from the VSA Installer to support the migrations of locally stored virtual machines. After the shared storage has been configured, the remaining virtual machines running on local VMFS storage can be migrated to the VSA Cluster shared storage resources, using either cold migration (virtual machines powered off) or VMware vSphere Storage vMotion.
The disks formatting option presented is based on the following two formats:
Format disks on first access (Thin-Provisioned)
Format disks immediately (Zeroed-Thick Provisioned)
Choosing to format the disks immediately will take significantly longer depending on the storage capacity configured. The obvious benefit of choosing to format disks on first access is the ability to overprovision the storage capacity and possibly get greater use of the storage, but this comes with some management overhead cost as closer monitoring will be required in order to avoid issues with running out of storage capacity.
VSA Format Disks Options
All of the virtual machines running on local VMFS datastores with the exception of one can be migrated to the VSA Cluster newly configured NFS shared volumes. The vCenter Server/VSA Manager cannot be migrated to the VSA Cluster storage resource as it is not recommended or supported. The vCenter Server must remain on the local VMFS storage of one of the cluster members.
After the running virtual machines have been migrated off the hosts local VMFS datastores, the new vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 “Increase Storage” feature can be used to reclaim the available local space and dynamically add that storage capacity to the VSA Cluster NFS shared volumes.
vSphere Web Client VSA Cluster Properties
The Increase Storage wizard is located on the top banner of the VSA Cluster Properties of the VSA Manager interface. The VSA Manager is accessible in the vSphere Web Client under the Datacenters Classic Solutions tab as illustrated above.
Increase VSA Cluster Storage Capacity
The new features and capabilities introduced with vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 such as the dynamic allocation of storage remove some of limitations that were imposed by earlier releases of vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 1.0. The new features and capabilities in the vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 make it possible to successfully deploy the solution onto any SMB/ROBO virtual infrastructure.
vCloud Suite – vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 Brownfield Deployments Blog Series:
The new features and capabilities introduced with vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 such as the dynamic allocation of storage remove some of limitations that were imposed by earlier releases of vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 1.0. The new features and capabilities in the vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 make it possible to successfully deploy the solution onto any SMB/ROBO virtual infrastructure.
