vSAN Free nodes across different locations

[bdnndb]

Hello! I have a dilemma. I have two sites which are located in different places. Site A has an internet download/upload speed of 100Mbps, and Site B has an internet download/upload speed of 800Mbps. My current plan is to use vSAN Free with PC 1, 2 and 3. PC 1 and 2 has separate 10Gbps networking between each other for synchronization, separate 10Gbps networking for shared storage with other VMs, and separate 1Gbps ports for heartbeat purposes. But all of this is within Site B's network. PC 3 is at Site A to help any local computers or laptops at that network access the files much faster in the case of any network disruptions to Site B. Site B is connected to Site A via a site-to-site VPN connection between two Fortigate routers. I have attached a simple overview below:



Here are my questions:

• 1. Can I include PC 3 within the vSAN network? If not, does StarWind vSAN have any feature that does syncing to remote servers?
  1.1. If the above is possible, will it be a big issue if PC 3 is in a different location and all the heartbeat/synchronization/etc. is going through a single internet connection? If so, how should I deal with this issue? Site A is prone to internet disruptions probably once every 2 months or so (lightning strikes, sadly), so PC 1 and PC 2 had to be hosted in a different location. It's mostly loading and editing Word/Excel files, I think the total storage size is around 100-130GB, there's a lot of Excel/Word files stored.
  2. If I want to have a witness host, will it exceed vSAN Free's maximum node count of 3? If it does, then can I use any one of the PCs acting as a witness host too? Or does it have to be completely separate?

Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[yaroslav (staff)]

Greetings,

Please note that StarWind VSAN requires dedicated networking for iSCSI and Synchronization and 1 GbE connectivity. See https://www.starwindsoftware.com/system-requirements and https://www.starwindsoftware.com/best-p ... practices/ for more details.
How many switches do you have in each location? What you could do is set up StarWind VSAN according to the best practices at Site B and connect the storage to PC3 via iSCSI.

1. Can I include PC 3 within the vSAN network? If not, does StarWind vSAN have any feature that does syncing to remote servers?

I doubt that network requirements between sites are met.
Please see this post https://forums.starwindsoftware.com/vie ... ind#p30410
NOTE: make sure network redundancy requirements are met between your sites (i.e., 2x switches, 2x independent links between the sites).

2. If I want to have a witness host, will it exceed vSAN Free's maximum node count of 3? If it does, then can I use any one of the PCs acting as a witness host too? Or does it have to be completely separate?

Given the fact that bandwidth requirements are met, you could go with Witness node (see more on Node Majority https://www.starwindsoftware.com/help/N ... ategy.html). There are several ways towards building the setup with node majority.
1. HA devices replicated between sites, the witness on site A.
+avoid split-brain (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/w ... o-avoid-it), Site A will be the only synchronized site in case of connection disruption.
-complete storage outage when site A goes down. The majority cannot be formed out of 1 node.
2. HA devices replicated between sites, witness resides on the VM in the cloud.
+no matter what happens to one of the sites, another site can have storage.
-pricey (spinning up an instance in the cloud adds on OpEx), sub 5ms connectivity not only between sites but also to the cloud is a must.
True, 3 nodes is the limit for FREE version, but technically the option 2 is possible with the custom key; you will end up with the GRID-like system (more on GRID https://www.starwindsoftware.com/grid-architecture-page)). Replication structure could look like this
1. HA1 is replicated between PC1 and 3, its witness is in the cloud or PC1
2. HA2 is replicated between PC1 and 2
a. heartbeat failover strategy can be used if network redundancy requirement is met
b. node majority with witness on PC3 or in the cloud if network requirement within site is not met.
3. HA3 is replicated between PC2 and 3, its witness is in the cloud or PC1

Last but not least. Consider trialing (i.e., set up the POC cluster) if you feel that you want to go with the commercial version.
NOTE: you cannot switch to Free from Trial.