Migration of SimpliVity nodes

[bhwong]

We have 2 SimpliVity federations at 2 data center. We are moving out from 1 of the data center into a new second data center soon, once our 2 new SimpliVity nodes arrived. The two nodes will setup a 3rd federation at the 3rd data center, so that we can start migrating VMs from the first federation with 3 nodes.

As the 2 nodes won't have sufficient storage and compute to take up all the VMs from the first federation with 3 nodes,after migrating 50% of the VMs, we hope to be able to permanently disconnect one node from the first federation, move the physical server to the 3rd data center and join into the third federation.

Any issue or consideration we need to take note of, for doing the above?

1. How do we permanent remove a node from the federation? And ensure that 66.6% storage consumption with 3 nodes, will still be sufficient when it reverse to 100% storage consumption with 2 nodes?

2. Can we move our existing vCenter and Nakivo backup VMs into SimpliVity storage and compute? HPE has recommended that we place them outside of SimpliVity previously.

[gustenar]

Hello @bhwong 

To permanently remove a node from the federation please review instructions detailed on the HPE SimpliVity Administration guide. Page 57. 

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docLocale=en_US&docId=a00119807en_us

You must review first which VM replicas live in the host you want to remove and how much space they use to make sure they will fit into the other two nodes. Not all VMs may be sharing replicas with that particular host. 

You can have your VCSA VM within SimpliVity, no issue with that.  

[BoonHong]

Where or how do I find out the actual storage consumption of each VM in the SimpliVity federation to determine that if I remove a node from a 3 nodes federation, the storage consumption increment with 2 nodes will still be enough? What will happen if after removing the 3rd node and there is insufficient storage to keep 2 copies of every block in both nodes?