Zoltan, As I understand it IBM does support virtual ISP servers but I recall seeing a document that stated they will not support their performance or scalability, so for a small application it is probably fine.
My management team requested that I move our operation virtual (VMware) roughly 2 years ago and while it was an enormous struggle they perform adequately now. I am now of the opinion for larger installations it is just not worth the trouble. We now have three pairs of ISP backups servers, each consists of a source production server and a replication target server at our DR facility. They maintain a variety of client backup including; ISP 4 VE, Windows, AIX, Linux, DB2, Oracle, and SQL, as well as many physical servers performing traditional file system backups. A total of roughly 2,000 clients. I strongly recommend following the IBM blueprints with a few modifications, mostly on VMware. All of mine are currently running Windows 2012 R2 and now looking at possibly moving to 2016, they all use directory container pools, server side deduplication, and node replication. There were many times that I thought of going back to physical servers but am kind of hard-headed and was determined to make these things work if it was at all possible. For me: Clinging to the thought process of not wanting to put too many eggs in one basket I followed the blueprints for a medium sized server, at the time not knowing how they would scale. It is my experience that these things are of the utmost importance if you want to minimize your headaches and have the servers run at an optimal level: - As we hear over and over again; DO NOT skimp on the performance of disks for the ISP server database and logs. Mine are all on EMC Powermax. Each server has 8 individual LUNS for the ISP database volumes and a dedicated LUN for each log (ACTIVE, ARCHIVE, ARCHFAILOVER). - Dedicate ESX/ESXi hosts to the ISP Servers and pin them to the host and disable VMotion. It was my experience that if VMware moved an ISP Server it would either crash or minimally all in progress sessions and processes would fail. - By design the VMware host will attempt to throttle the ISP server's access to all datastores, this is done to assure that one VM does not deprive other VMs from access to resources, kind of load balancing. Since your datastores are dedicated to a single VM (your ISP server) disable all VMware storage IO control. This will increase system performance exponentially. I have heard that IBM now recommends using RAW volumes which may mitigate this requirement. - Add additional SCSI controllers (up to 4) and change the default driver from LSI Logic driver to VMware Paravirtual for all disks except the operating system. In the end the servers perform acceptably at a relatively lower cost but are still no match for physical servers. -Rick Adamson -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager <ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU> On Behalf Of Zoltan Forray Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2019 8:05 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] ISP server as a VM * This email originated outside of the organization. Use caution when opening attachments or clicking links. * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Eric, No inbound deduplication on the clients and right now for the existing 6 nodes there is a total of 2TB of occupancy and we do not expect much if any growth. --- Zoltan Forray Spectrum Protect (p.k.a. TSM) Software & Hardware Administrator VMware Administrator Xymon Monitor Administrator Virginia Commonwealth University UCC/Office of Technology Services https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ucc.vcu.edu&d=DwIBaQ&c=AzgFQeXLLKhxSQaoFCm29A&r=eqh5PzQPIsPArLoI_uV1mKvhIpcNP1MsClDPSJjFfxw&m=nTyF5koaHwvBqdd41KeQB3Db_rRDfX840uwwtltakA0&s=qErCVxpl9HVMO8Gjj_93IdyW1B7oSVf6776TEvz-vbY&e= zfor...@vcu.edu - 804-828-4807 Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__phishing.vcu.edu_&d=DwIBaQ&c=AzgFQeXLLKhxSQaoFCm29A&r=eqh5PzQPIsPArLoI_uV1mKvhIpcNP1MsClDPSJjFfxw&m=nTyF5koaHwvBqdd41KeQB3Db_rRDfX840uwwtltakA0&s=528haGk2xVx3sccHBEBVvC2WJASQF7G9JTb2lmVVZh8&e= On Wed, Sep 4, 2019, 3:37 AM Loon, Eric van (ITOP NS) - KLM < eric-van.l...@klm.com> wrote: > Hi Zoltan, > > I don't know if it's supported by IBM, but I think it's all related to > load. A VM will not provide the same I/O performance as dedicated hardware > does. So if you are planning to install a server with inbound deduplication > with container pools, I would stay away from virtualization. > > Kind regards, > Eric van Loon > Air France/KLM Storage & Backup > > > -----Original Message----- > From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU] On Behalf Of > Zoltan Forray > Sent: dinsdag 3 september 2019 19:06 > To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU > Subject: ISP server as a VM > > We have an old hardware based ISP server that needs to be replace. It is > PCI network isolated and only backs up 6-PCI servers. We are thinking about > recreating it as a VM since there aren't any hardware-based requirements > (e.g. tape drives). > > Anyone running an ISP server as a VM? What are the gotcha's? Minimum > VMware vCPU/vRAM requirements? > > Or should we look at throwing up a SPP instance? > > -- > *Zoltan Forray* > Spectrum Protect (p.k.a. TSM) Software & Hardware Administrator VMware > Administrator Xymon Monitor Administrator Virginia Commonwealth University > UCC/Office of Technology Services > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ucc.vcu.edu&d=DwIBaQ&c=AzgFQeXLLKhxSQaoFCm29A&r=eqh5PzQPIsPArLoI_uV1mKvhIpcNP1MsClDPSJjFfxw&m=nTyF5koaHwvBqdd41KeQB3Db_rRDfX840uwwtltakA0&s=qErCVxpl9HVMO8Gjj_93IdyW1B7oSVf6776TEvz-vbY&e= > zfor...@vcu.edu - > 804-828-4807 Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable > organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your > password, social security number or confidential personal information. 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