StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far)
-
@dyasny said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
OK, what is the largest cluster size you can run with this starwind solution reliably? Their best practice doc is very careful about mentioning scale being a problem, although they call it "inconveniences".
Bigger than the platforms suggest to go. Starwind has no limits. Its' Vmware, KVM, Hyper-V, etc. that have the limits. Because of how Starwind works, they don't carry the single domain scaling limits in their own stuff. So anything you are looking at with any architecture would have the same or smaller limits, literally anything.
-
@dyasny said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
I get it, being defied with solid technical arguments can be confusing
Fifteen years of providing those, and you are just ignoring them. I get it, but you can't just act like we've not established this all already. You aren't refuting the tech details, you are acting like they haven't been established for forever.
-
@dyasny said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
I am talking about a very basic thing - storage tasks require resources. Those resources need to come from somewhere. If you don't use dedicated boxes, you have to take resources away from your VMs. It is extremely simple.
But not more resources, or meaningfully more, than the resources needed to pass that off elsewhere. And the cost of doing that has to come out of money that could be spent on local performance.
The way that you word this makes it sound reasonable, but it's not actually necessarily true.
Storage resources aren't very big in most cases, to a point where addressing them is foolish. You are literally arguing that software RAID uses a lot of resources, when since 2000, it's accepted that it doesn't. You need to provide details as to why you feel the entire industry has for two decades accepted and understood and demonstrated one thing isn't correct and that you have some secret information about how all of that is somehow wrong.
You need to show where this overhead that no one else sees is coming from. What is creating it? Why can't anyone else see it? Why are only you affected? Why is it a big deal if we can't see it or measure it? Why have all studies for twenty years showed one thing, and where is your evidence that it is all wrong?
The logic that storage overhead comes from the VMs is the same logic that mislead people about hardware RAID... those resources have to come from the CPU. That's true. But it's also the wrong way to think about performance. What matters is resulting performance of the VMs or workloads. You are getting under the hood and missing the big picture. With hardware RAID what was found is that the overhead to do it with the more powerful central CPU in essentially all cases was so low that the performance advantage went to software RAID because it was a tiny bit faster, with nominal overhead that was "spare", and in the extremely rare case that it was not, it was vastly cheaper to increase the central CPU and/or RAM capacity than it was to purchase hardware RAID for offloading.
Consider that "storage must have overhead" and "overhead must come out of the VMs" are true statements that feel like they must result in "therefore that slows the VMs down" when we know that that is not the necessary answer. It's a possible answer, but those facts aren't a complete picture and are meaningless on their own. And the industry has proven this for decades with solid math, logic, and provable observation. This isn't some crazy theory, this is IT basics as has been known across the board since the Pentium IIIS processors were released and showed it to be true and has only become more common in the decades since.
-
@dyasny said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
You are assuming automated rebalance.
Automated or manually triggered - it's a costly operation.
yes, but its' a cost that has to exist regardless. So in this context, it has no extra cost.
-
Funny enough, literally had to step away from this thread to work with a Fortune 10 company where we consult, about moving them to HCI. And HCI that has none of the issues that are being worried about here. Not the first Fortune 10 where I've done HC work
-
@scottalanmiller said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@FATeknollogee said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
Curious question...what happened to Starwind vSAN for Linux (KVM), is that not a thing anymore?
It is for sure, they talked about it at MangoCon
The Hyper-V and KVM hypervisors are no longer supported in StarWind Virtual Storage Appliance. To view the guide on installing StarWind VSA with VMware vSphere, please open the following link -
@FATeknollogee said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@scottalanmiller said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@FATeknollogee said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
Curious question...what happened to Starwind vSAN for Linux (KVM), is that not a thing anymore?
It is for sure, they talked about it at MangoCon
The Hyper-V and KVM hypervisors are no longer supported in StarWind Virtual Storage Appliance. To view the guide on installing StarWind VSA with VMware vSphere, please open the following linkKVM is definitely supported, talked to management in the last twelve hours. Just not advertised.
-
@scottalanmiller said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@FATeknollogee said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@scottalanmiller said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@FATeknollogee said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
Curious question...what happened to Starwind vSAN for Linux (KVM), is that not a thing anymore?
It is for sure, they talked about it at MangoCon
The Hyper-V and KVM hypervisors are no longer supported in StarWind Virtual Storage Appliance. To view the guide on installing StarWind VSA with VMware vSphere, please open the following linkKVM is definitely supported, talked to management in the last twelve hours. Just not advertised.
I also read that to mean they aren't supplying an appliance. The free edition still clearly lists KVM as being supported.
-
@DustinB3403 said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@scottalanmiller said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@FATeknollogee said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@scottalanmiller said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@FATeknollogee said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
Curious question...what happened to Starwind vSAN for Linux (KVM), is that not a thing anymore?
It is for sure, they talked about it at MangoCon
The Hyper-V and KVM hypervisors are no longer supported in StarWind Virtual Storage Appliance. To view the guide on installing StarWind VSA with VMware vSphere, please open the following linkKVM is definitely supported, talked to management in the last twelve hours. Just not advertised.
I also read that to mean they aren't supplying an appliance. The free edition still clearly lists KVM as being supported.
Yeah, the appliance is very different than the software, for sure.
-
@scottalanmiller said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
KVM is definitely supported, talked to management in the last twelve hours. Just not advertised.
Any specific reason for the non-advertisement of KVM?
-
@FATeknollogee said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
@scottalanmiller said in StarWind HCA is one of the 10 coolest HCI systems of 2019 (so far):
KVM is definitely supported, talked to management in the last twelve hours. Just not advertised.
Any specific reason for the non-advertisement of KVM?
Not a sales priority.
-
Well done to StarWind HCA! Our users on IT Central Station have given StarWind HCA an average rating of 4.9 out of 5. Here are the reviews for those interested in researching it: https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/starwind-hyperconverged-appliance-reviews/tzd/c981-sf-2
