On 7/12/07, Glenn Dekhayser <gdekhayser@voyantinc.com> wrote:

Vaughn:

> NetApp covers this technology in their VMware Storage Best Practices
> paper, TR3428.

You're way too modest....you WROTE that TR......

:)

Glenn @ Voyant

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-
> toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of M. Vaughn Stewart
> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 10:53 PM
> To: Scott Lowe
> Cc: Davies,Matt; toasters@mathworks.com
> Subject: Re: NFS vs. iSCSI for VMware (was "Re: List still active?")
>
> Scott,
>
> Your comments on the 2x the space for a NetApp is LUN is a bit
> misleading and is out of date.
>
> NetApp LUNs do NOT require any additional space.  i.e. 50gbs = 50gbs
>
> If you want to take a snapshot of that LUN you had to ensure that you
> had additional capacity in case the volume became full in which case
> the
> snapshot function would be disabled until manual intervention deleted
> old snapshots.  In this design NetApp did not defferentiate the value
> of
> production data and snapshot data, so a requirement of a reserve
> equaling 100% of the LUN size was required.  i.e. 50gb = 50gb + 50 gb
+
> snapshot space.
>
> This design seemed inefficient when compared to snap reserves with NAS
> data, but when compared to other SAN vendors and their n disk backup
> mechanisms, it was extremely space efficient.  I wont go into details
> here but to say that enterprise class on disk backups with traditional
> arrays require 100% overhead for each individual backup.
>
> Today NetApp offers a means where one can say production data is more
> valuable than snapshots.  They provide two dynamic space management
> policies, auto vol grow and auto snapshot delete.  With these two
> policies you can eliminate any additional LUN overhead and should a
> volume run out of space the appropriate policy will be enforced and
> will
> ensure that production data remains online.  Now 50GB with snapshots =
> 50GB + snapshot space only!
>
> NetApp covers this technology in their VMware Storage Best Practices
> paper, TR3428.
>
> Vaughn
>
>
> Scott Lowe wrote:
> > The #1 complaint I have about using iSCSI relates to how LUNs are
> > handled in the NetApp world:
> >
> > 1.  You have to (by default) allocate 2x + deltas for LUNs.  For a
> > 100GB LUN, you'd need 240GB of space (by default--I know there are
> > workarounds with ONTAP 7.2 and later).  With an NFS mount (which is
> > nothing more than exporting a FlexVol), you only need to account for
> > the 20% Snapshot reserve.
> >
> > 2.  You can't resize iSCSI LUNs.  With NFS on a FlexVol, you can
> > resize to your heart's content because WAFL is controlling the
> > filesystem--not the host.
> >
> > 3.  It's open, meaning that your VMDKs aren't locked into the
> > proprietary VMFS file system.  This could potentially simplify
> backups
> > and restores.
> >
> > As Glenn @ Voyant already mentioned, you also gain thin provisioned
> > disks by default and more knowledge/history/experience with NFS than
> > with iSCSI.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Scott Lowe
> > ePlus Technology, Inc.
> > slowe@eplus.com
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jul 11, 2007, at 9:34 AM, Davies,Matt wrote:
> >
> >> Scott,
> >>
> >> Any chance you could expand on the advantages of NFS over Iscsi ?
> NFS
> >> isn't an area I have any experience of....
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
> >> Matt
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-
> toasters@mathworks.com]
> >> On Behalf Of Scott Lowe
> >> Sent: 11 July 2007 14:05
> >> To: Forest Leonard; toasters@mathworks.com
> >> Subject: Re: List still active?
> >>
> >> Forest,
> >>
> >> When it comes time to configure VMkernel for VMotion, then I'd
> >> definitely recommend keeping it separate from the virtual machine
> >> network.  As it stands right now, you don't even need a VMkernel
NIC
> >> configured because it sounds like you are using Qlogic iSCSI HBAs
> and
> >> only have a single ESX Server.  Since the Qlogic cards handle the
> >> iSCSI traffic and there is no VMotion, there no current need for a
> >> VMkernel NIC (unless you want to use NFS from the FAS to provide
> >> additional storage for VMs--which, by the way, works pretty well
and
> >> has some nice advantages over iSCSI, IMHO).
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Scott Lowe
> >> ePlus Technology, Inc.
> >> slowe@eplus.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Jul 11, 2007, at 8:33 AM, Forest Leonard wrote:
> >>
> >>> Interesting stuff. I only have one ESX server so I haven't gotten
> >>> to the
> >>> Vmotion configuration yet.. That should be later this year.
> >>>
