Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST
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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/
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So two nodes is the small end for a hyperconverged appliance (or one that you build yourself with hypervisor + Starwind VSAN), I think I'm clear there. But what about upper limits? A lot of hyperconverged appliances cap out around ten or twelve nodes in a single cluster. What are the limites from the Starwind side if I'm building Hyper-V or VMware clusters? Is it the same and a Starwind limitation? Do I just get to go to the limit of the hypervisor?
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@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
So two nodes is the small end for a hyperconverged appliance (or one that you build yourself with hypervisor + Starwind VSAN), I think I'm clear there. But what about upper limits? A lot of hyperconverged appliances cap out around ten or twelve nodes in a single cluster. What are the limites from the Starwind side if I'm building Hyper-V or VMware clusters? Is it the same and a Starwind limitation? Do I just get to go to the limit of the hypervisor?
With VMware we can push it to the limit of 64 nodes using VVols. With Hyper-V, in theory, StarWind handles 64 nodes just fine, but the best practises of Microsoft suggest 1 CSV per node, which means 64 CSVs, which means one very sad IT admin with a twitching eye and chronic headaches.
The short version would be: from our side, the hypervisor is the limit. -
Are there plans to continue building the Powershell library, or will you be moving towards a cross-platform API?
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@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Are there plans to continue building the Powershell library, or will you be moving towards a cross-platform API?
We expect to release regular updates of Poweshell library.
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@TheDeepStorage 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:
So two nodes is the small end for a hyperconverged appliance (or one that you build yourself with hypervisor + Starwind VSAN), I think I'm clear there. But what about upper limits? A lot of hyperconverged appliances cap out around ten or twelve nodes in a single cluster. What are the limites from the Starwind side if I'm building Hyper-V or VMware clusters? Is it the same and a Starwind limitation? Do I just get to go to the limit of the hypervisor?
With VMware we can push it to the limit of 64 nodes using VVols. With Hyper-V, in theory, StarWind handles 64 nodes just fine, but the best practises of Microsoft suggest 1 CSV per node, which means 64 CSVs, which means one very sad IT admin with a twitching eye and chronic headaches.
The short version would be: from our side, the hypervisor is the limit.That would split up failure domains pretty heavily, though. Impacts to one part of the cluster would not ripple through to other parts.
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For the StarWind Appliances, how will those work for scaling out / adding more storage ?
Will we just be able to add another appliance or will it be more involved than that?
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@scottalanmiller 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:
@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
So two nodes is the small end for a hyperconverged appliance (or one that you build yourself with hypervisor + Starwind VSAN), I think I'm clear there. But what about upper limits? A lot of hyperconverged appliances cap out around ten or twelve nodes in a single cluster. What are the limites from the Starwind side if I'm building Hyper-V or VMware clusters? Is it the same and a Starwind limitation? Do I just get to go to the limit of the hypervisor?
With VMware we can push it to the limit of 64 nodes using VVols. With Hyper-V, in theory, StarWind handles 64 nodes just fine, but the best practises of Microsoft suggest 1 CSV per node, which means 64 CSVs, which means one very sad IT admin with a twitching eye and chronic headaches.
The short version would be: from our side, the hypervisor is the limit.That would split up failure domains pretty heavily, though. Impacts to one part of the cluster would not ripple through to other parts.
But imagine the poor sysadmin who has to configure 64 CSVs... shudder
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@dafyre 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:
@TheDeepStorage 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:
So two nodes is the small end for a hyperconverged appliance (or one that you build yourself with hypervisor + Starwind VSAN), I think I'm clear there. But what about upper limits? A lot of hyperconverged appliances cap out around ten or twelve nodes in a single cluster. What are the limites from the Starwind side if I'm building Hyper-V or VMware clusters? Is it the same and a Starwind limitation? Do I just get to go to the limit of the hypervisor?
With VMware we can push it to the limit of 64 nodes using VVols. With Hyper-V, in theory, StarWind handles 64 nodes just fine, but the best practises of Microsoft suggest 1 CSV per node, which means 64 CSVs, which means one very sad IT admin with a twitching eye and chronic headaches.
The short version would be: from our side, the hypervisor is the limit.That would split up failure domains pretty heavily, though. Impacts to one part of the cluster would not ripple through to other parts.
