Tag Archives: support

Fight the FUD – Support for MS Exchange on Nutanix

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Its disappointing that some vendors have so little respect for customers time that they continue to spread FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) about other vendors products.

This post is for existing and future Nutanix customers to get the facts about support for MS Exchange on Nutanix.

First of all, Nutanix Distributed File System (NDFS) is not Network File System (NFS).

NDFS is a file system which presents storage to hypervisors (ESXi, Hyper-V and Acropolis Hypervisor) via industry standard storage protocols being iSCSI, SMB 3.0 and NFS.

Currently Microsoft do not support Exchange running with VMDKs hosted on NFS for Exchange deployments on vSphere, this is due to an outdated and baseless support policy which experts from almost every major storage vendor agree.

For more information see the below article:

Virtualizing Exchange on vSphere with NFS backed storage?

However Nutanix have a published KB providing full support for MS Exchange when running within VMDKs on NFS datastores.

Nutanix aims to provide an Uncompromisingly Simple solution for customers which gives them maximum flexibility/choice. As such, when deploying applications such as MS Exchange on Nutanix, how the application/s are deployed and what storage protocol they use is ultimately the customers choice.

The below are some of the benefits of this include:

  1. Running a standard platform and storage protocol for all workloads is a simple model which reduces the unnecessary complexity of multiple protocols and/or in-guest storage configurations.
  2. The customer has the choice to deploy in multiple configurations to suit their specific requirements
If you want to run a 100% Microsoft supported Exchange configuration on Nutanix you currently have two options:
  1. vSphere running iSCSI
  2. Hyper-V running SMB 3.0
  3. Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) running iSCSI (default)

If you understand that NFS datastores are not supported by Microsoft, but accept it is fully supported by Nutanix and you want to run Exchange in a VMDK on NFS datastores, then Nutanix will support for MS Exchange and Microsoft will provide commercially reasonable support directly or via TSAnet if the case needs to be escalated.

So there you have it, MS Exchange can be ran on Nutanix in 100% Microsoft supported configurations and Nutanix customers have the choice in how they wish to deploy with full support from Nutanix.

Exchange__transparent-1024x408

Related Articles:

Microsoft Support for MS SQL on NFS datastores

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QUESTION: Is MS SQL supported when running in a vSphere environment where the SQL databases/logs are in a VMDK on an NFS datastore?

Short answer: YES!

Note: I have confirmed this with the Principal Program Manager for SAP, SQL & Azure Customer Programs.

Here are some important Microsoft Knowledge Base articles to confirm this statement.

1. Support policy for Microsoft SQL Server products that are running in a hardware virtualization environment

2. Support policy for Microsoft software that runs on non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software

It is important to note, no where in the above support policies is storage protocol even mentioned. To me this is a very smart move by the SQL team as the underlying storage protocol is abstracted from the VM, making it irrelevant.

The key requirements are:

a) The platform must be SVVP (Server Virtualization Validation Program) certified

VMware is SVVP certified, as is shown by on the SVVP Website.

b) The SQL Server product must be a supported version under its current Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy

For more information about Microsoft Support Lifecycle policies, visit the following Microsoft Support website: http://support.microsoft.com/?pr=lifecycle

c) Virtualization support per SQL features based on SQL Edition

This can be verified here under “Virtualization Support” and the below table is from this KB showing what is supported based on SQL edition.

virtusupportsql

Now in saying SQL is supported when running in a VMDK on NFS datastores, there are some limitations as discussed in SQL AlwaysOn Availability Group support in VMDKs on NFS Datastores.

In summary, old style SQL clustering requiring Shared disks which is not supported.

However SQL Always on Availability Groups (AAG) and SQL Mirroring are supported, which are the two configurations you should be considering these days.

I hope this helps clear up any confusion.

Now for the MS Exchange team to follow the lead of the SQL team!

See Virtualizing Exchange on vSphere with NFS backed storage for more details.

SQL AlwaysOn Availability Group support in VMDKs on NFS Datastores

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Recently I had a customer contact me about doing SQL Always-On Availability Groups on Nutanix and they were wondering if it was supported due to the fact Nutanix recommend and run by default NFS datastores.

The customer did the right thing and investigated and came across the following VMware KB:

Microsoft Clustering on VMware vSphere: Guidelines for supported configurations (1037959)

The KB has the following table and the relevant section to MS SQL AAGs is highlighted.

SQLsupportnfs

As you can see the table indicates (incorrectly I might add) that SQL Always On Availability Groups are not supported on NFS when in fact the storage protocol is not relevant to non shared disk deployments.

The article goes onto provide further details about the supported clustering and vSphere versions as shown below with no further (obvious) mention of storage protocols.

pix1

However down the bottom of the article it states (as per the below screenshot):

3. In-Guest clustering solutions that do not use a shared-disk configuration, such as SQL Mirroring, SQL Server Always On Availability Group (Non-shared disk), and Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG), do not require explicit support statements from VMware.

pix2

As a result, SQL Always-On Availability Group non shared disk deployments are supported by VMware when deployed in VMDKs on NFS datastores (as are Exchange DAG deployments).

To ensure there is no further confusion, Michael Webster and I are currently working with VMware to have the KB updated so it is no longer confusing to customers with NFS storage.

For those of you wanting to learn more about Virtualizing SQL Server with vSphere, checkout my friend and colleague Michael Webster (VCDX#66) VMware Press book below.

virtualizing-sql-server-cover-small (1)