Thanks everybody for each
contribution.
It has been fine reading all
from you,
Regards,
Da: Darren Sykes
[mailto:Darren.Sykes@csr.com]
Inviato: mercoledì 6 maggio 2009 17.04
A: Willeke, Jochen; Learmonth, Peter; Milazzo Giacomo; Page, Jeremy;
Paul McGuinness
Cc: toasters@mathworks.com
Oggetto: RE: Againt on VMware on NFS -> append to R: NetApp3140 v EMC
CX4-240
We spent months
attempting to get something that worked (we use SMVI which takes snapshots
every hour in our environment).
I believe we’ve got
to the bottom of it. The root cause of our issues was VMWare tools; we’d
upgraded VMWare tools repeatedly on the VM’s over a number of years.
As a result we didn’t
have the VSS provider installed which caused a pause of 30 seconds to a minute
for each VM as VMWare tool attempted to quiesce the VM’s disks.
So, if you’re having
problems after applying the patch then I’d recommend making sure that you make
sure every VM on the datastore is running the latest version of VMWare Tools
with VSS.
Darren
From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com
[mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Willeke, Jochen
Sent: 06 May 2009 13:48
To: Learmonth, Peter; Milazzo Giacomo; Page, Jeremy; Paul McGuinness
Cc: toasters@mathworks.com
Subject: RE: Againt on VMware on NFS -> append to R: NetApp3140 v EMC
CX4-240
Hi,
we do see this behaviour as well when
running Backup with VMWare-Snapshots.
All vmdk’s are mounted over nfs from
netapp-Storage.
Sadly our colleagues tried the procedure
described in this TR on one test-ESX host with ESX 3.5 update 3 but without success.
The VM still seems to hang during backup-process and we do have at most 2
vdisks per VM.
Would be glad to hear other people’s
experience about this issue, who have applied this patch.
Regards
Jochen
From:
owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf
Of Learmonth, Peter
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:44 AM
To: Milazzo Giacomo; Page, Jeremy; Paul McGuinness
Cc: toasters@mathworks.com
Subject: RE: Againt on VMware on NFS -> append to R: NetApp3140 v EMC
CX4-240
Hi guys
Please do NOT disable NFS locks.
There is a fix for the VM hang on VM snapshot commit issue,
which is detailed in TR3428 (http://www.netapp.com/us/library/technical-reports/tr-3428.html
starting on p.79).
If this does not work, please check that you have followed
all the steps, that the entry in /etc/vmware/config is correct (look closely at
the quotes), then open a case with VMware, NetApp or both.
Without the fix, the freeze can be 15-30 seconds or more per
virtual disk. If a VM has a few virtual disks, the freeze for that VM can
be minutes. With the patch applied and activated, the freeze is only
noticeable (more than 1 second) with many vdisks.
Share and enjoy!
Peter
From:
Milazzo Giacomo [mailto:G.Milazzo@sinergy.it]
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 12:30 AM
To: Page, Jeremy; Paul McGuinness
Cc: toasters@mathworks.com
Subject: Againt on VMware on NFS -> append to R: NetApp3140 v EMC
CX4-240
Just a doubt about VMware on NFS stability.
NFS strage by default have
NFS locks enabled: this permits best protection and avoids more than one access
at time on a vmdk file.
During a vMotion, a backup or
a snapshot (VMware one), with NFS locks enabled, the ESX o.s. creates some
freeze extended in time, sometimes also dozens of seconds. These limits have
been improved with ESX 3.5U3 but not completely solved.
To avoid these strange
problems we need to disable NFS locks. But in this case the issue (I’ve already
experienced it a couple of time) is that if VMware cluster fails or
malfunctions while it’s in maintenance mode there’s the risk that the VM will
run on two different hosts at the same time: the result is a BSOD on that VM
and that VM file system (vmdk) will be definitively corrupt!!!
Wth NFS is true that we can
have good performances, high flexibility but we can’t use VCB, storage vMotion,
linked clone and VDI. There aren’t SCSI reservations as VMFS has, so it’s less
stable.
Regards,
Da: owner-toasters@mathworks.com
[mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] Per conto di Page, Jeremy
Inviato: lunedì 27 aprile 2009 15.14
A: Paul McGuinness; toasters@mathworks.com
Oggetto: RE: NetApp3140 v EMC CX4-240
Running ESX over NFS is (imo) the way to go.
I moved from FC to NFS about 2 years ago (2.5.4) and have never looked back.
Being able to restore crash consistent out of the box and the extra flexibility
of being able to access your VMDK files directly instead of through VMFS is
very nice. We’re currently running 300 VMs on 5 IBM 3850m2s with dual 1 gig
connections to our switches and then dual 10g to the filer itself. Most of my
VMs are on SATA with the higher IO boxes on 15k FC disks. Dedup is also very
nice, just realize that the first time you run the SIS job (the dedup process)
it will hammer your disks since it has to look at every block with data on it.
If you’re hard set on block based storage
then I don’t think the Netapp boxes are worth it, but I really think NFS is the
way to go. Having the extra layer of abstraction may be a bit less efficient,
but the extra flexibility and related uptime is very much worth it.
Jeremy M. Page____________________
Systems Architect
* email:Jeremy.Page@gilbarco.com - ( phone: 336.547.5399 - 6 fax: 336.547.5163 - ( cell: 336.601.7274
From:
owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf
Of Paul McGuinness
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 5:19 AM
To: toasters@mathworks.com
Subject: NetApp3140 v EMC CX4-240
I am after opinions / Pros and Cons on
running a substantial VMware infrastructure of approximate 200+ VMs using the 2
mentioned storage systems.
Obvious benefits of the NetApp seem to be around
the De-Dupe out of the box. Any other thoughts / experiences would be
appreciated
Fibre attached Dell R900s will be running
the ESX side of things.
Paul McGuinness
Infrastructure Services Manager
FINEOS
Corporation
ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS for INSURANCE,
BANCASSURANCE AND SOCIAL INSURANCE
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