How would you build this
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@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
You can use Veeam to back up any RHEL VM if you want. It's agent, not agentless, but for the context of this single system that is identical.
Adding a third party service that is not certified by the vendor into the VM is not currently allowed.
Did not think to state that earlier, thanks.Oh okay, that sucks. They don't provide a backup mechanism then? Or do they, just not one that you want?
There is a backup mechanism for the data. But more options are always better. VM restoration is always faster than rebuild restore in a non-stateful system.
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@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
Do they only support RHEL when branded as RHEL or do they support CentOS, too? That's an additional large cost savings.
They only support RHEL. And it is only $349 for RHEL and $450 per year to maintain RHEL support for the KVM box. It is a cost, but not very significant.
The VM instance is RHEL, but not something to be touched without breaking the designed suport system.
So the KVM bit, though, you could do without RH and only get a license for the VM itself. Since you'd, I assume, not get support for Hyper-V in the same way, you don't need it for KVM.
Correct for hte hypervisor.
For the VM, it has full RHEL support as part of the purchase from the vendor. That is never a question. -
I like how well Hyper-V supports and runs RHEL.
It sounds like the hardware will just be running one VM. Built-in back up on Hyper-V Server 2016 all the way via the host, no issues there if you can use block-level storage for your backups. It's so much easier and faster to backup and restore the VM as a whole anyways... no VM agent needed. Also, you get the option of "production" checkpoints (snapshots) on 2016. That's definitely noteworthy.
Getting the hardware through xByte with a Dell warranty has you more than covered hardware wise.
The hypervisor Hyper-V Server 2016 is just so solid on Dell hardware you don't even have to worry about that aspect.
The only finger pointing you'll need with this setup is the Vendor's software and the OS itself... which they cover.
That's the build I would choose. Lots of good reasons that point to great uptime and stability, plus easy backups and restores at the host level, with snapshot capability that is actually worth a damn.
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@Tim_G said in How would you build this:
It sounds like the hardware will just be running one VM. Built-in back up on Hyper-V Server 2016 all the way via the host, no issues there if you can use block-level storage for your backups. It's so much easier and faster to backup and restore the VM as a whole anyways... no VM agent needed. Also, you get the option of "production" checkpoints (snapshots) on 2016. That's definitely noteworthy.
What specific features are you talking about here? I have Hyper-V 2016 server up in a lab environment but have yet to actually test anything.
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@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
Do they only support RHEL when branded as RHEL or do they support CentOS, too? That's an additional large cost savings.
They only support RHEL. And it is only $349 for RHEL and $450 per year to maintain RHEL support for the KVM box. It is a cost, but not very significant.
The VM instance is RHEL, but not something to be touched without breaking the designed suport system.
So the KVM bit, though, you could do without RH and only get a license for the VM itself. Since you'd, I assume, not get support for Hyper-V in the same way, you don't need it for KVM.
Correct for hte hypervisor.
For the VM, it has full RHEL support as part of the purchase from the vendor. That is never a question.Makes sense. Not ideal, but not a big deal, either. Or maybe ideal for you individually if you wanted that support. Just not ideal not to have the flexibility to choose for yourself.
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@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
Do they only support RHEL when branded as RHEL or do they support CentOS, too? That's an additional large cost savings.
They only support RHEL. And it is only $349 for RHEL and $450 per year to maintain RHEL support for the KVM box. It is a cost, but not very significant.
The VM instance is RHEL, but not something to be touched without breaking the designed suport system.
So the KVM bit, though, you could do without RH and only get a license for the VM itself. Since you'd, I assume, not get support for Hyper-V in the same way, you don't need it for KVM.
Correct for hte hypervisor.
For the VM, it has full RHEL support as part of the purchase from the vendor. That is never a question.Makes sense. Not ideal, but not a big deal, either. Or maybe ideal for you individually if you wanted that support. Just not ideal not to have the flexibility to choose for yourself.
Yes, and I have a personal preference for this situation, but I am keeping my questions and responses neutral. Because I want feedback and not an echo chamber for my ideas.
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You are much more familiar with Hyper-v, if you are supporting this you might be better off.
Plus the other benefits of choice you mentioned.
Is this a super high performance application where it seems likely that then vendor will blame the hypervisor if there are problems?
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Personally I'd run it on my own KVM machine. That way I could add the upstream QEMU repos for exporting snapshots through libvirt. But then again I manage 12 KVM hosts so I'm probably a little partial.
I'm not surprised at only supporting RHEL. After it took over a month for CentOS to catch up to 7.3 I realized the merger didn't help any with releasing patches faster. I still use CentOS by default but I can understand where they are coming from, we have applications that are the same way.
