What would you do with this?

[Ebatte]

I'm new to proxmox but I like it so far. Here is a list of existing hardware and vms I've got and I'm curious in what way you might configure it. Specifically, disk setup, ZFS on local storage or not, cluster or not, etc.

Hardware:
1 Mac Pro 2.8ghz quad-core xeon w/ 32GB RAM
1 Mac Pro 2.8ghz quad-core xeon w/ 16GB RAM
2x6TB disks
3x4TB disks
2x500GB SSDs
1 Freenas box (4x4TB drives as RAIDZ2)

Virtual Machines:
1 ubuntu server (Nextcloud req. 1 GB ram and 1 core)
1 ubuntu server (ActiveCollab task management software req. 1 GB ram and 1 core)
1 Windows 2012 Server Essentials (Accounting software req. 2GB ram and 2 cores min)
1 Windows 2012 Server Essentials (CAD server software req. 16GB ram and 4 cores preferred)


All things considered, a simpler setup is desired. So, I'm thinking that I would like to use local storage and backup to my freenas box.

So, would you guys split the hardware as equally as possible?
Would you use ZFS on the local storage?
Would you cluster the 2 together?
Backup scenarios...when these were regular Mac servers I would clone to a local drive, backup to another local drive, then backup off-site using crashplan. This has proven simple and reliable, and I might want to do something similar with the proxmox boxes. I don't want to overcomplicate backups as disaster recovery needs to be easy and quick to implement.

Thoughts on any or all of this would be appreciated.

 

[Q-wulf]

These are your options:

• get a 3rd "Mac/PC/Scrub Hardware" and set up a 3-Node Proxmox 4 Cluster - see: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Proxmox_VE_4.x_Cluster use FreeNas as Backup or to host VM's on.
• get a 3rd "Mac/PC/Scrub Hardware" and set up a 3-Node Proxmox 4 Cluster powered by Ceph - see: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Ceph_Server
  
• don't get a 3rd server. (and install proxmox as a VM as a Quorum provider one one of the physical servers). Use NFS on Freenas as shared storage
• don't get a 3rd server. Do not cluster em. Use NFS on Freenas as a shared storage regardless (both for VM and for Backups).
• don't get a 3rd server. Do not cluster em. use pve-zsync https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/PVE-zsync

Did I miss any options? (besides the esoteric ones) ?

Ps.: I'd probably build a second freenas out of the 16 GB Server and setup 2x ZFS Raid-1 on em. (1x 6TB 1x 4 TB and stick the 3rd 4Tb into the first Freenas Box. Then use the faster FreeNas box as Primary and just replicate the data to the second one.

 

[tschanness]

Don't get a third server. Cluster the two? Don't use HA. Have the CAD server on one, all the other VMs on the other host. Use ZFS local and Backup to the nas.

Just my 2 cents..
J.

 

[Ebatte]

Thanks guys.

Q-wulf:

a. I have actually considered running freenas on the other MacPro as our file server which would then replicate to my current freenas server. However, part of my motivation for even using proxmox is to have an infrastructure with redundancy to move VMs around with minimal downtime in the even of hardware failure, etc. (even without HA).

b. I'm not sure it would be wise to store my backups and VMs on either the same disk or the same freenas server. Correct me if I'm wrong.

c. I could use freenas (nfs) for as VM storage, but I'm concerned about speed. For the web servers this might be OK, but not for the CAD/accounting servers.

tschanness:
I wanted to stick with local storage because I'm not sure I have enough ram for zfs local storage on either of these boxes, but that might be a good thing to invest in.


I could potentially reduce system overhead by a) combining the web servers and/or converting it into one container, b) combining the CAD & accounting into a single Windows 2012 server VM (but I'm cautious and might want to keep them isolated.)


Other thoughts?

 

[Q-wulf]

Don't get a third server. Cluster the two? Don't use HA.

Wasn't aware you could still do that in proxmox 4. Do you still need to do the quorum (as in set quorum votes manually so that <all quorum votes> / <number of hosts> =odd) trick so you can still access the gui ?

 

[Ebatte]

Not sure, but according to "Proxmox high availability" (e-book), its possible to have a 2 node HA cluster using DRBD.

 

[udo]

Not sure, but according to "Proxmox high availability" (e-book), its possible to have a 2 node HA cluster using DRBD.

Hi,
this book must be older (use an quorum-disk?).
In short: you can build an two node cluster - but not HA. If one node fail, /etc/pve of the other node is read-only. You must manual correct the quorum to change that. If you have trouble, this came on top...

If you are know what you do, is a two node cluster fine - but with three nodes it's much easier.

Udo