Virtual SANs

[Scifigirl]

Hi,

 

We are looking at a VSan as part of our server replacement Programme, and the waters have been muddied.

 

We want to use 2 hosts, but some vendors saying we need 3 nodes minimum.

 

We have been recommended VMware virtual SAN, Datacore SANSymphony, HP's offering VSAN..... but its got very confusing.

 

What do you use and would you recommend it?

 

Thanks in Advance.....

Edited March 7, 2016 by Scifigirl

[Oaktech]

Unless something has changed very recently I discarded VSan as a concept due to the licensing (particularly the VMWare one) being crazy expensive compared to just buying a traditional san/fabric/server system.

 

I'm about to spend under 13k on a 17TB Lenovo s2000 and a pair of system x 3650 servers to run a hyperV cluster.

[Arthur]

We want to use 2 hosts, but some vendors saying we need 3 nodes minimum.

Some features require at least 3 hosts (along with an Advanced or Enterprise license).

 

www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsan/vmware-vsan-62-licensing-guide.pdf

 

The 2-host Virtual SAN deployment model is not restricted to a specific Virtual SAN license type. In other words, Virtual SAN Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, and ROBO licenses can be used for a 2-host Virtual SAN configuration. However, it is important to note that some features such as RAID-5/6 erasure coding require more than two physical hosts.

Also, deduplication and compression can only be enabled in all-SSD configurations.

[PotNoodleTech]

I'd say VSAN is probably the ultimate setup in terms of eradicating the single point of failure - it is however extremely expensive to licence, each licence is big money, BUT you licence per socket, not per host, so you then need double the number of expensive licences (or quadruple if you're using 4xCPU hosts).

 

I wanted to go that route with 3 x dual cpu hosts as the 'ultimate virtualisation setup', but simply could not justify the extensive cost.

Edited March 8, 2016 by PotNoodleTech

[RobFuller]

I also ruled out VSAN's as far to expensive at present, we're going down a hyper converged route with JBODS, Storage Spaces and Hyper-V all in a cluster.

 

Looking forward to this solution in the next version of Windows Server, this should give us much better disaster avoidance with our two jbods and two server locations onsite. Hyper-V Stretch Cluster Replication

Edited March 8, 2016 by RobFuller