Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST
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@Stuka Thanks!
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@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@ABykovskyi said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
I guess I'm early and get to kick things off. The Linux VSA on KVM, is there some recommendations around underlying filesystems, tuning guides, performance info? Anything like that yet?
Hello @Reid-Cooper! Thank you for attending! There are no specific recommendations on filesystems. You can put StarWind VSA VM on EXT4 volume and get the work started.
As for the tuning guides and performance info, they would be available as soon it will leave pre-release state. With current version of the VSA we show that we are working in the Linux direction.
Thanks. Seems like XFS would be the more obvious choice?
I would assume so, especially with the recent Phoronix benchmarks in the 4.11 kernel series.
Scott is on point, XFS would be the best option.
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@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Will we be able to manage all of the Starwind VSA products from the Windows Powershell? Or Is the PowerShell module only made to work on Windows Starwind setups?
Or even better, what about a non-PowerShell interface for the others?
We're currently working on adding a support of Swordfish API. StarWind Swordfish plugin should be released shortly, so please stay tuned!
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Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
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@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
StarWind's two-node setup is an active-active scenario.
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@LaMerk said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Will we be able to manage all of the Starwind VSA products from the Windows Powershell? Or Is the PowerShell module only made to work on Windows Starwind setups?
Or even better, what about a non-PowerShell interface for the others?
We're currently working on adding a support of Swordfish API. StarWind Swordfish plugin should be released shortly, so please stay tuned!
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@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
StarWind's two-node setup is an active-active scenario.
More importantly, it's all active, regardless of size. So four nodes is active/active/active/active.
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@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
StarWind's two-node setup is an active-active scenario.
With this setup is there any risk of a split brain scenario occurring? If so what protections are built in to ensure that the system normalizes its self?
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@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Will we be able to manage all of the Starwind VSA products from the Windows Powershell? Or Is the PowerShell module only made to work on Windows Starwind setups?
Or even better, what about a non-PowerShell interface for the others?
Is there a non-powershell interface for the Windows version?
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@coliver said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Will we be able to manage all of the Starwind VSA products from the Windows Powershell? Or Is the PowerShell module only made to work on Windows Starwind setups?
Or even better, what about a non-PowerShell interface for the others?
Is there a non-powershell interface for the Windows version?
Yes, the GUI
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@DustinB3403 said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@coliver said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Will we be able to manage all of the Starwind VSA products from the Windows Powershell? Or Is the PowerShell module only made to work on Windows Starwind setups?
Or even better, what about a non-PowerShell interface for the others?
Is there a non-powershell interface for the Windows version?
Yes, the GUI
We have a few options here: GUI, Web-GUI, Swordfish plugin (soon), SMI-S and VVols.
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@coliver said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Will we be able to manage all of the Starwind VSA products from the Windows Powershell? Or Is the PowerShell module only made to work on Windows Starwind setups?
Or even better, what about a non-PowerShell interface for the others?
Is there a non-powershell interface for the Windows version?
If you are on the free version it is a GUI for 30 days. If you are on the paid version, it is a GUI for forever.
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@DustinB3403 said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
StarWind's two-node setup is an active-active scenario.
With this setup is there any risk of a split brain scenario occurring? If so what protections are built in to ensure that the system normalizes it's self?
Instead of forcing people to use a 3rd host as withness we use a hearbeat channel (preferably set up on a separate physical NIC to avoid a SPOF) that constantly has the nodes pinging each other. This way if the synchronization channel fails the HA device that is second by priority will be disabled to avoid split-brain.
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@travisdh1 said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Apparently I'm going to be starting with the unusual questions. In your V2V Converter, you have the option to convert to Microsoft VHD, why the Microsoft VHD and not just VHD?
Thaks for great question. It should actually work with XEN as well.
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@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@DustinB3403 said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
StarWind's two-node setup is an active-active scenario.
With this setup is there any risk of a split brain scenario occurring? If so what protections are built in to ensure that the system normalizes it's self?
