Hello All,
I'm hoping to get some design input on a new platform being built.
Background;
Dual datacentre design, roughly 15m / 20km apart with dark fibre connectivity for; backups, storage replication and layer 2 stretched VLANs.
One datacentre is a brand new greenfield deployment, the other is an existing environment.
All systems being deployed are new, so standing up something separate and different from the existing vSphere platforms.
Utilizing high dense blade infrastructure for 95% of the environment, some rack servers for specific use purposes including a management cluster.
vCenter solution deployed in both sites in an active/active configuration.
vCenter SRM incorporated to provide fail over for solutions not clustered at the application layer and/or not making use of Microsoft clustering.
vCenter View deployment for 1000 seats of VDI, active both sides.
SQL 2012 and 2008 clustered solutions, 2012 is virtual and utilizes a dedicated high performance ESXi cluster, 2008 uses physical blades. SQL 2008 is designed this way for licensing purposes, avoidance of HyperThreading issues/support and to avoid RDMs which my client as a strong preference not to use for support reasons.
Cisco Nexus 9Ks operating in 7K mode for Access, Distribution and Core networking all running at 40Gb.
Storage platform providing both block and file services (NAS front end for the SAN) in both sites, fully capable of replication for the SAN and NAS.
Management cluster in each site utilizing 3 x 2U rack servers with a ton of local disk and utilizing VMware vSAN to create the shared storage they will run on. Not interested in presenting SAN or NAS storage to the management cluster as a datacentre cold start means core management functionality cannot be restored until the SAN comes back online. Yes we have had this issue a couple of times now, no we shouldn't have to have that experience ever, nevertheless I'm designing against it. SQL services for management solutions will have a dedicated clustered SQL 2012 solution running on the management cluster, separate from the general purpose application SQL 2008 and 2012 solutions.
Okay enough background. My question relates to the design and implementation of a highly available PSC component for the environment. When I look at the following blog I feel like I'm missing some key points;
Platform Services Controller | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs
We would rather not have to use MSCS to make vCenter highly available at the application layer, not least of which we don't know how to would provide RDMs from the vSAN in order to get this working. Are there other alternatives or design considerations we are not seeing? Can I make vCenter work on top of MSCS on top of a management cluster utilizing vSAN without presenting storage from the SAN or NAS? Should I switch to a NAS device under the rack servers to present the shared storage? This would be hard to achieve btw because of support issues (currently outsourced bau support for storage
So if we go with the assumption that we won't put vCenter on top of MSCS how does the rest of the design stack up? Do we just use the "Multiple Site vCenter Server and PSC basic Architecture" and if so what happens if the single PSC in site A dies? Will the systems in site A automatically switch to using the PSC in site B and if so, why would we need two PSCs behind a loadbalancer? What problem is VMware solving there? I can only assume at this point in time that if the local PSC goes down then the vCenter environment and all it's components go offline or become unusable as well.
Any ideas, comments and/or input is most welcome.
Regards,
Paul
Message was edited by: Paul Kelly Included note about SQL instance inside management clusters.