LeftHand VSA - Does it Require vMotion?

[Numinus]

Greetings,

A rep we are working with has advised that vMotion is a requirement of the VSA cluster installation and that we will need to purchase the full ESX licensing that includes vMotion.

We would prefer to run our 3 VSA SAN boxes off of ESXi to avoid the licensing. Are there any features or restriction in ESXi that would keep us from performing the same as full ESX?

If vMotion is required, what actually vMotions? The VSAs never vMotion and I can't track down anything that explains what vMotions across.

Thanks for your help

[Uwe Zessin]

The VSA does not require VMotion. One of the rules is that the VM is put on local storage and not shared with any other VMs to give full I/O performance for VSA - that prevents a VMotion anyway.

Maybe it is a 'supported' thing. The VSA quickspec only mentions "ESXi" together with a demo/evaluation installation, but that has nothing to do with VMotion.

Can you ask the rep for a more detailled explanation?

[Steven Clementi]

vMotion is not "required" (as stated).

I would definitely get more information as to why he/she is stating that.

now, are you planning on having 3 separate servers, each running 1 VSA? What type of storage are we talking about?

As for vMotion... the virtual machine (the VSA in this case) totally migrates to a totally different physical server (running ESX).


Steven

[Numinus]

Thanks for all the help you guys offered. The rep clarified that the ESX servers that we were running "attached" to the SAN would need vMotion licenses to actual vMotion VMs. I must have missed that because it should go without saying. Nothing vMotions in HP setup and the boxes can run on ESXi. I'll let you guys know how that goes.