DSS V6 / XenServer 5.6 / ~20 VMs advice please

[ceesco53]

All!

We now have the DSS V6 certified w/ XEN!!

http://hcl.xensource.com/ProductDeta...ge+Software+V6

http://www.citrix.com/ready/partners/open-e

Awesome! Now that XenServer is Certified with DSS V6, how about some advice while I'm using DSS lite?

I just installed DSS V6 using block mode IO iSCSI on this system:

3ware 9690SA-8I-SGL RAID card 512MB DDR3 onboard
SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DTE-F-O
2 x Kingston SSDNow S100 SS100S2/8G 2.5" 8GB SATA II (RAID 1 - system)
4 x Western Digital RE4 WD5003ABYX 500GB 7200 RPM SATA (RAID 10 - storage)
1 x Intel Xeon E5506 Nehalem-EP 2.13GHz
1 x Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ECC Registered
Onboard NIC (for management)
4 x Intel 82571EB Gigabit Controllers (802.3ad bonded - for iSCSI)

These VMs are spread out amongst 3 Servers with 2 Gigabits of bonded 802.3ad traffic available to each. Very bursty traffic (web servers, DNS, RADIUS, network monitor, and similar). Moderate amount of traffic at best. I would say the total average is only 150 MB/sec during peak for a few minutes. I would like to optimize everything for as low latency as possible.

How's this build above look for hosting the storage for all these machines? Any thing I need to worry about? Should I pop in more memory to help with read/write performance?

Just a note, I am VERY excited to try out the MIRROR feature in the full version, but I want to get a grasp on the basics first in the LITE version! I've spent a lot of time with other iSCSI / NAS / SAN configs using both windows and Linux based builds from scratch and from other storage specific distros. This looks like a better alternative for us than the others.

[ceesco53]

If I could edit my original post (better nettiquete?), I would change that I am going to use MPIO instead of 802.3ad since XenServer supports it, although it is not the easiest thing in the world to configure, I'd like the additional throughput (400MBits/sec theoretical max vs. 100MBits/sec).


I don't want to discuss MPIO vs. 802.3ad, just if I should change anything / add anything hardware side before I begin to think about deploying this server to a production SAN.

[To-M]

MPIO smart move , make sure the have 3Ware Write Cache enabled but Lite version does not have RAID controller functions so if possible this should be on the DSS V6 posting so that others are not confused.

[ceesco53]

Todd,

Could you move this article to the appropriate location and modify my original subject to " DSS V6 / XenServer 5.6 / ~20 VMs advice please" ? Thanks. I'll definitely be adding relevant information as I get further into my configuration. I think more data on iSCSI / MPIO / Xenserver would be good for the community. I'll post my results - but yeah - move the thread. I've got a blog, I could post a best practices article there too as I delve further into the fire.

[Gr-R]

--moved.
--renamed.