Hi all
So, am setting up a small VMware environment for internal services and lab work. Having looked at VMware vSAN and Starwind, it appears for a 2 node cluster, Starwind makes most sense at this stage. Working through design on paper, i think i am on the right track, but want input from those of you with more experience in the product than I
We have two Supermicro hosts with 2 1GB NICs and 2 10GB NICs, with each node with a single 2TB NVMe drive. Hosts are running ESXi 6.7U2 and vCSA is up and running with hosts added to a cluster.
Now onto Starwinds, if my understanding is correct:
- I will need to setup two Windows 2016 servers on the 2TB NVMe disks and install the Starwinds application on each
- Run a link between each node's 10GB NIC with one NIC in a vSwitch for iSCSI/heartbeat and the second NIC in a vSwitch for Sync. There will be no redudancy on vSwitch NICs in this case
- Configure each vNIC within the Windows Servers running Starwind with IPs within separate networks
- Configure as per the guide / resources / jumbo frames etc
- Setup storage file / iSCSI to present to hosts
Some queries:
- On the hosts i will need to add an iSCSI LUN pointing back to the VMs already running on the 2TB store right? So in essence, the two Starwind hosts cannot be on the 'shared storage'
- For simplicity for our use case, i am thinking of setting up a single 1TB LUN for all VMs, whereas the guides i see online appear to setup multiple or one for each VM. Is one large one an issue?
- Once the LUN is created and presented to the ESXi hosts all other VMs including vCenter can be moved to this store right?
- In regards to VMware DRS and HA - should these be enabled and safe to do so? Ultimately, if my understanding is correct above, the two Starwind Windows Servers can not be vMotioned as they are not on shared storage (at least not without vMotion across local data stores). How is this normally handled?
- If i bring a host down for maintenance, do i move the Starwind Windows Servers across to the other hosts (vMotion) and shift back once out of maintenance mode?
- How are Starwind upgrades handled? Do we move all guests off the hosts running the instance of Starwind being upgraded, run the upgrade, move the hosts across and upgrade the other? If there is a resource for this, apoloiges, i might have missed it in all my late night blurred reading
- How do I monitor the Starwind cluster in the free version?
Please let me know if i have any of this incorrect or am missing something. Looking forward to finally trying the product out.
Much appreciated.