Question and Curiosity

[ricky89]

Hello!
I have a Dell m1000e server with 8 Dell M820 if I would like to create or 8 clusters of power Edge m1000e with 8 Dell M820 or so many VMs can I create them on one physical machine? or do I have to have other physical machines?
Take away this doubt
Thank you very much.

[Scott Vessey]

It’s not clear to me what you’re trying to achieve and why.

You can deploy vSphere to create an 8 host cluster, and use that cluster to build many VMs running all different OSes.

You can deploy ESXi onto a single physical system, and build a virtual vSphere cluster, using that nested cluster to build many VMs running all different OSes - if your single physical system is powerful enough.

 

[ricky89]

Exactly, my point of reference was to create many clusters for my server only you said I can only create one cluster 

[Duncan Epping]

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 wrote:

Exactly, my point of reference was to create many clusters for my server only you said I can only create one cluster 

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I think it probably makes sense for you to read some of the basic documentation first just to get a better understanding of the technology and the terminology, as somehow I feel we are talking about different things.

Making many clusters typically makes no sense really. unless you also need to run thousands of VMs. So maybe you should explain first what you are trying to achieve, and what you already have in terms of hardware:

• How many VMs do you want to run?
• What kind of apps are you planning on running?
• Why do you think you need many clusters and extra hardware?
• Do you have shared storage?
• Do you already have vSphere licenses?
•  

[ricky89]

But to create many clusters what more physical machine is needed?

[Duncan Epping]

Just to explain the basics:

You have a blade chassis with 8 blades, normally you could create 1 or 2 clusters, and add the hosts to those clusters. On that cluster you can then provision VMs, in those VMs you run your applications. Depending on the resources per host, and depending on the VM you are trying to create, you can then have dozens of VMs, maybe hundreds, or maybe a thousand. It all depends on the resources per host and the resources you will be assigning to the VMs and the resources the VMs will be using.

Having said that, in order to use the features that a cluster provides (HA, DRS) you will also need some type of shared storage!

[ricky89]

Exactly, my point of reference was to create many clusters for my server only you said I can only create one cluster

[ricky89]

But to create many clusters what more physical machine is needed? 

thanks for the response 

[Scott Vessey]

Let's assume you install ESXi on all 8 blades.

You can then deploy vCenter Server, let's assume you'll use it to manage all 8 hosts (rather than deploying multiple instances of vCenter Server)

You could create 1 cluster, enabled for features such as HA and DRS, and add all 8 hosts to it, assuming you're happy for all the hosts and the VMs they will run to be part of that single configuration - that's nice and simple.

Alternatively, you could create say 2 clusters, either with 4 hosts in each or perhaps 2 in a cluster and the other 6 in a different cluster - that would give you separate "chunks" of resource with different HA and DRS settings, maybe the 2-host cluster could run your infrastructure services while the 6-host cluster runs your application workloads.

But, as Duncan says, you'll need shared storage to take advantage of HA and DRS, plus the appropriate vSphere licenses for the functions you want to enable.