@manxam vSAN is a hyper-converged setup with local storage being used on each node to provide HA storage for the compute.

The iSCSI Target on the standalone unit could be for backups, archival storage, or any other storage requirement that comes to mind.

If the three R710 servers are identical then use StarWind VSAN for the HA/VM setup and iSCSI Target the D2D4324-G2?

@pmoncho said in Windows Server Upgrade - MS Retail, Open, Open Value or Open Value Subscription:

Is there anyone out there using OV non-company wide with spread payments?

If so, I am trying to find out if I should purchase all licenses that I think I MAY need upfront?

If I can add to my license (additional CAL's or Server License), how is it calculated if it is during middle of the license year?

All of our clients, and us too, run Open Value Agreement with the spread payment option. Company-wide was too restrictive so we never did go with it.

You can always add licenses to the agreement at a later date. Keep in mind years two and three will have two and full payments for the license respectively so the numbers would be higher.

Our clients are a blend of Open Value Agreement with the Windows Desktop Upgrade/Enterprise license moving to Windows E5 to gain Advanced Threat Protection and security licensing for the desktop.

When renewing the Open Value Agreement the perpetual licenses stay with the client and the renewal is SA Only.

Looking long term, an Open Value Agreement pays for itself in the third renewal so years ten, eleven, and twelve all things being equal.

SA is required or O365 E3 and up (I think) for Office to run in a RDS setup.

If more than one Session Host is going to be set up then it's a best practice to put Broker/Gateway/Web on one VM and the Session Hosts on the other.

@pchiodo said in How many vCPUs can I have?:

@Obsolesce I have also found through experience that more memory on a SQL server does not necessarily improve performance. This is also true with VCPUs. I would monitor closely and change one thing at a time. Just my 2 pennies worth

Concur. We do a lot of testing with VMFleet and other utilities with monitoring via Performance Monitor or Telegraf/Grafana.

There is a sweet spot with so many variables coming into play. Disk subsystem being one key.

@scottalanmiller said in How many VCPU’s can I have?:

NUMA issues is a key reason why we often recommend a single proc with more cores than two procs with fewer cores each. No NUMA.

Don't some of the modern CPUs have multiple memory controllers per CPU thus multiple NUMA Nodes per CPU? I've seen drawings for such but not encountered in servers as of yet.

I suggest always setting a minimum of 2 vCPUs to allow access in case of a runaway thread within the guest.

When it comes to performance there are two boundaries to keep in mind:
1: Processor Physical Core Count
2: Memory per memory controller (NUMA Node)

Our rule of thumb for #1 is # physical cores (pCores) -1

Our rule of thumb for #2 is a bit more flexible as a VM may not start if too much vRAM is assigned and it is bound by a NUMA boundary.

A performance hit can be had by too many vCPUs and vRAM assigned that crosses NUMA boundaries (can be set in the VM's properties). In both cases, bits are bounced around either between physical CPUs or between memory banks within each NUMA node. That bouncing around is lost CPU cycles right there.

We've been replacing all of the 4000 series LaserJet printers (4100, 4300, 4350) at our client sites with HP LaserJet Enterprise M506x or M600 series printers with the extra tray set. In some cases the M600 series with the 1500 (3x reams) drawer setup is configured for high volume firms.

The HP Enterprise series just works. Plus, they work with Remote Desktop Services and EasyPrint in Server 2016+ without having to install any drivers on the session hosts.

EDIT: High Yield "X" series toners make the cost per page something like a penny per.

@scottalanmiller said in Should I bother to learn Windows Storage Spaces and what about Glances export?:

@PhlipElder said in Should I bother to learn Windows Storage Spaces and what about Glances export?:

@scottalanmiller said in Should I bother to learn Windows Storage Spaces and what about Glances export?:

@PhlipElder said in Should I bother to learn Windows Storage Spaces and what about Glances export?:

HCI or disaggregate with Hyper-V and SOFS S2D are they way we're deploying now. So, the whole conversation is essentially moot.

Not really HCI as described with the DataOn. That's just a software RAID version of the non-HC model.

HC has always meant physical convergence.

I believe I referred to the DataON setup as "Converged" or sometimes "Asymmetric" not Hyper-Converged which is what Storage Spaces Direct is when running with both Storage Spaces and Hyper-V on the nodes.

I see. Asymmetric is a decent term. What about it is converged, though? It seems "unconverged", if you will. Other than the software RAID running on the storage nodes.

"Converged" in this case refers to both Hyper-V and Storage Spaces running on the nodes to provide virtual machine and storage cluster based arbitration.

@scottalanmiller said in Should I bother to learn Windows Storage Spaces and what about Glances export?:

@PhlipElder said in Should I bother to learn Windows Storage Spaces and what about Glances export?:

HCI or disaggregate with Hyper-V and SOFS S2D are they way we're deploying now. So, the whole conversation is essentially moot.

Not really HCI as described with the DataOn. That's just a software RAID version of the non-HC model.

HC has always meant physical convergence.

I believe I referred to the DataON setup as "Converged" or sometimes "Asymmetric" not Hyper-Converged which is what Storage Spaces Direct is when running with both Storage Spaces and Hyper-V on the nodes.

Disaggregate is where we have two clusters. One running SOFS (could be a similar to DataON setup as was done in the past or S2D in SOFS only mode which is our way forward) and the other running Hyper-V.

In both S2D and disaggregate setups we run with RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) via Mellanox kit for our ultra-low latency fabric.