Domain Controller Down (VM)
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@prcssupport said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@hobbit666 said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@scottalanmiller said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
Moving to an HDS, EMC, 3PAR or Nimble is a drop in change that would fix a lot of things.
I'm interested in hearing why these would make a good alternative to the SAN and IPOD?
I have read this entire thread (albeit over a lot of time) I don't know the piece of equipment "IPOD" as it is referenced in this thread. I figure it is not an Apple device. Could someone clarify?
An IPOD is an architectural system design. Where you have 1 storage node (usually a SAN) and two servers. The entire setup is configured so that the servers sit up at the top, with no storage capabilities, and the SAN at the bottom.
Often the two servers are connected together with two switches and then the servers are connected to the single SAN.
The term IPOD means Inverted Pyramid of Doom, the term refers to the fact that if the connection to the SAN or the SAN its self goes belly up, you lose all functionality of the system.
It's a commonly sold design because it has huge profit margins, two compute only servers, the switches, and the SAN.
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@prcssupport said
I have read this entire thread (albeit over a lot of time) I don't know the piece of equipment "IPOD" as it is referenced in this thread. I figure it is not an Apple device. Could someone clarify?
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2013/06/the-inverted-pyramid-of-doom/
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@scottalanmiller said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@scottalanmiller said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@wirestyle22
Things to do.
Replace the core switch with 1 GB or better
Fix DHCP so it gives out two DNS hosts
Make sure both (or more) DNS servers are working/syncingDocument everything.
Replace the SAN.Replace, or re-engineer the storage?
Well the issue with that is that it's a major change. That's a great idea, but it's a major change and one he is not prepared to do. Replacing the SAN is a drop in replacement and he could move from a device that isn't plausible to use in a scenario like this to one that is. It's a huge amount of money, but that's a spend that they committed to before he was there. Moving to an HDS, EMC, 3PAR or Nimble is a drop in change that would fix a lot of things.
If he can't get away from a SAN architecture, I'd highly recommend the Nimble storage units. We have them here, and they rock, big time!
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@hobbit666 said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@scottalanmiller said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
Moving to an HDS, EMC, 3PAR or Nimble is a drop in change that would fix a lot of things.
I'm interested in hearing why these would make a good alternative to the SAN and IPOD?
They aren't an alternative for SAN, they are SANs. The thinking here is that architecturally there would be very little work to install a SAN from one of those vendors (these are known good SANs) into his current setup.
The best solution considering what we know about @wirestyle22 environment would be for him to migrate away from VMWare (cost reasons) to XenServer or Hyper-V (both include vMotion/storage vMotion for free) with local storage. Sadly his Cisco servers apparently aren't a good choice when considering local internal storage, so moving to new servers would probably be advised.
I would consider contacting xByte specing out two newer'ish servers with enough local storage Install XS or Hyper-V and migrate.
The major concern I've heard in doing this is that since @wirestyle22 works for medical, his medical software vendor might not support XS or Hyper-V. If this is important to him, then he could stay with ESXi on the new host servers with local storage.
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
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@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
This is probably the first thing he should do. Falls way below the home line and would be an inexpensive upgrade to gigabit.
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@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
This is probably the first thing he should do. Falls way below the home line and would be an inexpensive upgrade to gigabit.
Maybe even go direct connect if possible, I forget the model of Synology he said is in place and am buried in weekend logs at the moment.
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@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
This is probably the first thing he should do. Falls way below the home line and would be an inexpensive upgrade to gigabit.
Well, that depends - I don't consider $3500 inexpensive when looking at the VMWare recommended Brocade switch. If he dumps the SAN he might be able to go with something less expensive and be in a good supported/recommended setup.
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@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
This is probably the first thing he should do. Falls way below the home line and would be an inexpensive upgrade to gigabit.
Well, that depends - I don't consider $3500 inexpensive when looking at the VMWare recommended Brocade switch. If he dumps the SAN he might be able to go with something less expensive and be in a good supported/recommended setup.
Was his SAN doing Fibrechannel or iSCSI?
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@travisdh1 said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
This is probably the first thing he should do. Falls way below the home line and would be an inexpensive upgrade to gigabit.
Maybe even go direct connect if possible, I forget the model of Synology he said is in place and am buried in weekend logs at the moment.
Assuming the Synology has multiple NICs, that could work.
The fact that his storage traffic is on the same switch as his network traffic, frankly I'm amazed it's even usable at 100 Mb.
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@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
This is probably the first thing he should do. Falls way below the home line and would be an inexpensive upgrade to gigabit.
Well, that depends - I don't consider $3500 inexpensive when looking at the VMWare recommended Brocade switch. If he dumps the SAN he might be able to go with something less expensive and be in a good supported/recommended setup.
Was his SAN doing Fibrechannel or iSCSI?
Pretty sure ISCSI - All I know for sure is it's 100 Mb, is Fibrechannel even available that slow?
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@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
This is probably the first thing he should do. Falls way below the home line and would be an inexpensive upgrade to gigabit.
Well, that depends - I don't consider $3500 inexpensive when looking at the VMWare recommended Brocade switch. If he dumps the SAN he might be able to go with something less expensive and be in a good supported/recommended setup.
Was his SAN doing Fibrechannel or iSCSI?
