Storage and storage network setups

["Vash_X@gmx.de" <Va...@gmx.de>]

Hi,

as I am taking a closer look into cloudstack, i wanted to ask some
questions regarding storage and storage networks.

First my understanding of different setups - please correct me if my
understanding was wrong.

As far as I understand (until now ;-) ) there are several ways of
providing dedicated storage networks for the use of primary and
secondary storage.
In the "basic" setup, storage traffic and management traffic would be
transfert via the same interface (in the docs named "cloudbr0").
The next way of configuring storage / a storage network would be to
give the secondary storage it's own physical network - usully named
storage nework in the docs - which can be configured during a
zone-setup and using a own Tag. Still management traffic and primary
storage traffic would share the same interface.
The third possible setup regarding storage / storage network would be
to provide the hosts an dedicated nic for primary storage. This
physical network won't need a dedicated traffic label as the
hypervisor on the hosts would be able to connect to the
storage-targets /-shares directly via the dedicated interface and
IP-Address.
This way only on the management labeled physical network only
management would be transfered . The traffic for primary / secondary
storage would be separated (combining storage-labeled physical network
and direct attached storage network for the hosts).

Another point i would need some information are in regards of
changeing the above mentionend setups.
So that in an small-scale setup i would start with the "minimal"
approach using one interface for management and primary- / secondary
storage and when needed e.g. separate the primary storage from
management traffic?

Last but not least can anybody suggest a suitable bandwith for a
primary storage network or can provide reallife experience for example
how 50 vms are running while using an 10Gb/s network for primary
storage? (I know there are several other factors beside the actural
network bandwith. This is just to get an impression about the
performance of the system).

Thanks in advance!
Chris

RE: Storage and storage network setups

[Alex Mattioli <Al...@shapeblue.com>]

Hi Vash,

Your understanding is correct indeed and your approach sounds solid, but I'd recommend (if possible at all for you) to already start with a separate storage network, although possible, is quite a bit of work to add a separate storage network later on (and you'd need deep knowledge of ACS to be able to carry that out).

Primary storage traffic will depend more on the type of workload you run on your VMs than on the actual number of VMs. I've had ACS zones with 20VMs saturate 20Gbps and other zones with thousands of VMs use at the most 3Gbps.
I'd recommend to try and analyse what kind of traffic you are likely to have, the number of hosts and try to figure out what you need. With that said, nowadays the safe bet would be to go with 4 x 25Gbps per host, or at least 4 x 10 (again, depending on how large your hosts are).

Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Alex


Alex.Mattioli@shapeblue.com 
www.shapeblue.com
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-----Original Message-----
From: Vash_X@gmx.de <Va...@gmx.de> 
Sent: 03 March 2021 21:55
To: users@cloudstack.apache.org
Subject: Storage and storage network setups

Hi,

as I am taking a closer look into cloudstack, i wanted to ask some questions regarding storage and storage networks.

First my understanding of different setups - please correct me if my understanding was wrong.

As far as I understand (until now ;-) ) there are several ways of providing dedicated storage networks for the use of primary and secondary storage.
In the "basic" setup, storage traffic and management traffic would be transfert via the same interface (in the docs named "cloudbr0").
The next way of configuring storage / a storage network would be to give the secondary storage it's own physical network - usully named storage nework in the docs - which can be configured during a zone-setup and using a own Tag. Still management traffic and primary storage traffic would share the same interface.
The third possible setup regarding storage / storage network would be to provide the hosts an dedicated nic for primary storage. This physical network won't need a dedicated traffic label as the hypervisor on the hosts would be able to connect to the storage-targets /-shares directly via the dedicated interface and IP-Address.
This way only on the management labeled physical network only management would be transfered . The traffic for primary / secondary storage would be separated (combining storage-labeled physical network and direct attached storage network for the hosts).

Another point i would need some information are in regards of changeing the above mentionend setups.
So that in an small-scale setup i would start with the "minimal"
approach using one interface for management and primary- / secondary storage and when needed e.g. separate the primary storage from management traffic?

Last but not least can anybody suggest a suitable bandwith for a primary storage network or can provide reallife experience for example how 50 vms are running while using an 10Gb/s network for primary storage? (I know there are several other factors beside the actural network bandwith. This is just to get an impression about the performance of the system).

Thanks in advance!
Chris