HA/DR debate | VM FCI's with SMB 3.0?

  • Environment

    •SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition

    •VMWare 5.5

    •Dell Compellent

    •Single subnet for Prod

    •Single subnet for Test

    •All DR is facilitated via Veeam

    •Application/Vendor does not support DBM/AG

    The environment really wants to keep with a unified DR approach leveraging Veeam. The environment is unique in that there is not much database support. The goal at this point is provide the best HA/DR with the least amount of administrative overhead.

    So, the options that I am debating:

    1) FCI with shared storage

    - Has to be RDM's

    - VMWare can't snapshot with shared storage; thus Veeam can't manage and would need a new DR option

    2) FCI with non-shared storage

    - New point of failure with Windows guest O/S hosting the shares

    3) Database mirroring with CNAME aliasing

    - Managing metadata/configurations

    - Managing fail-overs

    - Manual DNS manipulations on failover

    4) vSphere Fault Tolerance

    - Limited to 1vcpu in 5.5 (4vcpu in 6.0)

    None are ideal, all have pro's and con's.

    In regards to #2, does anyone have any insight on better ways to possibly setup the SMB shares that ... I don't know, don't rely on Windows and/or can be made more highly available? I like this option; however hosting SMB shares off a single box in itself feels counter-intuitive.

    Any other worthwhile ideas come to mind?

    Thanks

  • Hey all, anyone have any opinions on this matter?

    In a bit of a struggle determining my next steps with this environment.

  • What are the agreed SLAs with the business? With that information you can start to build a system to support their expectations and requirements.

  • just let VMware take care of the HA, easiest option, no clustering at the guest level

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    "Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉

  • Perry Whittle (12/2/2015)


    just let VMware take care of the HA, easiest option, no clustering at the guest level

    Yeah, but still single O/S. Patching/downtime still stinks.

    Supposedly there may be an option to do SMB directly to the SAN? Trying to get DELL on the phone to talk about this.

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