StarWind and Veeam + vVols

Software-based VM-centric and flash-friendly VM storage + free version

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Jeremy
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 01, 2019 8:52 am

Thu Dec 17, 2020 2:19 pm

Hello,

I wonder about the pros and cons of setting up Starwind vVols.

Until now, we have used HPE StoreVirtual VSA as storage for our VMware VMs and Veeam Backup for backing them up.

When backing up, Veeam used Storage Snapshots and Direct SAN Transport Mode.

Now with Starwind, the classic way I can still use Direct SAN Transport Mode for Veeam by installing the Veeam proxy role on Starwind nodes and locally mounting the StarWind iSCSI read-only targets (correct me if I'm wrong).

However, I no longer benefit from the integration of Veeam with the Storage Snapshots of HPE StoreVirtual VSA. And now, deleting snapshots (consolidate, revert) can take a long time because it is no longer managed directly by the storage array.

The implementation of vVols would correct this problem but I would lose the Direct SAN Transport Mode from Veeam. It would be necessary to switch to Veeam's "Hotadd" mode to compensate for this loss (always correct me if I'm wrong).

The vVols would also allow more need of UNMAP.

Regarding my 2 Starwind nodes, here is their configuration:
- Storage:
  • - Drive 1: Hardware RAID1 SSD: OS
    - Drive 2: Hardware RAID1 NVMe (6TB): VMware VMs (Performance)
    - Drive 3: Hardware RAID10 HDD (20TB): VMware VMs (Capacity)
    - Drive 4: Hardware RAID10 HDD (20TB):
- Network:
  • - Card 1 & 2: 2x10Gb / s (teaming): Management
    - Card 3: iSCSI (first path)
    - Card 4: iSCSI (second path)
    - Card 5: Starwind SYNC a Heartbeat (first path)
    - Card 6: Starwind SYNC a Heartbeat (second path)
I have a third node which acts as a witness node for Starwind HA with a node majority setup.

In relation to all this I have several questions:

1 ) Is what I said before correct regarding Veeam and vVols?

2 ) In relation to my environment, for or against theft and why?

3 ) There is very little documentation (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... iew-guide/) or articles regarding StarWind vVols, is it stable?

4 ) Is there some kind of HA with Starwind vVols VASA providers? Can we only put the address of one of the Starwind nodes in vCenter?

5) How does it work if the vCenter is no longer available? VMs are still running but no more possibility to start / stop VMs?

6 ) How does StarWind vVols work with three StarWind nodes including 1 as a witness node (node ​​majority setup)?

7 ) With StarWind, can you specify multiple interfaces for iSCSI traffic and multiple cards for sync traffic?

8 ) How do I ensure that the VASA providers of Starwind vVols only present to the vCenter drives 2 and 3 of my Starwind nodes?

9 ) When creating the storage policies on vCenter, I did not understand how the L1 / L2 cache parameters work. What do the minimums and maximums correspond to and what do they apply to?

Thanks in advance,

Regards,
Thordihelm
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2021 5:36 am

Wed Jan 06, 2021 5:37 am

Cool. Thanks for the thread
yaroslav (staff)
Staff
Posts: 2277
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:11 am

Wed Jan 06, 2021 6:05 am

Hey,

Is that related to a hyperconvreged setup or your compute and storage separated one?
I would recommend using multiple HA devices. You can create multiple HA devices. Also, I would recommend splitting large HA devices into smaller ones (up to 7 TB) if that is possible. See more at https://www.starwindsoftware.com/best-p ... practices/. Also, it is not necessary to backup underlying storage, backup only VMs on ESXi datastores built out of StarWind HA devices (see more at https://www.starwindsoftware.com/best-p ... practices/).
The only document on setting vVols is here https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... iew-guide/.
It is stable, but why make things that complicated :)

Regarding other questions.
Yes, you can use multiple cards for iSCSI and Sync traffic.
Using just HA devices, you can configure Access Rights and make those targets accessible to ESXi servers only (Need GUI for that).
L1 and L2 caching help to boost performance. For all-flash arrays though, there are very few benefits of L1 caching. See more about StarWind caching https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware. ... rinciples/
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