We Don't Have the Budget to Save Money
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Or is that even possible?
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Would you just create virtual drives from each drive on each datastore and create the software RAID at the VM level?
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@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller How would you do software RAID with something like ESXi?
ESXi does not support software RAID and has none built it. Hardware RAID is the only enterprise way to do that with ESXi. ESXi does support some software RAID from the likes of HP and Dell but I would never go that route.
ESXi is the only enterprise hypervisor without built-in software RAID. HyperV uses Windows software RAID, though, which is not good.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller How would you do software RAID with something like ESXi?
ESXi does not support software RAID and has none built it. Hardware RAID is the only enterprise way to do that with ESXi. ESXi does support some software RAID from the likes of HP and Dell but I would never go that route.
ESXi is the only enterprise hypervisor without built-in software RAID. HyperV uses Windows software RAID, though, which is not good.
Ok, I was wondering how that would possibly work. That makes sense.
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@ajstringham said:
Would you just create virtual drives from each drive on each datastore and create the software RAID at the VM level?
No, you would never do this. RAID goes at the bottom of the stack, not high in the stack. You would be creating an abstraction that would almost certainly look like RAID to the OS but would be a single drive underneath leaving you in horrible shape. You could make this "work" but it would be slow, fragile and messy.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
Would you just create virtual drives from each drive on each datastore and create the software RAID at the VM level?
No, you would never do this. RAID goes at the bottom of the stack, not high in the stack. You would be creating an abstraction that would almost certainly look like RAID to the OS but would be a single drive underneath leaving you in horrible shape. You could make this "work" but it would be slow, fragile and messy.
Which is what I figured, but it was the only way I could think it was possible on ESXi that I knew of.
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I have seen a lot of people, especially in labs, looking for VMware vSphere software RAID. I think that they should offer it as it is asked for so often. But I do not see it happening. That would cost a lot of money and shift more risk into VMware's lap for effectively no gain. Requiring people to buy a good, enterprise RAID card and shifting the responsibility and liability of supporting that off to the hardware vendors ultimately makes more sense. And it does not sit all that effectively with their VSAN strategy.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller How would you do software RAID with something like ESXi?
ESXi does not support software RAID and has none built it. Hardware RAID is the only enterprise way to do that with ESXi. ESXi does support some software RAID from the likes of HP and Dell but I would never go that route.
ESXi is the only enterprise hypervisor without built-in software RAID. HyperV uses Windows software RAID, though, which is not good.
Possibly because ESXi is a lot more "barebones" than Hyper-V which even the baremetal hypvervisor has a lot of windows in it still. I'm guessing XenServer uses a Linux kernel unlike ESXi.
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@thecreativeone91 correct. ESXi is the "lightest" of the hypervisors. It is the only one with zero ties to any existing OS. HyperV has no OS code in it, nor does Xen, but both rely on access to a full OS in the "control VM environment" which provides them with software RAID resources in that way. KVM is different than the other three in that it is built into the Linux kernel itself. So while KVM and Xen both use Linux MD RAID to do their software RAID Xen does it through a control environment and KVM does it directly.
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I can't quite understand how companies can't see that when they have a problem and go to a vendor to solve it, 9 times out of 10 the vendor is going to give a "solution" from stuff the vendor sells. It's like wanting to buy a fuel-efficient family car and only talking to a Hummer salesman. Of course they are going to put you in a Hummer, it's all they have to offer!
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@Dominica said:
I can't quite understand how companies can't see that when they have a problem and go to a vendor to solve it, 9 times out of 10 the vendor is going to give a "solution" from stuff the vendor sells. It's like wanting to buy a fuel-efficient family car and only talking to a Hummer salesman. Of course they are going to put you in a Hummer, it's all they have to offer!
And upsell everything so \that you spend more than you need to.. I want to haul groceries,.. not quarry gravel...
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@Dominica said:
I can't quite understand how companies can't see that when they have a problem and go to a vendor to solve it, 9 times out of 10 the vendor is going to give a "solution" from stuff the vendor sells. It's like wanting to buy a fuel-efficient family car and only talking to a Hummer salesman. Of course they are going to put you in a Hummer, it's all they have to offer!
I think the problem is that SMBs don't realize they are talking to the Hummer dealer. They are uneducated in the realities that the vendor only cares about themselves, they don't care about the client (well you know what I mean).
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@Dashrender said:
I think the problem is that SMBs don't realize they are talking to the Hummer dealer. They are uneducated in the realities that the vendor only cares about themselves, they don't care about the client (well you know what I mean).
