Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?
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@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@obsolesce said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
I don't knwo what the cost differences are here in your situation or all the details, all options seem viable.
It's in the ballpark of 15k more for the appliance than buying the hardware myself from an xbyte equivalent. Getting the active support and having the whole thing setup and monitored by the experts may well be worth the money. I'm not very experienced at making these value judgements..
What's the value of your support over the span of SW's support period, and renewal costs?
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@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@obsolesce said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
I don't knwo what the cost differences are here in your situation or all the details, all options seem viable.
It's in the ballpark of 15k more for the appliance than buying the hardware myself from an xbyte equivalent. Getting the active support and having the whole thing setup and monitored by the experts may well be worth the money. I'm not very experienced at making these value judgements..
The question in value I think is what's the difference in cost between your own xByte hardware and the appliances, both with support?
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@jaredbusch done replication outside of AD not complex just a matter of certificates. If I dig I should find some notes. But I have to translate them.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
Out of roughly 30 VMs, 2 are Windows server instances. We're mostly running Centos here.
I'll look into SA licensing. I'm not very familiar with it.Given that skill set, why look at Hyper-V instead of KVM? Both have been officially dropped from Starwind support temporarily until their new product roles out, which is KVM first, that's their key focus as they see it as the one with the greater future and potential. Hyper-V in general is more complex to manage than KVM. It's a fine product, but given your skill set and existing products, KVM seems like a more natural fit. Generally, Hyper-V makes sense only when you require a specific feature of it.
I'd tend to agree here, KVM running Linux VMs sounds like a better choice. Hyper-V makes sense if it's a "free" offering comping as part of already paid Windows Server licenses.
P.S. Not sure about VM backup with KVM.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
Oh and I've already got Veeam backup and replication (a 30 vm license) which gives me good agentless backup options for Hyper-V. 5-nine manager or something like it would likely be required as well.
5-Nine would be "extra" stuff only needed because Hyper-V doesn't have the native options that it provides. Another reason for KVM.
Veeam is great, but they have agent based for your scenario. We have another thread right now talking about this, but why do you see agentless as even something you want, let alone a driving factor in decision making? It sounds nice, but is very rarely (especially in such a large, diverse shop) viable.
Well, Microsoft released WAC (Windows Admin Center, ex- "Project Honolulu") to fill lack of management gap, but... I'm very pessimistic about WAC so far: too many compatibility issues and no single scenario is covered from Day Zero till the very end. Bottom line: You'll have to learn PowerShell and Windows Server management cmdlets.
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@kooler said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
Oh and I've already got Veeam backup and replication (a 30 vm license) which gives me good agentless backup options for Hyper-V. 5-nine manager or something like it would likely be required as well.
5-Nine would be "extra" stuff only needed because Hyper-V doesn't have the native options that it provides. Another reason for KVM.
Veeam is great, but they have agent based for your scenario. We have another thread right now talking about this, but why do you see agentless as even something you want, let alone a driving factor in decision making? It sounds nice, but is very rarely (especially in such a large, diverse shop) viable.
Well, Microsoft released WAC (Windows Admin Center, ex- "Project Honolulu") to fill lack of management gap, but... I'm very pessimistic about WAC so far: too many compatibility issues and no single scenario is covered from Day Zero till the very end. Bottom line: You'll have to learn PowerShell and Windows Server management cmdlets.
We are starting to roll out WAC and it's nice, but it's definitely not "there yet". Good start, but not enough at this time.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@kooler said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
Oh and I've already got Veeam backup and replication (a 30 vm license) which gives me good agentless backup options for Hyper-V. 5-nine manager or something like it would likely be required as well.
5-Nine would be "extra" stuff only needed because Hyper-V doesn't have the native options that it provides. Another reason for KVM.
Veeam is great, but they have agent based for your scenario. We have another thread right now talking about this, but why do you see agentless as even something you want, let alone a driving factor in decision making? It sounds nice, but is very rarely (especially in such a large, diverse shop) viable.
Well, Microsoft released WAC (Windows Admin Center, ex- "Project Honolulu") to fill lack of management gap, but... I'm very pessimistic about WAC so far: too many compatibility issues and no single scenario is covered from Day Zero till the very end. Bottom line: You'll have to learn PowerShell and Windows Server management cmdlets.
