This article is intended for administrators wishing to install StorMagic Hyperconverged Infrastructure (SvHCI) nested inside a VMware environment for evaluation, testing, and lab purposes.
Deploying SvHCI Nested in VMware
This guide walks through creating the virtual machines required for a nested SvHCI environment before continuing with the standard SvHCI installation process.
Lab Scenario
The configuration below is an example environment used internally by StorMagic for testing and development.
Create the Virtual Machines
Begin by creating a new virtual machine in VMware.
Provide the virtual machine with an appropriate name.
Typically, two SvHCI virtual machines are created to build a two-node cluster along with a separate Witness appliance to emulate a centralized shared witness.
Select the VMware host on which the virtual machine will reside.
Select the datastore where the virtual machine will be stored.
Choose the required VMware compatibility version.
Configure the guest operating system as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
Disable Secure Boot before continuing.
Configure CPU, Memory and Storage
The example below uses a minimal CPU allocation. Increase the CPU allocation if you intend to run guest virtual machines inside SvHCI and reserve the CPU resources where possible to reduce the risk of underlying resource contention.
Likewise, the example uses a minimal memory allocation. Increase the memory assigned to the virtual machine if additional workloads will be hosted, and reserve the memory whenever possible.
Create a small operating system disk. This example uses two thin provisioned disks of approximately 32 GB each to demonstrate the software RAID functionality available within SvHCI.
Add an additional disk that will be used as the storage pool.
The example configuration emulates systems similar to the following:
SvHCI can consume HBA-managed disks and supports software RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, or hardware RAID configurations.
Configure Networking and Attach the ISO
Add the required network adapters to the virtual machine and attach the SvHCI installation ISO.
For additional VMware networking guidance, refer to:
Configure Disk UUID Presentation
Configure the virtual machine disks so they are presented as SCSI disks by adding the following VMware advanced setting:
disk.EnableUUID = TRUEClone the SvHCI Node
The SvHCI virtual machine can now be cloned to create the second node required for a two-node SvHCI cluster.
Deploy the Witness Appliance
Deploy a separate StorMagic Witness appliance for use by the nested SvHCI cluster.
Install and Configure SvHCI
Install the SvHCI operating system using the standard installation process:
License the appliance using the first boot wizard:
Configure the SvHCI networking:
Create the SvHCI Cluster
After networking has been configured, create the SvHCI cluster by following the Cluster Creation guide.
Provision Virtual Machines and Perform Validation
Once the cluster has been created, provision virtual machines using the standard SvHCI workflow.
After provisioning virtual machines, perform failover testing to verify the cluster is operating correctly.
Continue the Installation
The nested VMware environment is now prepared. Continue the remaining installation and configuration tasks using the standard SvHCI Installation guide.
See Also
SvHCI • VMware • Nested Deployment
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