Guys,
I'm starting to re-read TR-3749 again, but since I'm running cDOT 8.2p# on my main two node cluster (soon to be four nodes) I wanted your opinions on how to provision NFS datastores.
Right now, when we add new DataStores, we have to goto all 16 ESX hosts in the cluster and manually mount them. Which is doable, but maybe not scalable over time as we'd like to isolate groups and apps into their own NFS volumes if possible.
So, knowing that cDOT allows me to setup a volume and then use junction mounts to add more volumes to that name space, does it make sense to do:
1. Create base volume, let's call it '/datastore1'
2. Create sub-volumes of various sizes and performance levels and mount them to:
/datastore1/bob /datastore1/jim /datastore1/sam ....
3. When we spin up VMs and asign the data stores, you only need to drill down into the correct area, bob, jim or sam and put the data there.
4. I want to add new FlashPool volume, so I create it and junction mount it to /datastore1/fp1
5. I don't have to add any mounts to the ESX hosts, they just see more growth in the /datastore1/ mount point and keep working.
So is this a dumb idea? Or not a supported idea? I know it limits my through put to just a single IP address for traffic, unless I spread out the load by having multiple /datastore#/ volumes spread across the nodes of the cluster, and various volumes junction mounted to each of these master /datastore#/ volumes.
Right now we just create new volumes and mount them, but I looking for a more scalable, manageable method.
THanks, John