Simplivity Newbie help

[FaBBB1]

Hello everyone 

I'm pretty new in simplivity world, so apologize for the next silly questions but I have some difficulties to retreive the correct informations and I hope you can help me.

I have a customer with 2 separate enviroments.

The first one is based on 4 hosts proliant 380 gen10 firmware 4.0.1 - vcenter 6.7 (2 separate cluster in 2 different sites - ipsec connected). And here everything is works like a charm

The second environment instead scares me a lot. 

I'ts an made with 7 host simplivity omnicubes (firmware 3.5.2.90 ) and an external windows server with vcenter 5.5+simplivity plugin + arbiter.

Of course this one is somenthig to deprecate as soon as possible, but meanwhile is still part of core infrastructure.

Now the questions are focused on this old vcenter:

1)If I lost the windows server machine with vcenter 5.5 + plugin + arbiter, can i reinstall this on a different server?

2) if yes at first one, where could i find plugin and arbiter of this system?

3)Hpe engineer is needed for this?

4)Can the system work with a vcenter 5.5 without plugin and arbiter?

5) host can be managed without vcenter?

and then the last question:

In case of needed, can I add a normal host ESXI, so a not-simplivity host, to the vcenter 6.7 mentioned before used by the first infrastructure and create a separate datastore for this with external storage?

Thank you for your time and for your support

Fab

[ACA_RAY]

Is the old omnicube system still under a support agreement? If so I would be opening a case for some expert guidance on this one. That being said a new verison of the arbiter software and plug in is usually backwards compaitible to a certian extent, however that far back I'm not sure.

Re-installing the vcenter server with a different version could be a viable option if the server was to be lost and you didn't have the 5.5 install files. ESXi 5.5 will work under Vcenter 6.5. Once again though, support assistance will be needed to re-align the cluster to the new arbiter and vcenter server.

The easiest option may be to make a clone of the existing vcenter server with some free cloning software. That way it could be restored to it's original state quickly. I believe there are specific requirements around restoring the arbiter from a backup copy though so it would be best to uninstall the arbiter before bringing any cloned copy onto the network. Support could then be engaged to re-establish the arbiter for the cluster.

You should be able to manage the hosts without vcenter but you can't perform Simplivity actions like backup/move/restore or vmotion anything. HA should continue to operate.

Others may be able to assist further.

[gustenar]

Hello @FaBBB1,

To help with the questions you had: 

1)If I lost the windows server machine with vcenter 5.5 + plugin + arbiter, can i reinstall this on a different server?

Yes, you could. The OmniStack controllers need to be updated to point to this new vCenter server (requires support assistance). 

2) if yes at first one, where could i find plugin and arbiter of this system? HPE support website, you must have an HPE passport account with contracts linked. 

3)Hpe engineer is needed for this? Yes, this software version is old and requires a support engineer to login with support account to make some changes. 

4)Can the system work with a vcenter 5.5 without plugin and arbiter? Without the plugin you can't perform any Simplivity administrative tasks, you still have the option of running the tasks via command line, connecting to the OmniStack controllers. The arbiter is required to run. 

5) host can be managed without vcenter? You can access ESXi hosts directly via putty or web browser with its IP address. Simplivity admin accounts won't run without a vCenter. 

and then the last question:

In case of needed, can I add a normal host ESXI, so a not-simplivity host, to the vcenter 6.7 mentioned before used by the first infrastructure and create a separate datastore for this with external storage? You can add a standard ESXi host to a cluster to run VMs on it and share the Simplivity storage, but not for external storage. 

Hope it helps.