Removing shared storage from VMWare environment
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@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
- Being 24/7 means I can't drop the whole thing for maintenance.
How much maintenance do you do? What is the annual downtime caused by VMware? Only VMware and hardware maintenance is assisted by having the second server.
Assuming a non DFRS file server, that would be assisted by this as well.
@donaldlandru , you said you have 7 servers. can't you install a DC on one of those? Are any of those virtualized or are they all bare metal?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
- Being 24/7 means I can't drop the whole thing for maintenance.
How much maintenance do you do? What is the annual downtime caused by VMware? Only VMware and hardware maintenance is assisted by having the second server.
Assuming a non DFRS file server, that would be assisted by this as well.
@donaldlandru , you said you have 7 servers. can't you install a DC on one of those? Are any of those virtualized or are they all bare metal?
DFRS would do it on a single physical host for software upgrades, too.
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@scottalanmiller said:
DFRS would do it on a single physical host for software upgrades, too.
it would? how? If DFRS is only on one VM (or two VMs on the same host) and that host goes down (for maintenance, failure, whatever) wouldn't that data all be unavailable?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
- Being 24/7 means I can't drop the whole thing for maintenance.
How much maintenance do you do? What is the annual downtime caused by VMware? Only VMware and hardware maintenance is assisted by having the second server.
Now there is an aha moment and presents me a question to bring back to the business. How much downtime is acceptable die to server hardware failure vs spending an additional $1600 to eliminate all but a dual server failure from impacting the services provided by these virtual machines (other disasters of course not included).
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@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
- Being 24/7 means I can't drop the whole thing for maintenance.
How much maintenance do you do? What is the annual downtime caused by VMware? Only VMware and hardware maintenance is assisted by having the second server.
Now there is an aha moment and presents me a question to bring back to the business. How much downtime is acceptable die to server hardware failure vs spending an additional $1600 to eliminate all but a dual server failure from impacting the services provided by these virtual machines (other disasters of course not included).
exactly! That's why I mentioned the 4 hours of anticipated downtime over 7-8 years. If one server is expected to only have 4 hours of downtime over 7-8 years, is it worth spending $1600 plus heating/cooling/power/UPS, etc to prevent that 4 hours?
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@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
- Being 24/7 means I can't drop the whole thing for maintenance.
How much maintenance do you do? What is the annual downtime caused by VMware? Only VMware and hardware maintenance is assisted by having the second server.
Now there is an aha moment and presents me a question to bring back to the business. How much downtime is acceptable die to server hardware failure vs spending an additional $1600 to eliminate all but a dual server failure from impacting the services provided by these virtual machines (other disasters of course not included).
$1600 up front plus $200 a month or whatever. That adds up over a five year span. $200 or power and cooling is $2400 a year or $12,000 over five years. That's a total of $13,600 not including any effort from you or licensing or anything.
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@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
- Being 24/7 means I can't drop the whole thing for maintenance.
How much maintenance do you do? What is the annual downtime caused by VMware? Only VMware and hardware maintenance is assisted by having the second server.
Now there is an aha moment and presents me a question to bring back to the business. How much downtime is acceptable die to server hardware failure vs spending an additional $1600 to eliminate all but a dual server failure from impacting the services provided by these virtual machines (other disasters of course not included).
exactly! That's why I mentioned the 4 hours of anticipated downtime over 7-8 years. If one server is expected to only have 4 hours of downtime over 7-8 years, is it worth spending $1600 plus heating/cooling/power/UPS, etc to prevent that 4 hours?
The heating/cooling on this is probably an atypical situation as the building provided dedicated cooling but does not pass through the cost of this to our organization it is included in the base lease. Even on an estimated usage our lease is for 10 years and just signed this year.
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
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And you can still keep the second server for emergencies. It can be off and racked, just sitting on the shelf with VMware on an SD card. Should the main server die, swap the drives and fire up. Downtime of ten minutes. So that is a HUGE risk mitigation right there for dirt cheap (Free).
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@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
This server is using 4% of the UPS, if I take that as one time that is $200 worth of UPS.
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@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
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@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
That feels very low. You've got dual procs I assume, that's normally over 200W alone. Then the PSU and UPS overhead. The power of the SSDs, memory, fans, etc. It adds up. Can't imagine getting in under 300-400W.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
That feels very low. You've got dual procs I assume, that's normally over 200W alone. Then the PSU and UPS overhead. The power of the SSDs, memory, fans, etc. It adds up. Can't imagine getting in under 300-400W.
Currently he has 2 or no drives in the server, but that will change when he adds the SSDs. So I suppose it's possible with a single Proc and no drives.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
That feels very low. You've got dual procs I assume, that's normally over 200W alone. Then the PSU and UPS overhead. The power of the SSDs, memory, fans, etc. It adds up. Can't imagine getting in under 300-400W.
Currently he has 2 or no drives in the server, but that will change when he adds the SSDs. So I suppose it's possible with a single Proc and no drives.
But a single proc and no drives isn't what he'd be running
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And 128GB of RAM alone draws a bit.
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@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
With the assumption of 100% to the psu (450 watts) we are at just shy of $500 year for power which is noteworthy
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@donaldlandru said:
@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
With the assumption of 100% to the psu (450 watts) we are at just shy of $500 year for power which is noteworthy
Only a single PSU?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
With the assumption of 100% to the psu (450 watts) we are at just shy of $500 year for power which is noteworthy
Only a single PSU?
Maybe you go single PSU when you are looking at two servers.
If you go to a single server, I'd double it up if possible.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
With the assumption of 100% to the psu (450 watts) we are at just shy of $500 year for power which is noteworthy
Only a single PSU?
Redundant PSU, but it would be foolish (and not sure if even possible) to exceed the limit of one supply
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@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
@Dashrender said:
@donaldlandru said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@donaldlandru said:
The UPS and power do come into play but at 200 watts (one server in question) is a small piece of the pie
Size of the pie can be misleading. Absolute cost is what would matter in this instance.
200w 24/7 @ $0.12 KWh is $211/annually
Why does 200w seem so low?
With the assumption of 100% to the psu (450 watts) we are at just shy of $500 year for power which is noteworthy
Only a single PSU?
Redundant PSU, but it would be foolish (and not sure if even possible) to exceed the limit of one supply
Absolutely, but the second one draws power when not in use. Not a ton, but some.
