Proper setup of VMProtect appliance...
I have created a VMProtect appliance on a stand alone Windows Server 2008 machine. All seems to be working just fine, BUT:
When there is a backup going on, I noticed that the VMWARE hosts seem to be slowing down a lot (I suspect I am loading up the network on the user's side since I see a LOT of traffic in the appliance on the 'user' side). What I am wondering is if my setup can be made better... Here is my current setup:
I have 2 separate networks. The 'user' side (10.x.x.x network) with 3 nics per host (4 hosts)
and the 'SAN' side (192.x.x.x) with 3 nics per host, going to 2 SAN devices.
The LANs are only linked at the VMWare host level (except the connection to the appliance).
SAN Group A (192.x.x.80) (4 Nics) is hosting all of the virtual machines. SAN Group B (192.x.x.79) (3 nics) is hosting the Backup file system. They are NOT part of the same group.
Appliance: Server 2008 R2, 2 NICS. 1 on the 'user' side, 1 on the SAN side. The one on the SAN side is connected via MS ISCSI to a datastore on SAN B. The one on the 'user' side sees vcenter and has a connection to our off-site backup location (a simple Windows share).
VMWare 5.5: 4 hosts, all configured the same NIC setup:
vswitch0 3 nics (round robin), VM network, Management network
vswitch1: 3 nics (PSP EQL Routed), ISCSI VM Network, 3x vMotion, 3x ISCSI, 1x ISCSI Heartbeat
The question I guess is, is there a better way to configure this, such as add a management Network to the SAN side and run the appliance on the storage network exclusively? If so, how would it talk to the off-site storage?
Thanks! I am attaching a screen shot of the host vswitch settings.
EDIT: Since the VCenter server is a virtual machine, I gave it a second vnic with an address on the SAN network. I then switched the VMProtect appliance to this new address, which works. Backup traffic still is on the LAN (user) side though :( Dunno what I am missing here.
Attachment | Size |
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vswitch0.jpg | 29.51 KB |
vswitch1.jpg | 60 KB |

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OK... Got it, The IT guy before me presented the hosts as IP addresses. I had to change the IP addressing... I used:
route -p 10.0.1.16 mask 255.255.255.255 192.168.200.116 command for each of the ESX hosts in the appliance to redirect the IP addresses to the 192 (SAN) Side., to the IP address of the service console 2.
All is well... EXCEPT (SMALL issue): The backup runs on one of the ISCSI connections.... Any way to team them for reads and writes? (OK So I am GREEDY) lol
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Hi Bill,
It's pretty hard to predict without a close look at the environment :) From what I have found NIC teaming is not supported by iSCSI - there are multiple sources on web which outline this limitation. For example:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/d2fa0a9d-a3f0-4f39-881…
http://windowsitpro.com/networking/q-can-i-use-nic-teaming-iscsi
My guess is that you have some similar setup so it won't work unfortunately.
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
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While I was driving home last night I had to laugh at my question... Lets see... I have ONE NIC on the appliance on the SAN side... I guess it is already teaming all ONE nics :P
The good part is that in ESX, the reads are comming from all 3 vnics goint to the one NIC, then back out to the data store (compressed). This is a GOOD thing, as it prevents overloading the switches and SAN with backup traffic.
ALL IS WELL! (time to troll the VMProtect 9 wish list thread) :D
THANKS for all the help!
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