Free alternative to VMware Vsan

[ro345]

Hi Folks,

I have 15 servers that I am repurposing for lab use. They are old, but decent. All servers have 48TB of raw storage space each, with LSI raid adapters. I will be running ESXI 6.5 or 6.7. I would like to converge the storage to a shared pool. Vmware Vsan would be perfect for what I am doing, but I don't have the money to spend on the licenses for a lab install. I'm looking to pool the storage from all 15 servers and still use all 15 servers as hypervisors. It looks like the cap on the free Starwind VSAN is at 3 servers, I would like to use all 15 servers. Is there maybe a way to do this with Ceph? Ideas? Thanks!

 

[zer0sum]

Proxmox + Ceph

Forget ESXi, or just run it nested inside Proxmox if you really need to

 

[oneplane]

Harvester HCI or Ceph (with Proxmox) or otherwise even Gluster will do.

 

[ro345]

Proxmox isnt an option. ESXI is what we use.

 

[oneplane]

Proxmox isnt an option. ESXI is what we use.

but if the requirements are that strict and you’re already paying for ESXi, what is stopping you from either asking for budget to cover a vmware-like SAN if that is what’s to be used?

 

[mrpasc]

Maybe it's worth to consider a VMUG advanced membership for 200$ a year? You get 365 days trial lics for almost all products.

 

[ro345]

but if the requirements are that strict and you’re already paying for ESXi, what is stopping you from either asking for budget to cover a vmware-like SAN if that is what’s to be used?

Well, ESXI is already paid for and budgeted for through the main IT budget, and Vsan is not and IT will not cover it. Thats just how it goes and its beyond my control, which is why I am asking for free alternatives.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

Deploy ceph to your VMware cluster using ansible. use ceph iscsi connector to present it back to VMware.

How to Deploy a Ceph Storage to Bare Virtual Machines - RisingStack Engineering

The main drawback of a Ceph storage is that you have to host and manage it yourself. We'll show two different approaches of deploying Ceph.

blog.risingstack.com

Ceph Octopus : Configure ISCSI Initiator For Vmware Esxi 7 With Cephadm

Traditionally, block-level access to a Ceph storage cluster has been limited to QEMU and librbd, which is a key enabler for adoption…

mandem.medium.com

iSCSI Initiator for VMware ESX — Ceph Documentation

docs.ceph.com

b) vmug subscription is cheap - $200 and there are group buy options to make it even cheaper:

2022 VMUG Advantage Community Group Buy

It is that time of the year again, the event that you all have been waiting for ... the annual VMUG Advantage Community Group Buy! :D For those not familiar with the VMUG Advantage membership, it p…

williamlam.com

c) option b - find vsan license key on the internet. it's there is if you look hard enough