Pretty sure ISCSI - All I know for sure is it's 100 Mb, is Fibrechannel even available that slow?
I don't think so. If he were running iSCSI then he could get away with Ubiquiti, Dell, HP, or even Netgear switches.
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@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
The major concern I've heard in doing this is that since @wirestyle22 works for medical, his medical software vendor might not support XS or Hyper-V. If this is important to him, then he could stay with ESXi on the new host servers with local storage.
Why would the medical software vendor care what the hypervisor is, they should only care about the local environment which the appliance is installed too.
The vendor should never see the hypervisor (at least with regards to their appliance and support).
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@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@coliver said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
But damn.. He definitely needs to replace that 100 Mb switch he has at the core of the network.
This is probably the first thing he should do. Falls way below the home line and would be an inexpensive upgrade to gigabit.
Well, that depends - I don't consider $3500 inexpensive when looking at the VMWare recommended Brocade switch. If he dumps the SAN he might be able to go with something less expensive and be in a good supported/recommended setup.
Was his SAN doing Fibrechannel or iSCSI?
Pretty sure ISCSI - All I know for sure is it's 100 Mb, is Fibrechannel even available that slow?
I don't think so. If he were running iSCSI then he could get away with Ubiquiti, Dell, HP, or even Netgear switches.
I'll have to take your word for it. I know I've seen @scottalanmiller say in the past that he liked non managed Netgear because they were "just fast." Beyond that I have no experience in this area - I'm not sure what makes one switch good for SAN versus another. I know I've read that you don't want the overhead of VLANs in a SAN environment - and I have to assume that you want JUMBO frame support as well as the best PPS you can get, but I'm not sure what else is important to good/great SAN throughput.
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@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
They aren't an alternative for SAN, they are SANs. The thinking here is that architecturally there would be very little work to install a SAN from one of those vendors (these are known good SANs) into his current setup.
But he has a SAN, wouldn't dropping in another one still mean he has a IPOD? I'm just not seeing the logic in replacing the current one (unless there is something major wrong with it like only 100MB not giga NIC)
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@DustinB3403 said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
The major concern I've heard in doing this is that since @wirestyle22 works for medical, his medical software vendor might not support XS or Hyper-V. If this is important to him, then he could stay with ESXi on the new host servers with local storage.
Why would the medical software vendor care what the hypervisor is, they should only care about the local environment which the appliance is installed too.
The vendor should never see the hypervisor (at least with regards to their appliance and support).
LOL - that's great in theory, but in reality the hypervisor can effect things. Granted today this isn't an issue like it used to be. 10 years ago you didn't virtualize PBXs because they had some kind of problem with real time processing (I think - I don't recall the specifics - I know @scottalanmiller knows what it was).
The same can be said here - the software vendor can ask - OK what hardware are you running - oh you're virtualized, well our support only supports VMWare, so we won't bother helping you solve your performance issues until you move to that. Hopefully that won't happen, but it always could. -
@hobbit666 said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
They aren't an alternative for SAN, they are SANs. The thinking here is that architecturally there would be very little work to install a SAN from one of those vendors (these are known good SANs) into his current setup.
But he has a SAN, wouldn't dropping in another one still mean he has a IPOD? I'm just not seeing the logic in replacing the current one (unless there is something major wrong with it like only 100MB not giga NIC)
You're right he does have a SAN, but it's a toy SAN, not a good one. The ONLY reason a SAN is being recommended by @scottalanmiller is because of the drop in replacement nature of it. Really, the whole solution needs to be redesigned. @wirestyle22 doesn't need a SAN. at least @wirestyle22 didn't install it
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@Dashrender Oh I don't disagree, but would you let a random software support tech work on your hypervisor with all of your other VM's or just the one specific VM to their software?
If a software vendor said they "only support" Hyper-V I'd say thanks for your time, we'll be looking for a different software.
Because the software never gets installed to the hypervisor. So they should have no reason to care about the hypervisor.
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@DustinB3403 said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender Oh I don't disagree, but would you let a random software support tech work on your hypervisor with all of your other VM's or just the one specific VM to their software?
If a software vendor said they "only support" Hyper-V I'd say thanks for your time, we'll be looking for a different software.
Because the software never gets installed to the hypervisor. So they should have no reason to care about the hypervisor.
Dustin - yes, the best situation is to not have vendor lock-in when possible. Sadly this isn't always a possible choice.
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@DustinB3403 said in Domain Controller Down (VM):
@Dashrender Oh I don't disagree, but would you let a random software support tech work on your hypervisor with all of your other VM's or just the one specific VM to their software?
If a software vendor said they "only support" Hyper-V I'd say thanks for your time, we'll be looking for a different software.
Because the software never gets installed to the hypervisor. So they should have no reason to care about the hypervisor.
Nothing is ever that simple. And it is quite easy for a vendor to know that the OS is installed on a hypervisor and which one. the information is always available.
If a vendor says they only support XX, then when you grant their remote session, they will check.
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@JaredBusch My point is in regards to the hypervisor.
What hypervisor doesn't present the hardware in a fashion that doesn't work? I get that vendors can have requirements, but to have the requirement of "We only will support ESXi or Hyper-V" just isn't logical.
If the software just doesn't work because the drivers are broken or unavailable then you have a reason. But to outright say "Sorry we won't sell to you if you want to use KVM"
Seems insane.
