Hello, I have a couple of questions that I cant seem to get a clear answer on, so I thought I would pitch it up to a more knowledgable crowd than I.
I have a business where I host FileMaker databases for many, many organizations from tiny (1-2 users) to very large college and government organizations (50-60 concurrent connections). If you are not aware, FileMaker databases are essentially flat files when you strip away all the marketing BS.
OK, in my farm, I have a couple hundred HW VM hosts, each configured nearly identically. Same processors, RAM, SATA/SAS HDD. Each connected to backend storage on an ISCSI channel. For the time being, this is not a SAN array, but a Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 box with only 2 NICs and 8 spindles. This works relatively well until some of the larger organizations hit their web front-ends with many smaller inquiries or writes.
In order to take advantage of VMWare HA, all the Server 2012 installations with their respective FileMaker databases are pointing to the iSCSI drive as their "C:" drives. As you know, if I lose a server, then that is not so much a problem as another server takes over relatively quickly to host those VMs that were on the server that died. But this raises an overall problem as you can imagine in terms of NW traffic and IOPS.
I will say, I already realize I need more spindles. No need to chastise me over that. My questions are more geared toward performance so that whatever I choose to invest in makes the most fiscal sense as well as providing the best service I can financially afford to my customers. So, here we go..
1. All storage is on iSCSI storage server to take advantage of VMWare HA. I would love to bring the VMs back to the local SAS drives for performance reasons, but not sure how I would be able to handle the loss of a server in minutes vice hours. I could run them off the local SAS drives and backup to an iSCSI each day, if that is the correct strategy. It seems like right now, I have a whole bunch of wasted space in SAS HDDS in each server which could be used for something.. What options do I have?
2. This Virtual SAN appliance. I dont get the strategy at all. What do I gain if I do that? Dont I still have to point to a storage shelf somewhere? Is there something with this solution that could help my issue?
Thanks for your time, I truly appreciate the vast knowledge base that this venue provides, and I hope to get some solid advice from you all!
Roger Nelan