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Laurie Barnes, VMware

vSAN Resilience –Designing and Managing HCI for Highest Availability Levels

©2019 VMware, Inc.

Disclaimer

This presentation may contain product features or functionality that are currently under development.

This overview of new technology represents no commitment from VMware to deliver these features in any generally available product.

Features are subject to change, and must not be included in contracts, purchase orders, or sales agreements of any kind.

Technical feasibility and market demand will affect final delivery.

Pricing and packaging for any new features/functionality/technology discussed or presented, have not been determined.

This information is confidential.

The information in this presentation is for informational purposes only and may not be incorporated into any contract. There is no commitment or obligation

to deliver any items presented herein.

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Agenda

Design and Architecture (Day 0)

Configuration (Day 1)

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Design and Architecture“Day 0”

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Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) appliances• Dell EMC VxRail

Certified vSAN ReadyNodes• Validated configurations recommended by OEM and VMware

Redundant components

Consistent configuration across all hosts

Avoid BYO

ONLY systems and components on VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG)

Hardware Selection

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Confirm supported firmware and driver versions

vSAN Health checks these

Confirm they are all green before production

Firmware and driver versions that are not supported can cause unexpected results

Firmware and Drivers

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Use high-quality physical NICs

NIC pairs to different switches

vSphere Distributed Switch with NIOC enabled

Physically separate vSAN and vMotion traffic

VLANs recommended to separate traffic types

Not much benefit in running LACP, however, if using LACP…• vSphere Distributed Switch to form LAG

• See VMware KB article 2006129 Understanding IP Hash load balancing

vSphere Documentation: Networking Best Practices

Redundancy everywhere

Host Networking

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Choose based on its switching capacity sometimes called “L2/L3 throughput”• 2x the bandwidth of all front-end ports summed

– Example: 24 x 10Gbps ports should have 480Gbps L2/3 throughput

16MB of buffer minimum

Larger, high-performance clusters should use switches with deep buffer size (1GB+)

Use switches that allow East-West port traffic (without sending packets upstream)

Storage-class switches for the best performance

Physical Network Switches

No

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Required• 2n+1 required for mirroring

• 2n+2 required for erasure coding

Better

• +1 for maintenance and rebuilds

Best:• +n for maintenance and rebuilds

Example: FTT=2 with RAID-1 mirroring… 2*2+1+2=7

Consider minimum hosts needed to support storage policies and maintenance

Standard Cluster Design

This example: FTT=2 Mirroring

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Storage policy redundancy can be reduced• Example: No need for 3 replicas (FTT=2) of every domain controller

Oracle RAC… VMware KB 2121181

Clustering without shared disks, e.g., SQL Server AAG… VMware KB 54461

Windows Server Failover Cluster… vSAN 6.7 U3 NEW• Support for SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations (SCSI-3 PV)

Built-in is usually better

Use App-Level Redundancy Where Possible

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Configuration“Day 1”

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Three-step wizard eases cluster configuration• Turn on HA, DRS, and vSAN services

• Add hosts

• Configure cluster

Configures multiple items• Distributed switch

• vSAN fault domains

• vSAN disk groups

• Deduplication, compression, encryption

• …and more

Let’s take a look…

Cluster QuickStart in vSAN 6.7U1 and higher versions

Validate Settings and Ensure Consistency

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FTT=2 recommended for HA

Set Storage Policies

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Admission Control on• Standard cluster: Host failover capacity <= vSAN storage policy FTT

• Stretched cluster or 2-node: Set to 50%

Isolation address on the same network as vSAN

Recommendations for vSphere HA configuration

vSphere HA and vSAN Integrated to Maximize Uptime HA

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Recommendations for vSphere DRS configuration

vSphere DRS Automates VM Placement and Migration

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Verify vCenter Server connectivity to Internet

Make sure the HCL database stays up to date

Resolve ALL issues before running VMs

Always check before and after cluster configuration, maintenance activities

By the way… Verify DNS and NTP

50+ health checks cover a wide variety of configuration items

vSAN Health Helps Ensure Availability and Performance

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Requires Internet connection

Dynamic health check updates

Controller utility enables additional health checks based on controller's settings

Proactive health checks to ensure operation according to VMware recommendations

CEIP Enables Online Checks for Enhanced Health Monitoring

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Provides GSS with information without uploading logs

Secure – data is obfuscated before it is sent

Less time gathering facts leads to faster resolution

Let’s take a look…

CEIP and online Health also enables vSAN Support Insight

Help GSS Help You – Potentially Faster Resolution Times

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Make sure these are all green, as well

vSphere Has Host Health Checks

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Redundancy everywhere

+1 or more hosts for maintenance and rebuilds

vSAN and vSphere cluster health checks all green

Maintain adequate “slack space” – do not run out of space

FTT=2 default policy

Storage policy changes a few VMs at a time

Keep it simple!

These are the most important ones to remember

A Summary of the Top Recommendations

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Thank You!

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