When we deploy Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), either hyperconverged or disaggregated, we have to configure the networking part. Usually we work with Dell hardware to deploy Storage Spaces Direct and the one of the switches supported by the Dell reference architectures is the Dell S4048 (Force 10). In this topic, we will see how to configure this switch from scratch. ...
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Few months ago, I have written a topic about the next gen Microsoft management tool called Honolulu project. Honolulu provides management for standalone Windows Server, failover clustering and hyperconverged. Currently hyperconverged management works only on Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) versions (I cross finger for Honolulu support on Windows Server LTSC). I have upgraded my lab to latest technical preview ...
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This week I deployed a Nutanix cluster based on VMware ESXi 6.5u1. I wanted to share with you how to re-image the Nutanix nodes to VMware ESXi. Usually Nutanix blocks are shipped with nodes imaged on AHV. So, you have to re-image the Nutanix nodes to the wanted hypervisor (Hyper-V, ESXi or KVM). In this topic we’ll see how to ...
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Earlier in the week, I published a blog post about Honolulu project and how in the future, this tool can ease Windows Server management. Today I introduce another management tool for Storage Spaces Direct (hyperconverged or disaggregated). This tool is called StarWind Manager and it is developed by … StarWind. StarWind Manager is currently in preview version and for the ...
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Since the beginning of the year, Microsoft is working on a new management tool based on modern web languages such as HTML5, Angular and so on. This tool is called Honolulu. Honolulu is a user-friendly web interface that enables to manage Windows Server, Failover Clustering and Hyperconverged cluster. Currently, to manage hyperconverged cluster, Honolulu requires Semi-Annual Windows Server release. Honolulu ...
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When a customer calls me to design or validate the hardware configuration for hyperconverged infrastructure with Storage Spaces Direct, there is often a misunderstanding about the remaining useable capacity, the required cache capacity and ratio, and the different mode of resilience. With this topic, I’ll try to help you to plan the storage for hyperconverged and to clarify some points. ...
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When building a hyperconverged solution, the CPU is the most important part. This component defines the number of vCPU supported by your infrastructure and so, defined the number of servers to deploy. Today we can install hundreds of RAM in GB, and dozens of storage in TB. Compared to these components the number of CPU is small. So, a bigger ...
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As Microsoft, VMware has a Software-Defined Storage solution called vSAN which is currently in version 6.2. This solution enables to aggregate local device storages as mechanical disks or SSD and create a highly available datastore. There are two deployment models: hybrid solution and full-flash solution. In hybrid solution, you must have flash cache devices and mechanical cache devices (SAS or ...
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