Yeah, I guess, it's just that I can't understand how they don't know this? I think that non-technical people get so discombobulated when having to make decisions about technology that all logical thinking gets thrown right out the window.
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@Dashrender said:
I think the problem is that SMBs don't realize they are talking to the Hummer dealer. They are uneducated in the realities that the vendor only cares about themselves, they don't care about the client (well you know what I mean).
That's a pretty major business failing. As a normal consumer, you know when you walk into a store and talk to a sales person. This is just a basic human interaction skill. We all know that when we select our store that we have selected the product(s) that we are going to consider buying and we all know that the person that we don't pay that is there is a sales person who is paid to extract money from us.
How would a business person not have these same skills in a business setting? Even kids know this stuff. They know what commercials and sales people and stores are and how they work. When a business person calls a store and doesn't pay for advice they know that they've selected the products by what the store carries and they know that the unpaid person talking to them is a sales person (or a cashier.)
That they are an SMB should not make them lack this insight into human interactions.
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@Dominica said:
Yeah, I guess, it's just that I can't understand how they don't know this? I think that non-technical people get so discombobulated when having to make decisions about technology that all logical thinking gets thrown right out the window.
I would buy that except that they make the decision to select the "store" at their own leisure and decide to contact the store and only then become discombobulated.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I would buy that except that they make the decision to select the "store" at their own leisure and decide to contact the store and only then become discombobulated.
No, I think that the point at which they become discombobulated is the point at which "technology" comes into the picture at all. As soon as it's a technical problem, they forget how to human.
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@Dominica said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I would buy that except that they make the decision to select the "store" at their own leisure and decide to contact the store and only then become discombobulated.
No, I think that the point at which they become discombobulated is the point at which "technology" comes into the picture at all. As soon as it's a technical problem, they forget how to human.
My theory is this:
Company needs a new "server" for whatever. As you said, because it's technical, they tell themselves they're going to rule out the human element from the sale. They want the best product for the job at the best price. However, due to their lack of knowledge on the subject, the seek out advice. Maybe that's from a vendor directly. Once they start talking to someone, who only sells their products, they are lying to themselves that they only care about the technical aspect but at the same time are helplessly reliant on the human they're talking to to convey the technical. This human becomes, to them, the technical, so the very thing they said they'd not rely on has become their crutch. In the end, the salesman who is most human wins the day, because to them he was the most technical. This is how businesses get screwed. Just a theory...
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@Dominica said:
No, I think that the point at which they become discombobulated is the point at which "technology" comes into the picture at all. As soon as it's a technical problem, they forget how to human.
Maybe, but they have unlimited time in which to not panic and they have no need to introduce "technology." They should be handing that off to someone that doesn't forget how to human. At that point it is purely a business, not technology, transaction. I still see it as a basic business failing. technology should never enter the equation at that level, if it does, the business failed before that point.
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@ajstringham said:
My theory is this:
Company needs a new "server" for whatever. ....
That highlights my theory of the real problem. The business should never, ever know or care that they "need a new server." They should know that they need "good infrastructure" and they should hire good people to handle that. Their interaction ends with the interface of "money in" and "productivity out." If the business people get their hands dirty talking about servers they are leaving their business arena to "play" in a space where they panic and our out of their depths and have no value but to screw things up. That's bad and it is a failing at a much earlier business level, long before they get to the point where they are mentioning a "server".
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
My theory is this:
Company needs a new "server" for whatever. ....
That highlights my theory of the real problem. The business should never, ever know or care that they "need a new server." They should know that they need "good infrastructure" and they should hire good people to handle that. Their interaction ends with the interface of "money in" and "productivity out." If the business people get their hands dirty talking about servers they are leaving their business arena to "play" in a space where they panic and our out of their depths and have no value but to screw things up. That's bad and it is a failing at a much earlier business level, long before they get to the point where they are mentioning a "server".
While this is good in principle, ESPECIALLY in the SMB, as you've talked about before, roles blur and lines that should be definitive and not crossed are either skewed or missing. In theory, the person approving purchasing shouldn't be part of the consulting process. However, it often becomes a game of "how little can we get away with" with the people advising on best practice being ignored for one reason or another. Part of it may be distrust between departments. Sometimes I think it's that purchasing feels IT can't appreciate "the big picture" and so feels they need to step in to oversee the process, thus crossing that line. Often times companies try to save money (like not having a proper IT department but having the guy who kinda knows computers handle it) but will cost themselves many times more in the long run. You are right. It's a business fail. But it's the reality we have to work with as a rule.