> >>> I just configured a RDM to run a Virtual server on. I found an
> article
> >>> where you want to create the type as NTFS if it is a RDM for a
> windows
> >>> host. Not sure if I am going to use this going forward. I actually
> >>> don't
> >>> know if you can migrate into a RDM. It doesn't look like it.
> >>>
> >>> I am only using 2 NIC's on my Vmware server.. and a QLOGIC card
for
> my
> >>> ISCSI access.. I may need to look at bulking up my NIC
> >>> configuration. It
> >>> looks like I may gain some performance if I separate my VMKernal
> >>> from my
> >>> Virtual Machine network?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> Forest
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: Davies,Matt [mailto:MDAVIES@generalatlantic.com]
> >>> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 8:18 AM
> >>> To: Forest Leonard; ggwalker@mindspring.com;
toasters@mathworks.com
> >>> Subject: RE: List still active?
> >>>
> >>> Sounds like we are both at the same stage.
> >>>
> >>> We are not using RDM's yet, however when it comes to exchange we
> will
> >>> have to, or I may just stick with using the Microsoft Iscsi
> >>> initiatator
> >>> from within the VM, not exactly supported, but I know of other
> people
> >>> doing it.
> >>>
> >>> We have migrated 8 machines so far, into just one datastore and
> >>> have not
> >>> seen any performance problems at all, although most of the
machines
> >>> have
> >>> very low IO requirements.
> >>>
> >>> We are using a script to snapshot and then replicate using
> snapmirror,
> >>> it works very well, however our Virtual Centre server is also a VM
> >>> which
> >>> was causing a few problems with the snapshots on the VMware side
> not
> >>> being removed, but moving this to a separate datastore seems have
> >>> cured
> >>> the problems, even SQL doesn't seem to have a problem.
> >>>
> >>> The script is the one written by Evan Battle, that is in the
newest
> >>> netapp docs on VMware. I did have a few problems with ssh to the
> >>> filer,
> >>> but we are now using rsh and it seems to be ok.
> >>>
> >>> I don't know how you have setup your virtual switches on the ESX
> side,
> >>> but I got some best practice information out of VMware on that
> >>> subject.
> >>>
> >>> Each of our  ESX IBM3550  host servers have 6 Nics, connected as
> >>> follows.
> >>>
> >>> 2 Nics for service console VMKernel for Vmotion, load balance
using
> >>> Virtual port ID
> >>>
> >>> 2 Nics for Virtual Machine network, load balance using Virtual
port
> ID
> >>>
> >>> 2 Nics for ISCSI (Service Console and VMKernel), load balance
using
> IP
> >>> Hash
> >>>
> >>> Hope this helps....
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: Forest Leonard [mailto:fleonard@rvigroup.com ]
> >>> Sent: 11 July 2007 11:06
> >>> To: Davies,Matt; ggwalker@mindspring.com; toasters@mathworks.com
> >>> Subject: RE: List still active?
> >>>
> >>> Hey Matt... I am actually doing the exact same thing on a FAS
270..
> I
> >>> have migrated about 7 servers so far.
> >>>
> >>> Are you using RDM's (remote device mappings) for the Virtual
> >>> Machines? I
> >>> actually just created 2 200GB LUNs on the netapp to use as
> Datastores
> >>> and have not had any performance issues.
> >>>
> >>> Just wondering what your experience with RDM's are.. I added one
> >>> into a
> >>> virtual machine.. It just lets you map a LUN directly to a Virtual
> >>> machine.
> >>>
> >>> Has anyone out there used the netapp script to capture a VM
> snapshot?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> Forest
> >>>
> >>> ________________________________
> >>>
> >>> From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com on behalf of Davies,Matt
> >>> Sent: Wed 7/11/2007 1:00 AM
> >>> To: ggwalker@mindspring.com; toasters@mathworks.com
> >>> Subject: RE: List still active?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Still working by the looks of things.
> >>>
> >>> busy in process of migrating all our physical severs to VM, stored
> >>> on a
> >>> iscsi lun on a FAS 270.
> >>>
> >>> For those that want to know we are using the software iscsi
> initiator
> >>> within ESX and have not had any problems so far.
> >>>
> >>> cheers
> >>>
> >>> matt
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com <owner-toasters@mathworks.com>
> >>> To: toasters@mathworks.com < toasters@mathworks.com>
> >>> Sent: Wed Jul 11 01:03:49 2007
> >>> Subject: List still active?
> >>>
> >>> I've noticed that I'm still subscribed, but have received no email
> >>> since
> >>> July 4th.  Everyone didn't trade their NetApp gear for something
> else
> >>> while I was out of town did they?? J
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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