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Creating a LUN on Netapp for use with VMWare
I am trying to creating a LUN on my netapp to use with VMWare ESXi 5.1. I have read through the best practices manual created by netapp but I wanted to run this by someone before I implement. The best practices states if I enabled dedupe on thin-provisioned LUNs that I should deploy the LUN in a flexvol that is provisioned with a capacity 2x the size of the LUN.
My aggregate is 13.1TB
I create a 26TB Volume using SAN storage type as I am using iSCSI. With 0% snapshot reserve, thin provisioned and storage efficiency enabled. Can I verify that this is what I need to do to create a flexvol?
I then create a LUN as a VMWARE type and make it 13.1TB, Thin Provisioned.
Am I on the right path?
My aggregate is 13.1TB
I create a 26TB Volume using SAN storage type as I am using iSCSI. With 0% snapshot reserve, thin provisioned and storage efficiency enabled. Can I verify that this is what I need to do to create a flexvol?
I then create a LUN as a VMWARE type and make it 13.1TB, Thin Provisioned.
Am I on the right path?
Paul Solovyovsky
Do not create a VMWare LUN that large, with ESXi 5.1 you can't have VMDKs larger than 2TB and for practical reasons you should have multiple datastores unless you have really large VMs. Your aggregate should have at least 10% available other you have performance issues. Your SMVI/Netapp snapshots are volumes based so if you only have 1 LUN you're stuck doing a snapshot of VMs that aren't part of the backup. You should also look at NFS Datastore option if you have the NFS license as well
ASKER
So for the Volume, I want to create a NAS storage type? Is it okay to create one Volume? For Flexvol, do I set it to 26TB even though I only have 13TB?
Why dont you start with NFS? It is resizeable up and down...
Keep things segmented, typically datastores (both block and file) are max of 2TB unless there is a huge file server. This keeps the snapshots managable. We typically have general datastores with many like VM (utility servers) and have separate datastores for larger VMs (over 200GB).
With block you also have to deal with scsi locking so you don't want to make them huge unless needed. Do not overprovision your datastores, this can get you in trouble. Thin provisioning LUNs on the Netapp can get you trouble if you delete VM/files/logs, etc.. you will need to run space reclamation (normally the case with sql and exchange log volumes). Have you accomodated for your snapshot retention and your snap reserve? Lots of items to think about before jumping the gun.
With block you also have to deal with scsi locking so you don't want to make them huge unless needed. Do not overprovision your datastores, this can get you in trouble. Thin provisioning LUNs on the Netapp can get you trouble if you delete VM/files/logs, etc.. you will need to run space reclamation (normally the case with sql and exchange log volumes). Have you accomodated for your snapshot retention and your snap reserve? Lots of items to think about before jumping the gun.
ASKER
Thank you so much for your responses. Here is where I am confused. You say not to over provision, but Netapp says FlexVol volumes that are also thin provisioned with a capacity that is 2x the size of the LUN. When the LUN is deployed in this manner, the FlexVol volume acts merely as a quota. The storage consumed by the LUN is reported in FlexVol and its containing aggregate. So I'm not overprovisioning the LUN, I'm overprovisioning the Volume. Is that still going to cause me an issue?
I was planning on setting the snapshot reserve at 10%, is that reasonable?
I will have only one VM running SQL, would you recommend, is it okay to make that part of the same volume as my other VM's but make a separate LUN for it?
I also have another storage shelf for the netapp that I've yet to add in that will be just for file storage. With what you said Paulsolov, is it okay to leave the full 13.1TB on that as one LUN or should I still segment that down?
I was planning on setting the snapshot reserve at 10%, is that reasonable?
I will have only one VM running SQL, would you recommend, is it okay to make that part of the same volume as my other VM's but make a separate LUN for it?
I also have another storage shelf for the netapp that I've yet to add in that will be just for file storage. With what you said Paulsolov, is it okay to leave the full 13.1TB on that as one LUN or should I still segment that down?
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