Basic question: Is there a way with ESX 4.x to "mirror" your VMFS volume?
In other words, for high-availability, I would like to have two
entirely separate storage arrays each have a 300GB LUN, and present it
to the ESX server, then put one 300GB VMFS volume mirrored
across the two 300GB LUNs. So that if either storage array (or path to
it, or whatever) goes down, the VMFS and virtual servers hosted on it
will keep humming along with no problems.
I know this can be done natively on Windows Hyper-V server, for example..
Just to be clear - I am not talking about MPIO, which I believe is just
about multiple-paths to the same LUN. I'm talking about two different
LUNs presented from two different arrays. I looked at the ESX VMFS
extent option, but that seems to be about extending a VMFS across
disks, not mirroring it.
I'm also aware I could do this with an external software or hardware-based storage virtualization platform, but then that
becomes a single-point-of-failure (or at the very least, ends up
costing me more money). I really want to do this host-based (ie on the
ESX server).
Thanks in advance.