Anyway I vote for using your own host and what you know best.
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@stacksofplates said in How would you build this:
Anyway I vote for using your own host and what you know best.
That would be my recommendation as well.
Just the fact that they're giving me supported options is a great thing, that already rules out many software products.
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An obvious question is... does the customer have any needs beyond this that might influence it?
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If we're talking a $10k solution, I would likely pick option one to simply avoid the finger pointing game and all of that.
If this were a $100k solution, I'd opt to take the 20% savings.
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@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@Tim_G said in How would you build this:
It sounds like the hardware will just be running one VM. Built-in back up on Hyper-V Server 2016 all the way via the host, no issues there if you can use block-level storage for your backups. It's so much easier and faster to backup and restore the VM as a whole anyways... no VM agent needed. Also, you get the option of "production" checkpoints (snapshots) on 2016. That's definitely noteworthy.
What specific features are you talking about here? I have Hyper-V 2016 server up in a lab environment but have yet to actually test anything.
I mentioned two in there. Windows Server Backup, and "Production Checkpoints".
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Ok if it is a Vm what kind of finger pointing could be there? I think about performance and special setups. Virtualization is expected to abstract hw. If the vm image format is convertible I don't see why hypervisor/hw should matter.
As first I could thick about performances, then guest agents not being available in vendor image, third strange network configs hard to be attained without kvm.
For sure centos+your hw (can you buy the same machine?) should be near 100% ok!
Other combinations should be checked for previous 3 points and if they are ok don't see any issue -
@scottalanmiller said in How would you build this:
An obvious question is... does the customer have any needs beyond this that might influence it?
Wait is it to be run for your business or for a customers of yours? If it was for internal usage my previous post still hold. Otherwise I think that keeping the default witha 3rd party is better. Can they understand where a real issue is in case of finger pointing?
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Beyond the aforementioned finger pointing, what prevents you from running the VM on your current virtual infrastructure w/o purchasing an additional server?
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@Danp said in How would you build this:
Beyond the aforementioned finger pointing, what prevents you from running the VM on your current virtual infrastructure w/o purchasing an additional server?
just the hypervisor I think
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@Danp said in How would you build this:
Beyond the aforementioned finger pointing, what prevents you from running the VM on your current virtual infrastructure w/o purchasing an additional server?
Current infrastructure or not is a separate discussion point, and not one I need to have here. I know what is where with current infrastructure and how much that will weigh into a decision.
This discussion is strictly regarding the information provided in the OP and follow up clarification posts.
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@Tim_G said in How would you build this:
@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@Tim_G said in How would you build this:
It sounds like the hardware will just be running one VM. Built-in back up on Hyper-V Server 2016 all the way via the host, no issues there if you can use block-level storage for your backups. It's so much easier and faster to backup and restore the VM as a whole anyways... no VM agent needed. Also, you get the option of "production" checkpoints (snapshots) on 2016. That's definitely noteworthy.
What specific features are you talking about here? I have Hyper-V 2016 server up in a lab environment but have yet to actually test anything.
I mentioned two in there. Windows Server Backup, and "Production Checkpoints".
I was not sure if those were that actual names of the features. I will have to check into them.
Obviously Windows Server Backup used to be a specific thing in full installs of Windows Server. Likewise, Checkpoints are a standard thing, but I have not heard about Production checkpoints.
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@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@Tim_G said in How would you build this:
@JaredBusch said in How would you build this:
@Tim_G said in How would you build this:
It sounds like the hardware will just be running one VM. Built-in back up on Hyper-V Server 2016 all the way via the host, no issues there if you can use block-level storage for your backups. It's so much easier and faster to backup and restore the VM as a whole anyways... no VM agent needed. Also, you get the option of "production" checkpoints (snapshots) on 2016. That's definitely noteworthy.
What specific features are you talking about here? I have Hyper-V 2016 server up in a lab environment but have yet to actually test anything.
I mentioned two in there. Windows Server Backup, and "Production Checkpoints".
I was not sure if those were that actual names of the features. I will have to check into them.
Obviously Windows Server Backup used to be a specific thing in full installs of Windows Server. Likewise, Checkpoints are a standard thing, but I have not heard about Production checkpoints.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/user-guide/checkpoints
Windows 10 and Server 2016 Hyper-V
Standard Checkpoints -- takes a snapshot of the virtual machine and virtual machine memory state at the time the checkpoint is initiated. A snapshot is not a full backup and can cause data consistency issues with systems that replicate data between different nodes such as Active Directory.Production Checkpoints -- uses Volume Shadow Copy Service or File System Freeze on a Linux virtual machine to create a data-consistent backup of the virtual machine. No snapshot of the virtual machine memory state is taken.
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