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    VMWare 7 to 8 upgrade with hardware refresh - options and process

    I have an essentials plus VMWare cluster of HP pizza boxes with a Synology appliance for iSCSI cluster storage. I have been tasked with replacing the E5-v4 HP boxes with newer high spec Dell server we are pulling out of our EPC core. My issue is my employer is broke and cannot afford to replace...
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    Getting Started with VMWare, Replication, Veeam, etc

    What SAN/Storage solution are you planning to use?
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    Getting Started with VMWare, Replication, Veeam, etc

    Look at VMWare Essentials Plus, ~$5k for 3 hosts/6 sockets, VCenter, VMotion, H/A, cross site switch, etc, it is a good choice if you do not expect the need to add nodes (its six sockets or nothing). I use it at lot of macro sites, nice feature set and good bang for the buck compared to standard...
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    Back end storage for ESXi Datastores and RDMs?

    One more thing to keep in mind if you are using higher end used gear, it will be difficult to impossible to get firmware, software etc. updates, thats the main reason i wouldn't use them in production, if you are starting a business on this platform you need to think about liability as well...
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    Back end storage for ESXi Datastores and RDMs?

    I would be very wary of using snapshots for backups and strongly recommend you find an alternative approach, that is the opposite of best practices. When you take a snapshot, the hypervisor has to maintain the state and changes in both the running store and snap (i.e your performance will...
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    Back end storage for ESXi Datastores and RDMs?

    Do you know, or have you estimated the IOP's required for your workload? I would start there, I have a lot of web servers on blades and the requirements are pretty low for mine but each app is different. What are your growth requirements over the next year, 3 years etc., in other words what are...
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    ESXi Boot Device - Rust, SSD, SATA DOM?

    Late to the party but I also boot my esxi blades from USB, just be sure to point your hypervisor system swap etc. to a SAN or other robust storage solution.
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    Homelab Monitoring Platform?

    Check the doc's on Observium, LibreNMS was forked from it after the lead had a tantrum. There are write ups etc on adding the MIBs, I havent had to add any in quite a while but its not difficult. From memory you need the MIB's from the manufacturer and need to put them in the MIB's folder.. past...
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    Homelab Monitoring Platform?

    I would suggest looking at LibreNMS, I monitor 10's of thousands of devices with it (entire ISP network), from the juniper core routers, cisco and every tik device made or very close to it to the CPE gear. Also: vmware from hypervisors to vcenter, many linux and win servers, some LTE backend...
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    Software Defined Storage

    Just as far as OSS SDS software solutions, I would go with ceph if you have IOP performance needs or gluster for media, file sharing, SMB etc. That said you will need a minimum 2 - 10 gbps network ports per server and really should use a switch with enough ports at minimum. To get performance...
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    3.5 inch HDD storage blade for HP c7000 enclosure

    No, the hypervisor still technically stores confg to the flash but temp/swap etc is mapped to SAN storage on boot. PXE would be a better solution for you (I think). I use puppet, ansible, templates etc for host and VM management. To me it doesn't matter if there is a problem with the thumb...
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    3.5 inch HDD storage blade for HP c7000 enclosure

    You wont want to put an actual OS on a USB drive, it will die rather quickly if you run windows or linux from it. I just use them to boot and load the hyper-visor, once the blade is booted it uses the SAN for all storage etc. To answer your specific question, you need to access the blade ilo...
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    3.5 inch HDD storage blade for HP c7000 enclosure

    You can access anything in the chassis through the active OA management port, once you log into the chassis admin UI you can open the ILO for the blades. You should have assigned the blade, inter connect modules,etc. IP's in the chassis setup. If you are using the flex-10 interconnect modules...
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    3.5 inch HDD storage blade for HP c7000 enclosure

    You could just use one of the adjacent blades to install FreeNAS or similar and offer a full range of connectivity options (iSCSI, NFS, SMB etc. ) and other infrastructure or virt related services (even purchase an old blade for $1-200 to fill the role, many dirt cheap options out there). Thats...
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    3.5 inch HDD storage blade for HP c7000 enclosure

    I would not use in-chassis storage, all of my blades just have boot thumb drives locally. Which modules do you have installed in the chassis? If you already have FC or VC-Flex 10 modules I would go with a SAN solution. There are many affordable iSCSI solutions out there for storage (or build...
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    looking for input and suggestions for virt env. and SAN solution

    "(1) generic 60 bay top load dual controller SAN (I think it is a rebranded HGST unit from a niche SAN vendor) - one controller installed: E5-2660v1 64GB Ram, 2 SFP+ 10G ports and all trays installed (empty)" I finally unboxed all of the gear that was purchased in the past and never used, the...
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    looking for input and suggestions for virt env. and SAN solution

    I have a collection of hardware I want to use for a few purposes, my original plan was to create a couple different purpose specific configs but I am rethinking it. In the end I need a virtualization platform that can run 80-100 VM's (most very lite weight, 5-8 with potentially high IOPS...
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    MAX RAM for: Newisys 4U 60 Bay SAN NAS 10Gb Ethernet E5-2660

    Thanks, I'm willing to pay to max it out but I was hoping for more slots to keep costs down to hit at least 128. I've scoured every source and search engine but I cant find anything detailed for this unit
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    MAX RAM for: Newisys 4U 60 Bay SAN NAS 10Gb Ethernet E5-2660

    I just bought one of these and cannot find any detailed specs. / docs. for it, if anyone here has one do you know how many memory slots it has and max memory ( compatible modules would be appreciated as well). tia. link Coraid / Newisys 4U 60 Bay SAN NAS 10Gb Ethernet E5-2660 16GB RAM SSD 60x...