Comments on: Virtualization: best practices for real life. http://joshcurrier.com/2008/10/virtualization-best-practices-for-real-life/ Blogging about stuff. Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:47:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Josh http://joshcurrier.com/2008/10/virtualization-best-practices-for-real-life/comment-page-1/#comment-57 Josh Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:59:16 +0000 http://joshcurrier.com/?p=61#comment-57 Hi Rob, Thanks for your comment! I was sold on EQL immediately due to its ease of setup, but this tricked me into not putting any real thought into the SAN configuration. I thought "yay it's easy so I don't have to think!". Not exactly, as it turned out. Since posting this article I've changed the configuration again and so far it's working out quite well. 1.2TB thin-provisioned volumes with 1TB VMWare datastores (because a little birdy at Dell/EQL told me that the PS array volumes run poorly, on purpose, when they're low on space). You're right, thin provisioning is the way to go, especially when getting started with these arrays. I thought that since I was using VMWare datastores that creating a 1TB datastore on a SAN volume would immediately take up all 1TB, which isn't the case. Once I realized that, I immediately converted all of our volumes to thin provisioning and it has freed up significant space on the SAN, giving me better flexibility to move things around when needed. Now I just have to get another array or two (or five!) so we can take advantage of the volume load balancing and increased iSCSI throughput. :) Hi Rob,
Thanks for your comment! I was sold on EQL immediately due to its ease of setup, but this tricked me into not putting any real thought into the SAN configuration. I thought “yay it’s easy so I don’t have to think!”. Not exactly, as it turned out. Since posting this article I’ve changed the configuration again and so far it’s working out quite well. 1.2TB thin-provisioned volumes with 1TB VMWare datastores (because a little birdy at Dell/EQL told me that the PS array volumes run poorly, on purpose, when they’re low on space).

You’re right, thin provisioning is the way to go, especially when getting started with these arrays. I thought that since I was using VMWare datastores that creating a 1TB datastore on a SAN volume would immediately take up all 1TB, which isn’t the case. Once I realized that, I immediately converted all of our volumes to thin provisioning and it has freed up significant space on the SAN, giving me better flexibility to move things around when needed.

Now I just have to get another array or two (or five!) so we can take advantage of the volume load balancing and increased iSCSI throughput. :)

]]> By: Rob D. http://joshcurrier.com/2008/10/virtualization-best-practices-for-real-life/comment-page-1/#comment-56 Rob D. Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:09:45 +0000 http://joshcurrier.com/?p=61#comment-56 Thanks for the post. I have had some of these questions on my mind recently. Yes, EqualLogic is easy to setup, but in my mind, that also means easy to screw up. One question I have, are you running your file servers using VMware virtual disks, or dedicated volumes on the array? Secondly, did you use thin provisioning for any of your volumes? It seems to me thin provisioning could help quite a bit in the early stages of SAN deployment. Thanks for the post. I have had some of these questions on my mind recently. Yes, EqualLogic is easy to setup, but in my mind, that also means easy to screw up. One question I have, are you running your file servers using VMware virtual disks, or dedicated volumes on the array? Secondly, did you use thin provisioning for any of your volumes? It seems to me thin provisioning could help quite a bit in the early stages of SAN deployment.

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