Virtualization Redemption?
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Okay, so it's possible we have reached a free (other than my time) means of accomplishing this goal. yes?
I can do all of this on site so tell me if i'm off base or not.
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setup new DR server with 2 new drives and reconfigure to raid 6
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Setup Hyperv12 on DR server
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P2V current VMs to DR host temporarily
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HV 2012 on two "main site" servers
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Migrate servers to their respective hosts
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Setup Replication locally before shipping server to datacenter
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Ship DR server to datacenter
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Allow replication to do its thing?
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@hubtechagain That sounds about right. You should note that the replication is not real time and happens on a set schedule (not sure what the lower limit is), so there could be a potential for data loss of XX minutes between the time HOST1 dies and its last replication to HOST_DR.
I would also dare suggest that Replication is not a replacement for backups. 8-)
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from TechNet
Replication frequency—In Windows Server 2012 replication occurs every 5 minutes. In Windows Server 2012 R2, you can configure the replication frequency every 30 seconds, 5 minutes, or 15 minutes.That being said, this server will only ever be used if we have a complete physical failure at our main location. this is EXACTLY what i was looking for @dafyre you get atleast 100 nuggets.
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@hubtechagain said:
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setup new DR server with 2 new drives and reconfigure to raid 6 (if that means 5+ drives per machine, then yes that makes sense.)
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Setup Hyperv12 on DR server (Yes!)
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P2V current VMs to DR host temporarily (Yes!)
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HV 2012 on two "main site" servers (Yes!)
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Migrate servers to their respective hosts (Yes!)
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Setup Replication locally before shipping server to datacenter (probably makes sense.)
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Ship DR server to datacenter (Yes!)
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Allow replication to do its thing? (Yes!)
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Sounds like a good plan. Now the question becomes, how do you handle the two local servers? Are they going to be stand alones? or are they going to do full clustering like StarWind?
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@dafyre said:
@hubtechagain That sounds about right. You should note that the replication is not real time and happens on a set schedule (not sure what the lower limit is), so there could be a potential for data loss of XX minutes between the time HOST1 dies and its last replication to HOST_DR.
I would also dare suggest that Replication is not a replacement for backups. 8-)
DR sites, currently, are always "non real time" or asynchronous. No reasonable technology lets you do anything differently today. HyperV Replication, Veeam, DRBD Proxy... all the same.
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@scottalanmiller They will more than likely just be two individual hosts. why would I change that up now?
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@scottalanmiller If he could get it at 30 seconds, that would be acceptable! Especially in a full DR scenario, lol.
Although Scott does have a good point... How are you going to deal with the servers locally? (Local Backup, or Starwind?)
If you are on Spiceworks, you can get a 2-node unlimited storage Starwind license for free, I think.
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considering we were willing to lose a day of data to our DR site.... this will replicate much more often, so this is already better than what i've been thinking.
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WTF is starwind?! ha
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lol. Starwind basically lets you take 2 servers and build a SAN out of them... Real time replication across the 2 hosts and all that fun stuff... So if you have 2TB of storage in each server, it builds you a SAN with 2TB of storage (think Networked RAID-1)...
However, if your servers are now standalone, and you are happy with that... It may not be worth rocking the boat...
Thoughts, @scottalanmiller ?
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@hubtechagain said:
@scottalanmiller They will more than likely just be two individual hosts. why would I change that up now?
If you wanted HA. Now that you are leaving the ESXi world, the big features like vMotion and High Availability (at the hypervisor level) are free. It's a whole new world of opportunity.
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@hubtechagain said:
considering we were willing to lose a day of data to our DR site.... this will replicate much more often, so this is already better than what i've been thinking.
But is it the best application of the resources at hand? Why do "good enough" when "better" is also an option?
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@dafyre said:
@scottalanmiller If he could get it at 30 seconds, that would be acceptable! Especially in a full DR scenario, lol.
Thirty seconds instead of zero isn't big, but it is just one piece of the puzzle. Going to "users will never know" is nice.
Going from "a little data loss" to zero is bigger.
Going from "Crash consistent" to "fully consistent is bigger still."
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@hubtechagain said:
WTF is starwind?! ha
Starwind is the leader in storage replication technology for both HyperV (all scales) and ESXi (below three nodes). They are free and the only major player in this particular space. @KOOLER
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@dafyre said:
However, if your servers are now standalone, and you are happy with that... It may not be worth rocking the boat...
Thoughts, @scottalanmiller ?
Can go either way. Worth talking to the customer, though. This is a BIG move forward that they are getting for "free", other than Hub's time (which he presumably wants to sell more of) , by moving off of VMware. This is not just a chance for him to expand his value to the customers, but a chance for him to showcase a leap forward for them, rather than an incremental advance.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Given the costs and the specific needs, I feel like XenServer and StorageCraft might be the most cost effective. All you have to license is the StorageCraft.
Yes, StorageCraft would be a cost effective solution here.
We support XenServer as well as ESXi (including free) and Hyper-V as well as several other hypervisor platforms. So you have a number of choices how you deploy your virtual environment because we're not tied to a specific host API to get the job done. StorageCraft uses an agent on each Windows or Linux VM to create a disk image and store it on your storage (again, you can choose what storage to use). You can license StorageCraft per agent and most of the admin tools (e.g. centralized management and monitoring, etc.) are free. Feel free to download a trial from our website, and let me know if you want someone to quote prices for you.
As an aside, if you did decide to switch from VMware ESXi to Hyper-V or XenServer at some point in the future it would be extremely easy to V2V those VMs using StorageCraft. In addition, your backup history on ESXi would continue to be used as part of the ongoing backup chain on the new server. We really do make it easy to recover anywhere!
Cheers
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@hubtechagain said:
So, do i stick with ESX and get essentials for 666 bucks, and if so what backup do i use?
Do i switch do xen for the cost of me doing the work? if so what backup solution do i use?
Do i switch to Hyper-V 08r2? what backup solution do i use?Thanks for everything guys!
You can use StorageCraft with each of these solutions. Which means my response to your question becomes, "Which of these hypervisors fits your budget and offers you the most features you'll use?" If you like one of these or are more familiar with one over the others then I would go with that one. Hypervisor features are becoming more standardized across all vendors. When one comes out with a good idea the others tend to come up with their own version of the same feature soon after. At that point it just becomes a matter of which UI you know best.
Cheers!
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Well, were i to "network raid" my two hosts....I would not have enough space to handle the workload. Pretty sure that separate hosts is the way we need to stay at this client specifically. @Steven sadly you were a bit slow to the game and I think that the boys have me figured out
I'm currently using thinware for my local backups. not sure if it works with HyperV or if i'll have to find another local storage backup option to push to the NAS. -
@hubtechagain said:
Well, were i to "network raid" my two hosts....I would not have enough space to handle the workload.
So no way to do replication between the two local hosts at all? You are going to have an offsite failover box but not a local one? That seems like a bad idea. That's doing all of your planning for the least likely scenario (site destruction) and avoiding the planning for the more likely one (node failure.)
Am I missing something?
