[ovirt-users] Which hardware are you using for oVirt

[Andy Michielsen]

Hello Chritopher,

Thank you very much for sharing.

It started out just for fun but now people at work are looking at me to have an environment to do testing, simulate problems they have encountered, etc.

And more an more off them see the benifits off this. At work we are running vmware but that was far to expencieve to use it for these test. But as I suspected that was in the beginning and I knew I had to be able to expand so whenever an old server was decommisioned from production I converted it to an node. I now have 4 in use and demands keep growing.

So now I want to ask my boss to invest in new hardware as now people are asking me why I do not have proper backups and even why the can not use the vm’s when I perform administrative tasks or upgrades.

So that’s why I’m very inerested in what others are using.

Kind regards.

> On 26 Mar 2018, at 18:03, Christopher Cox <ccox at endlessnow.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 03/24/2018 03:33 AM, Andy Michielsen wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> Not sure if this is the place to be asking this but I was wondering which hardware you all are using and why in order for me to see what I would be needing.
>> I would like to set up a HA cluster consisting off 3 hosts to be able to run 30 vm’s.
>> The engine, I can run on an other server. The hosts can be fitted with the storage and share the space through glusterfs. I would think I will be needing at least 3 nic’s but would be able to install ovn. (Are 1gb nic’s sufficient ?)
> 
> Just because you asked, but not because this is helpful to you....
> 
> But first, a comment on "3 hosts to be able to run 30 VMs".  The SPM node shouldn't run a lot of VMs.  There are settings (the setting slips my mind) on the engine to give it a "virtual set" of VMs in order to keep VMs off of it.
> 
> With that said, CPU wise, it doesn't require a lot to run 30 VM's.  The costly thing is memory (in general).  So while a cheap set of 3 machines might handle the CPU requirements of 30 VM's, those cheap machines might not be able to give you the memory you need (depends).  You might be fine.  I mean, there are cheap desktop like machines that do 64G (and sometimes more).  Just something to keep in mind.  Memory and storage will be the most costly items.  It's simple math.  Linux hosts, of course, don't necessarily need much memory (or storage).  But Windows...
> 
> 1Gbit NIC's are "ok", but again, depends on storage.  Glusterfs is no speed demon.  But you might not need "fast" storage.
> 
> Lastly, your setup is just for "fun", right?  Otherwise, read on.
> 
> 
> Running oVirt 3.6 (this is a production setup)
> 
> ovirt engine (manager):
> Dell PowerEdge 430, 32G
> 
> ovirt cluster nodes:
> Dell m1000e 1.1 backplane Blade Enclosure
> 9 x M630 Blades (2xE5-2669v3, 384GB), 4 iSCSI paths, 4 bonded LAN, all 10GbE, CentOS 7.2
> 4 x MXL 10/40GbE (2x40Gbit LAN, 2x40Gbit iSCSI SAN to the S4810's)
> 
> 120 VM's, CentOS 6, CentOS 7, Windows 10 Ent., Windows Server 2012
> We've run on as few as 3 nodes.
> 
> Network, SAN and Storage (for ovirt Domains):
> 2 x S4810 (part is used for SAN, part for LAN)
> Equallogic dual controller (note: passive/active) PS6610S (84 x 4TB 7.2K SAS)
> Equallogic dual controller (note: passive/active) PS6610X (84 x 1TB 10K SAS
> 
> ISO and Export Domains are handled by:
> Dell PE R620, 32G, 2x10Gbit LAN, 2x10Gbit iSCSI to the SAN (above), CentOS 7.4, NFS
> 
> What I like:
> * Easy setup.
> * Relatively good network and storage.
> 
> What I don't like:
> * 2 "effective" networks, LAN and iSCSI.  All networking uses the same effective path.  Would be nice to have more physical isolation for mgmt vs motion vs VMs.  QoS is provided in oVirt, but still, would be nice to have the full pathways.
> * Storage doesn't use active/active controllers, so controller failover is VERY slow.
> * We have a fast storage system, and somewhat slower storage system (matter of IOPS),  neither is SSD, so there isn't a huge difference.  No real redundancy or flexibility.
> * vdsm can no longer respond fast enough for the amount of disks defined (in the event of a new Storage Domain add).  We have raised vdsTimeout, but have not tested yet.
> 
> I inherited the "style" above.  My recommendation of where to start for a reasonable production instance, minimum (assumes the S4810's above, not priced here):
> 
> 1 x ovirt manager/engine, approx $1500
> 4 x Dell R620, 2xE5-2660, 768G, 6x10GbE (LAN, Storage, Motion), approx $42K
> 3 x Nexsan 18P 108TB, approx $96K
> 
> While significantly cheaper (by 6 figures), it provides active/active controllers, storage reliability and flexibility and better network pathways.  Why 4 x nodes?  Need at least N+1 for reliability.  The extra 4th node is merely capacity.  Why 3 x storage?  Need at least N+1 for reliability.
> 
> Obviously, you'll still want to back things up and test the ability to restore components like the ovirt engine from scratch.
> 
> Btw, my recommended minimum above is regardless of hypervisor cluster choice (could be VMware).
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