Looking at replacements for NAS (NFS) storage

[CalvinZito]

Ok - talking with one of my MSA experts, there are a lot of questions about what your MSA environment is. I'll ask some of those questions and then give some guidance on the question you asked NICs and iSCSI. Here we go:

First, would be good for you to clarify on the connectivity of the MSA 2040.  The MSA 2040 does not support 10GBaseT. 10GBaseT – means running 10G over standard RJ-45 Twisted Pair cabling,  is not capable on the MSA family. MSA does support 10G via Optical and via DAC (Direct Attached Copper). Additionally, MSA does support 1G via RJ-45 SFP

This is likely a minor confusion but something you need to understand for performance.

Second, VMware does not support direct connect iSCSI. They have no qualification/certification plan for direct attach so no storage device can direct attached iSCSI and have official support from VMware. Obviously, you want to keep to a VMware supported configuration.  Note that we support direct connect iSCSI with every other OS supported as they either have a qual/cert plan that HPE testing runs or do not specify against direct attach.

I think the sharing of a device is the key part to understand as not doing things correctly could lead to data loss. 

It is recommended to have your iSCSI traffic on a separate network to avoid overloading the network, both from the standpoint of impacting “normal” network traffic and impacting the iSCSI traffic. Running iSCSI over the standard network and through the same HBA is possible but can add some complications to the IP scheme.

Note that the HPE Converged Network Adapters are designed to run BOTH iSCSI (or FCoE) traffic and Ethernet traffic through the same physical network port.  The configuration of the iSCSI network address and the Ethernet network address are handled in the HBA hardware.

Hope this helps!

[Altoon]

Your answer does help.  It looks like I have some work to do.  I need to reconfigure my network to be compliant.  

The network connection is  10G via DAC.

Back to my original issue.  HPE storage I can use to replace my NAS devices.  I found this link - https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/c04111443.pdf    It talks about NFS 4.1 and VMware.  Is this an option?

Thank you,

Altoon

[CalvinZito]

The link you had is to the StoreEasy 3000 - it's effectively the same product as the StoreEasy 1000 family with the difference that the 1000 is an appliance (that includes the storage) and the 3000 is a gateway that you can put "in front of" your existing SAN storage. It still runs the same Windows Storage Server 2016 OS that you weren't thrilled about but more importantly, I'm pretty sure we don't recommend it as a solution for VMware. 

You could run the MSA as it is for VMFS-based VMs. I don't know what tools VMware has to convert an NFS-based VM to VMFS but if you are interested in using the MSA for VMFS-based VMs, I can ask my VMware solution manager what tools VMware has to convert an NFS data store to VMFS. I'm guessing it would be with something like vMotion but I'll need to ask. 

And just to be clear about NFS vs VMFS - VMFS is VMware's file system that runs on block-based storage (like an MSA). It was originally how most VMs were deployed but over time some VMware customers wanted to run VMs on their NAS infrastructure so VMware deloped the NFS as an option for storage.  Today, I think it comes down to the network - many are more comfortable using their LAN but iSCSI is just as easy for most customers. 

This article - from someone I've known in the VMware community for over 8 years  - is probably 4 or 5 years old but describes the (then) differences between VMFS and NFS. 

[CalvinZito]

I have to back away from some of my previous statements. I reached out to the StoreEasy product management team and learned that they had qualified StoreEasy to work with VMware/NFS and they, in fact, were on the VMware Hardware Compatibility List.  They also told me that they qualified the 5th generation of StoreEasy but not the 6th. I don't know which products are 5th vs 6th and have asked them to clarify that for me. 

Lastly, while we did get the 5th generation of StoreEasy on the VMware HCL, it is not a recommended use case as VM data stores. I think the use case was more focused as a backup target but I'm asking the team to clarify for me. What version of NFS is your customer using? 

[Altoon]

The NFS version is 3.  The storage is used to host VMs directly.  We use HPE StoreOnce systems for our backups.  Having the same vendor for the rest of the storage would be convenient.  Is there someone at HPE I could discuss the options?  It sounds like the StoreEasy line may not be what I need.

Thank you for answering my questions.  I appreciate it.

Alton O'Neal

[CalvinZito]

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@Altoon wrote:

The NFS version is 3.  The storage is used to host VMs directly.  We use HPE StoreOnce systems for our backups.  Having the same vendor for the rest of the storage would be convenient.  Is there someone at HPE I could discuss the options?  It sounds like the StoreEasy line may not be what I need.

Thank you for answering my questions.  I appreciate it.

Alton O'Neal

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Please send me an email (hpestorageguy at hpe dot com) with details about who you are (location, company, etc.) and I'll see if I can find someone. It sounds like you're a partner - is that correct? If you are, you should have a Partner Business Manager that can help. 
There are lots of HPE options for VMware storage - there just isn't an NFS option that we would recommend for running VMs. The options from HPE you have from my perspective are: MSA, Nimble Storage, 3PAR, SimpliVity, and XP7.  Given your customer already has MSA and was using QNAP, (meaning cost profile), I think we can eliminate XP7 and probably 3PAR from the list. Even Nimble Storage could be too expensive for your customer. I think you're looking MSA unless the customer is looking to replace servers too, then SimpliVity could be an option. 

Drop me an email. 

[Altoon]

Email sent.

Thank you,

Altoon