Hi.
i think Reimound is exactly what it is about. For big Exchange Installations there is really no need for VMWare. We have an Ex2k3 site with about 6000 users, which is not to big, and even VMWare said that they would not virtualize our Exchange Servers. Another point is that one big figure for Ex-performance is the memory which is limited to 3GB in Ex2k3 (with the 3gb-switch). But there is only one "store"-process running and if you look in your taskmanager on your Ex-Servers you may see, that it is using about 800MB-1GB, seldom more. So you see that with Ex2k3 virtualisation may be ok. But with Ex2k7 there is a complete new memorymanagement. I do not know the new limit but be sure, that Ex2k7 will make use of the memory it can get! So the idea would be to have a lot of memory for Ex2k7 to make it fast, memory that can no longer be used by other VMs running on the same host....Sorry for drifting away from storage :D
But from the point of interaction between Netapp and VMWare i can only agree that there are a lot of things which are "nice-to-have", e.g. some kind of Snapmanager for VMWare which makes it possible to use the mechanisms of VMWare to set a VM into backup mode (not suspend, like discribed on NOW!) and create a snapshot on the Server.
By the way, has anybody already made live experience with VMWare vmdk's on ISCSI Lun's or NFS-exports?!? Is FC really the protocol of choice for a modern systems-architect :D?
I prefer Porsche,too...
Regards
Jochen
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From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Reinoud Reynders Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 9:08 AM To: Benn, Paul; Timothy Hollingworth; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: Netapp and VMware... It's all so confusing!
Hi Paul, Timothy,
This is a great discussion, and not as easy as we want. Of course do I want to use the best of both worlds. Here some comments:
1) Is it useful to run an exchange server on VMWare? In most of the cases, Paul has maybe right. We have almost 8000 mailboxes, and indeed the added value of VMWare is relative small. We use there snapdrive, snapmanager and MSCS for the backup and DR job. We are running exchange on physical machines. The only reason why I wood use VMWare is for standardisation, but the disadvantages are today to big.
2) But you have the same problem with ms SQL server. We have more than 70 SQL-servers. Here's a really advantage to go to VMWare. That's what we are doing today. But at that moment I loose snapdrive and snapmanager. This hurts. You go back to the stone age:
a. My DBA can't do anymore the basis storage tasks: create lun, expland lun, take snapshots, ... He must, like in the old days, go back to my storage admin and ask him to do this tasks. No, this is not correct, it's much worse: he must go to my VMWare admin, to ask more diskspace and the VMWare admin must go to my storage admin to solve the simple problem. So, my DBA is not happy (he must wait) and also my storage admin is not happy (he must work again). Only the VMWare admin likes this (but he will change his mind) because he's in control of everything :-)
b. We have create a totally different DR and Backup procedure for our SQL servers. It's not as good as snapmanager for SQL. For standardisation of procedures, we use the same scripts and procedures also on our large SQL servers, those are running on physical machines.
3) It's paint full to see that two great product (VMWare and ONTAP/WAFL), with almost the same philosophy (virtualisation of storage or servers, easy of management, ...), are not integrated on a higher level. The combination works fine today, but you loose a lot of the WAFL functionality.
4) iSCSI running in the virtual machine works fine, but it's slow. The latencies of the SQL server (and also the max IO/secs) are for most applications (in our case) not good enough. So that's not an option.
A nice discussion is also the choose between raw devices or VMDK's. I believe that you do a lot more with your VMWare, if you can use raw devices on the netapp. The only problem here is that there is a limit in VMWare of 254 luns in your VMWare "cluster". When you count a least 2 lun's for each VM and we have more than 200 VM's, you see that you reach very fast that limit. I didn't count the preferred setup of my SQL DBA: he want 10 LUNs for every SQL server. So for me, this is not an option. I have to use VMDK's.
So Paul, I think a lot of people are hoping that you will find a way to do this. Snapdrive would be a great start, so that we can distinguish us again from the other guys who don't use netapp, and so that we just can come back in the modern times.
Ps: I prefer the Porsche RC3.
Best regards,
Reinoud Reynders
IT-Manager Infrastructure & Operations
University Hospitals Leuven - Belgium
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Van: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] Namens Benn, Paul Verzonden: woensdag 31 januari 2007 4:06 Aan: Timothy Hollingworth; toasters@mathworks.com Onderwerp: RE: Netapp and VMware... It's all so confusing!
Hi Timothy,
Having been an ASE certified master mechanic in a past life, I can advise you that it is indeed possible to have both of those cars as long as they are kept as separate vehicles. It would real mess if you chopped those cars in half and then welded them together into one new car. Think of all those electrical splices and incompatible electronics! Then, of course, there's that whole warranty and support thing. Who will you go to when the Acura leather cracks?
Or am I completely blind and missing something?
Well, just the fact that neither SnapDrive nor SnapManager are supported with VMware. The only "virtual server" - if you even want to call it that - that is supported with these products is the Exchange virtual server that is created in a Windows ("MSCS") cluster.
Another interesting question that may be worth investigating prior to putting this into production is whether or not Microsoft supports the use of Exchange on VMware. Here are a couple of articles on that:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320220/
It is not clear in your email what the motivation is to go "virtual" for your Exchange server. If it is for DR purposes, then there may be another way you can accomplish your goals. There is a solution documented in NetApp Knowledgebase article #10542 that takes advantage of the virtual server in Windows clustering. Perhaps this article will help you accomplish your goals?
http://now.netapp.com/Knowledgebase/solutionarea.asp?id=kb10542
Please let us know if you have any more questions.
Regards,
Paul Benn
SnapManager Development Team
NetApp
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From: Timothy Hollingworth [mailto:thollingsworth@eplus.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 5:06 PM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Netapp and VMware... It's all so confusing!
So, say for example, I want to virtualize an Exchange server. Lets also say that I want to manage it via Snapdrive and SME. Lets also say, just for the heck of it, that I want both the new front-engined Acura NSX as well as the Porsche RC3.
The cars aside, I would have to run iSCSI from within the VM, install and use Snapdrive from within the VM to provision LUNs, install Exchange and then use SME? It seems kind of silly to use iSCSI from within a VM if the ESX box were fiber attached to the Filer, just to be able to use Snapdrive and SME, no?
I would love to be able to use the features of SD and SME within a completely virtual environment and am wondering what some real world implementations other VMware/Netapp customers are running. Do you run storage for the databases and logs in VMDK's and manage snapshots and backups from a VMware virtual machine perspective or do you manage them as iSCSI LUNs and use SD and SME?
Or am I completely blind and missing something?
Timothy L. Hollingworth
Sr. Network Engineer, ePlus Technology Inc.
678.462.6698 (cell)
AIM: HollingworthTim
YIM: t_holling