Stretched Cluster on IBM SVC (Part 3)

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This is part 3 of the VMware Stretched Cluster on IBM SVC blogpost series.

PART 1     (intro, SVC cluster, I/O group, nodes)
PART 2     (split I/O group, deployment, quorum, config node)
PART 3    (HA, PDL, APD)

 

I explained how a SVC Split Cluster reacts to certain failure conditions in part 2. Now that we know how the storage layer behaves, let’s take a closer look at how this all ties in with the VMware layer. This is by no means a complete guide to every setting/configuration option involved, more of an excerpt of the ones I consider to be important. This post is based on vSphere 5.5.

VMware Stretched Cluster isn’t a feature you enable by ticking some boxes, it’s a design built around the workings of HA, DRS and a couple of other mechanisms.

First, I would like to briefly explain the concepts APD (All Paths Downs) and PDL (Permanent Device Loss).

 

APD

In an All Paths Down scenario, the ESXi host loses all paths to the storage device. The host is unable to communicate with the storage array. Examples of failures that can trigger APD are a failing HBA or a failing SAN.

APD All Paths Down

figure 1. APD

Blog growth and VMware vExpert 2015!

Blog growth and VMware vExpert 2015!

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Today we achieved the VMware vExpert 2015 status!! All three of us!! We are very happy with the fact we are being recognized as contributors to the VMware community.

vexpert15-vexpert

It is funny to see ourselves enthusiastic about blogging as we are! We used to make kinda fun of bloggers… don’t know why exactly, probably jealousy speaking back then. 😉
However, as we started Cloudfix in April 2014, we rapidly became more and more involved with each other as members of Cloudfix and the VMware community. Our hangouts chat, containing the three of us, is mega often used! We constantly discuss tech and other stuff with each other. Next to that, we track each others progress in our professional careers in an non-healthy competitive environment. I think we supplement each other. 🙂

So, setting up Cloudfix was a great idea and it’s really fun to do. It is time consuming, but worth it. We saw a growth in numbers of visitors we did not expect in the beginning. Heck, it even got better beginning 2015!! Pretty awesome for a beginning blog like ours…

VCP-NV exam experience

VCP-NV exam experience

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Ending the year on a high!! Today Rutger and I passed the VMware Certificed Professional – Network Virtualization (VCP-NV) exam!! Robert will surely follow soon. 🙂
We had a rather small time frame to successfully pass VCP-NV because as of January 2015 we want full focus on VCDX-DCV. So it had to happen in 2014.

Although we didn’t have a great deal of hands-on experience (yet) with VMware NSX, we were able to pass the exam after a steep learning curve following our NSX deepdive session at VMware along with some really good documentation and blogposts on the matter… not to mention the VMware’s HOL labs!

vcpNV

VMworld 2014 EMEA recap

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It’s been a week since VMworld 2014 EMEA kicked off. We had a blast at VMworld; Attended some very good sessions, met up with some good people, drank too much at parties, had fun!!
Most of all it became clear that visiting VMworld is a no-brainer, a must-visit! A word of thanks to our ‘sponsors’; YaWorks provided me (Niels Hagoort) with the opportunity to attend VMworld, Valid did the same for Robert Verdam.

Having said that, the EMEA version did disappoint a little bit on the major announcements… The most significant announcements in our humble opinion were:

  • EVO:RAIL partners extended; Hitachi and HP also delivering an EVO appliance.
  • EVO:RAIL will include vCloud Air – Disaster Recovery Service
  • VMware partners with Palo Alto to deliver VM-1000-HV for NSX.
  • CloudVolumes will be adopted as VMware App Volumes.
  • VMware vCloud Air will also be served from a Germany based DC for European customers.
  • VMware vRealize Suite introductions

But that is all on the ‘negative’ side. We like to share some of our experiences on VMworld 2014 EMEA in this post. Please don’t mind the bad quality photos included… I/We suck at taking photos. 🙂

SDDC: VMware announces EVO:RAIL

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With VMworld 2014 just kicking off, VMware already made an awesome, and somewhat unexpected,  announcement being VMware EVO:RAIL!!!
EVO:RAIL seems to be the first product in the EVO family, so it looks like VMware probably got more surprises up their sleeves in the near future.

Let’s take a quick look at this new product range and what it’s first family member RAIL is all about…

evorail

 What is EVO:RAIL

SDS: Software Defined Storage solutions

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SDS

Software Defined everything. Still a very hot item in the ever strong developing IT landscape.

In the year 2012 ‘Software Defined’ looked like just another buzzword, but the market is changing direction more and more towards software defined solutions. The Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) is nowadays supported by Software Defined Storage (SDS), Software Defined Network (SDN) and security solutions. All very cool stuff!! I want to take a closer look at SDS in this blog post.

So…What is Software Defined Storage? Everybody has an idea on what it should be. My idea of SDS matches the quote below:

Software-defined storage (SDS) is the process of using software-based techniques to create, deploy and manage storage resources and infrastructure. It enables abstracting or separating storage services from hardware devices by using software or programmatic access to extract and manipulate storage resources