We are starting to roll out WAC and it's nice, but it's definitely not "there yet". Good start, but not enough at this time.
It's been out a while now and is working great in my experience.
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@obsolesce said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@kooler said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
Oh and I've already got Veeam backup and replication (a 30 vm license) which gives me good agentless backup options for Hyper-V. 5-nine manager or something like it would likely be required as well.
5-Nine would be "extra" stuff only needed because Hyper-V doesn't have the native options that it provides. Another reason for KVM.
Veeam is great, but they have agent based for your scenario. We have another thread right now talking about this, but why do you see agentless as even something you want, let alone a driving factor in decision making? It sounds nice, but is very rarely (especially in such a large, diverse shop) viable.
Well, Microsoft released WAC (Windows Admin Center, ex- "Project Honolulu") to fill lack of management gap, but... I'm very pessimistic about WAC so far: too many compatibility issues and no single scenario is covered from Day Zero till the very end. Bottom line: You'll have to learn PowerShell and Windows Server management cmdlets.
We are starting to roll out WAC and it's nice, but it's definitely not "there yet". Good start, but not enough at this time.
It's been out a while now and is working great in my experience.
Works great, yes. I like it a lot. But its' early and doesn't do as many things as we hope it will do in the future. Not ready to replace everything with it yet, is more of the issue. Which is what we want, one interface to rule them all. And web based (which it is.)
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@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
@obsolesce said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
May be better to to go with SW's Appliance then, if the cost comparison makes sense.
It makes the choice between a) getting the appliance and b) getting the hardware myself and buying the Starwind VSAN stuff myself, very easy. The appliance is much better value.
But buying the hardware (2 nodes) myself and just putting a free Hypervisor on there (Hyper-V or KVM) with replication would save a decent whack of money..
By default, HyperConverged Appliance comes with 180 days evaluation Windows server license, thus you can start from it now and then complete Windows licensing later. Alternatively, you can switch to Linux-based StarWind VSA when it will be ready.
So, you will save money, you still will have a ProActive support provided by StarWind professionals and at the same time will run true HA infrastructure! -
@sanwin That sounds interesting! Would Starwind support do the conversion of the HCA from Hyper V to Linux based (and all the VMs obviously) for me? Is it likely that the Linux based VSA will be available within the 180 days?
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@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
do the conversion of the HCA from Hyper V to Linux based (and all the VMs obviously) for me?
I am sure that will not be an issue for them. It can be reconfigured node-by-node with minimum production downtime.
@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
Is it likely that the Linux based VSA will be available within the 180 days?
It's going to be released even faster, thus it makes sense to move like that.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
why do you see agentless as even something you want
At scale you get...
- Block based backups. wayyyy faster than hair-pinning out a VM's networking stack. In some cases avoiding the LAN entirely for backup.
- CBT Backup API's. Zero need to do any IO in guest to identify what has changed and what needs to be backed up. File based index's aren't good enough here especially with large files that have minor changes (have to shard and hash compare the entire damn file). If you've ever seen Avamar or Comvault's in guest agents do differential based backups (and the mountain of IO and CPU they generate locally) it's nuts.
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Actually am I talking rubbish there? The hypervisor will still be Hyper-V so the VM's theselves won't require any conversion?
Just the VSAN software itself will be running in a Linux VM rather than a Windows one. -
@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
Actually am I talking rubbish there? The hypervisor will still be Hyper-V so the VM's theselves won't require any conversion?
Just the VSAN software itself will be running in a Linux VM rather than a Windows one.Correct
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@doyler3000 said in Hyper-V replication, Starwind, or something else?:
? The hypervisor will still be Hyper-V so the VM's theselves won't require any conversion?
Yes, you are correct. There will be no need for VMs conversion, StarWind devices should just be replicated to VSA. This can be done with the help of StarWind support guys.
By the way, I this conversion is required only for the HyperConverged scenario on VMware, where StarWind VSAN service is located inside VM.
With HyperConverged scenario on Hyper-V, StarWind VSAN will be installed inside Windows OS which is running Hyper-V role, thus you don't need VSA at all.
