Multiple p4000 vsa's on one server >10TB

[mdegraaf]

Hi,

We need to back-up a cluster of 8 p4500g2 nodes with remote copy.

We want to install mutliple vsa's on one ESX host because we need more then 10TB and don't want to invest in multiple physical servers only for back-ups. We are aware that the remote copy back-up are then not high available.

Is this supported?

Regards,

Martin

[Bart_Heungens]

Hi,

10TB is the maximum volume per VSA... If you enable multiple VSA's together in 1 cluster, you can obtain much higher sizes available as backup for your existing volumes...

Officially it is not supported to have multiple VSA's on a single ESX host, but I know that it works... I use this setup often for trainings and demo's...

Kr,

Bart

[mdegraaf]

Hi Bart,

Thank you for yor quick answer.

In the VSA user guide there is no mention that multiple VSA's on one server are unsupported. In fact the unsupported configurations list suggests that it is supported if one uses reservations "Co-location of a VSA and other virtual machines on the same physical platform without reservations
"

Can someone give the definitive answer?

Unsupported configurations
Some configurations that are possible using VMware ESX and the VSA are specifically not supported
for production use at this time.
HP LeftHand Networks does not support the following configurations or procedures.
• More than 2 NICs configured on the VSA.
• NIC bonding using the CMC within the VSA itself. (NIC bonding is a best practice in the ESX
server.)
• Use of any shared storage as the data location of the VSA. This includes shared DAS, Fibre
Channel, iSCSI, and NAS.
• Use of VMware snapshots, VMotion, HA, or DRS on the VSA itself.
• Use of any ESX server configuration that VMware does not support.
• Booting ESX off of a VSA cluster.
• Extending the data (SCSI 1:0) vmdk of the VSA while in a SAN/iQ cluster.
• Co-location of a VSA and other virtual machines on the same physical platform without reservations
for the VSA CPU and memory.
• Co-location of a VSA and other virtual machines on the same VMFS datastore.
• Use of VSAs on other VMware platforms such as VMware Server, Workstation, or Player.

[Bart_Heungens]

Hi,

Indeed the list you mention is the correct one... If you host also other VM's on the same host, HP recommends to foresee at least 2000MHz for the VSA via reservations... If you go to 10TB volumes, if I well remember, this is even 3000MHz...

A lot depends off course if you are also doing snapshotting and so, and how many changes you have on your data...

So technically you can have multiple VSA's on a host, but do not expect fireworkds on performance level...

Kr,

Bart

[mdegraaf]

Hi Bart,

The systems only purpose will be remote back-ups for recovery. No other Vm's will be hosted on the machine.

Regards,

Martin

[Paul Hutchings]

I can't see any reason it shouldn't work.  Without being flippant the entire point of the VSA is to run it on VMware, so you would think that so long as you use common sense and have enough resource (CPU/RAM) available you'll be good.

If the VSA can only use a single vCPU and you have a quad or hex core server, that's a lot of cores doing nothing if you don't make use of them...

[RonsDavis]

My personal experience was that multiple VSAs on the same machine suffered performance problems. These were in separate clusters. In the same cluster things could be worse. 

[Paul Hutchings]

I can't see why it should be a problem so long as you have adequate CPU, RAM and disk to do what you're asking it to do and support your IO profile.

If you had two separate physical RAID sets so the disks aren't contending trying to service multiple VSA's from the same physical spindles, your bottleneck should then become the CPU and RAM.

That would be my theory anyway.