Instead of forcing people to use a 3rd host as withness we use a hearbeat channel (preferably set up on a separate physical NIC to avoid a SPOF) that constantly has the nodes pinging each other. This way if the synchronization channel fails the HA device that is second by priority will be disabled to avoid split-brain.
What if it fails due to the primary hosts failure? Sudden power outage etc. In a two node setup would both nodes then go down?
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@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@coliver said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Will we be able to manage all of the Starwind VSA products from the Windows Powershell? Or Is the PowerShell module only made to work on Windows Starwind setups?
Or even better, what about a non-PowerShell interface for the others?
Is there a non-powershell interface for the Windows version?
If you are on the free version it is a GUI for 30 days. If you are on the paid version, it is a GUI for forever (plus the option of Powershell).
FTFY
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@coliver said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@DustinB3403 said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
StarWind's two-node setup is an active-active scenario.
With this setup is there any risk of a split brain scenario occurring? If so what protections are built in to ensure that the system normalizes it's self?
Instead of forcing people to use a 3rd host as withness we use a hearbeat channel (preferably set up on a separate physical NIC to avoid a SPOF) that constantly has the nodes pinging each other. This way if the synchronization channel fails the HA device that is second by priority will be disabled to avoid split-brain.
What if it fails due to the primary hosts failure? Sudden power outage etc. In a two node setup would both nodes then go down?
Both hosts are constantly in sync,and each VM has access to it's virtual disk on both hosts. If one of the node fails, then the cluster just continues working if it's VMware FT or the VMs failover and everything continues working in case of Hyper-V or VMware HA.
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@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@coliver said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@DustinB3403 said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
StarWind's two-node setup is an active-active scenario.
With this setup is there any risk of a split brain scenario occurring? If so what protections are built in to ensure that the system normalizes it's self?
Instead of forcing people to use a 3rd host as withness we use a hearbeat channel (preferably set up on a separate physical NIC to avoid a SPOF) that constantly has the nodes pinging each other. This way if the synchronization channel fails the HA device that is second by priority will be disabled to avoid split-brain.
What if it fails due to the primary hosts failure? Sudden power outage etc. In a two node setup would both nodes then go down?
Both hosts are constantly in sync,and each VM has access to it's virtual disk on both hosts. If one of the node fails, then the cluster just continues working if it's VMware FT or the VMs failover and everything continues working in case of Hyper-V or VMware HA.
How would we configure the iSCSI connection in Hyper-V for this? Using MPIO?
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@ABykovskyi said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@travisdh1 said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Apparently I'm going to be starting with the unusual questions. In your V2V Converter, you have the option to convert to Microsoft VHD, why the Microsoft VHD and not just VHD?
Thaks for great question. It should actually work with XEN as well.
Looks like we'll have to double check this and then make some changes to the V2V to reflect it supports both.
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@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@coliver said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@DustinB3403 said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Is the Two-Node setup for Starwind an Active/Active setup or active/passive?
StarWind's two-node setup is an active-active scenario.
With this setup is there any risk of a split brain scenario occurring? If so what protections are built in to ensure that the system normalizes it's self?
Instead of forcing people to use a 3rd host as withness we use a hearbeat channel (preferably set up on a separate physical NIC to avoid a SPOF) that constantly has the nodes pinging each other. This way if the synchronization channel fails the HA device that is second by priority will be disabled to avoid split-brain.
What if it fails due to the primary hosts failure? Sudden power outage etc. In a two node setup would both nodes then go down?
Both hosts are constantly in sync,and each VM has access to it's virtual disk on both hosts. If one of the node fails, then the cluster just continues working if it's VMware FT or the VMs failover and everything continues working in case of Hyper-V or VMware HA.
How would we configure the iSCSI connection in Hyper-V for this? Using MPIO?
Exactly. We actually have a lot of guidance to configuring MPIO properly on our webiste. Here is a Knowledge Base article with details: https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware.com/guidance/how-to-configure-mpio-with-starwind-correctly/