But imagine the poor sysadmin who has to configure 64 CSVs... shudder
Better than the system admin that loses one SAN and has to explain losing 64 hosts
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@scottalanmiller 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:
@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
So two nodes is the small end for a hyperconverged appliance (or one that you build yourself with hypervisor + Starwind VSAN), I think I'm clear there. But what about upper limits? A lot of hyperconverged appliances cap out around ten or twelve nodes in a single cluster. What are the limites from the Starwind side if I'm building Hyper-V or VMware clusters? Is it the same and a Starwind limitation? Do I just get to go to the limit of the hypervisor?
With VMware we can push it to the limit of 64 nodes using VVols. With Hyper-V, in theory, StarWind handles 64 nodes just fine, but the best practises of Microsoft suggest 1 CSV per node, which means 64 CSVs, which means one very sad IT admin with a twitching eye and chronic headaches.
The short version would be: from our side, the hypervisor is the limit.That would split up failure domains pretty heavily, though. Impacts to one part of the cluster would not ripple through to other parts.
Definitely, if you can manage this cluster, it will be a very resilient environment.
Ultimately, we might consider a promotion of providing Xanax to any admin that configures 64 CSVs free of charge. -
@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
For the StarWind Appliances, how will those work for scaling out / adding more storage ?
Will we just be able to add another appliance or will it be more involved than that?
StarWind does support Scale-Out and this procedure is quite straightforward. You simply add additional node thus increasing your storage capacity. However, you could take another route: just add individual disks to each of the nodes expanding a storage.
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How does @StarWind_Software work with NVMe?
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How does the caching work on Starwind storage? I've read that I can use RAM cache, and obviously there are the disks in RAID. Can I have an SSD tier between the two? Can I have multiple tiers like a huge RAID 6 of SATA drives, a smaller RAID 10 of SAS 10Ks, a smaller SSD RAID 5 array and then the RAM on top?
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@StrongBad said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
How does @StarWind_Software work with NVMe?
StarWind really works with NVMe. We have just added significant performance improvement, so the write performance is doubled now.
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@dafyre said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Are there plans to continue building the Powershell library, or will you be moving towards a cross-platform API?
It's actually going to be both, as Swordfish is being developed too.
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What about Storage Spaces Direct (S2D)? Can you talk about how Starwind is competing with that and what the differentiating factors are? Maybe when we would choose one or the other if we are on Hyper-V?
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I'll jump in with one that I know but think it is worth talking about and that people are unlikely to know to ask about...
What are the benefits of the LSFS (Log Structured File System) and when would be want to choose it?
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@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
I'll jump in with one that I know but think it is worth talking about and that people are unlikely to know to ask about...
What are the benefits of the LSFS (Log Structured File System) and when would be want to choose it?
The ideal scenario for LSFS is slow spindle drives in RAID 5/50 and RAID 6/60. And the benefits are: eliminating I/O blender, snapshots, boosting synchronization process and overall performance in non-write intensive environments (maximum 60% read/40% write).
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@StrongBad said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
How does @StarWind_Software work with NVMe?
We're also bringing NVMe storage to a new level. With added iSER support we improved hybrid environments with NVMe tiers. For all-NVMe environments we're also adding NVMf (NVMe over Fabrics) support within a few weeks. Keep in mind NVMe storage will need 100 GbE interconnect.
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@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
How does the caching work on Starwind storage? I've read that I can use RAM cache, and obviously there are the disks in RAID. Can I have an SSD tier between the two? Can I have multiple tiers like a huge RAID 6 of SATA drives, a smaller RAID 10 of SAS 10Ks, a smaller SSD RAID 5 array and then the RAM on top?
StarWind can utilize both L1 cache on RAM and L2 cache on SSDs.
In regards to a specific configuration, as an example: you can have a huge RAID 6 array for your coldest data, then a moderate RAID 10 10k SAS array for your day-to-day workloads, a small RAID 5 of SSDs for I/O hungry databases and then top it off with RAM caching. That being said we do not provide automated tiering between these arrays and you would assign everything to each tier specifically. You could easily use Storage Spaces 2016 with StarWind for that functionality. Just make sure not to use SS 2012, since the storage tiering functionality on itsuckedwas suboptimal and lead us to the decision of not doing automated tiering in the first place.
