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Oct 31, 2020
4 min read

IT Infrastructure Virtualization using oVirt and ESXI/vSphere

Architected enterprise 2-node vSphere 6.5 cluster with High Availability, Fault Tolerance, and vMotion. Implemented redundant storage using iSCSI and NFS with MPIO Round Robin, achieving zero-downtime migrations and automated failover.

Timeline and Details

oVirt Implementation

Start dateEnd dateAssociated withProject URL
November 2020December 2020Algebra Bernays UniversityProject PDF

vSphere Implementation

Start dateEnd dateAssociated withProject URL
February 2021March 2021Algebra Bernays UniversityProject PDF

Overview

Designed and deployed production-ready virtualization infrastructure demonstrating enterprise features: automated failover, live migration, and storage multipathing. Implemented 2-node ESXi cluster with redundant storage across dual protocols (iSCSI + NFS), achieving zero-downtime operations. Automated infrastructure provisioning through Bash scripting, reducing deployment time by 80%.


oVirt Implementation

Architecture Design

Infrastructure Components

  • Deployed KVM hypervisor with oVirt Engine for centralized management
  • Configured 4 virtual machines: Engine node + 3 compute nodes
  • Implemented NFS and iSCSI storage backends

Automation

  • Developed Bash scripts for VM lifecycle management (start, stop, clone)
  • Automated network and storage configuration
  • Scripted node provisioning for rapid deployment

Technical Stack

oVirt • KVM • CentOS • Bash Scripting • NFS • iSCSI


vSphere Implementation

Architecture Design

Cluster Infrastructure

  • 2 ESXi hosts (VMware ESXi 6.5.0) managed by vCenter Server
  • 2 CentOS storage servers (iSCSI target + NFS server)
  • Network segmentation: Management, storage (dual paths), HA, FT, vMotion
  • Total shared storage: 120 GB across 6 datastores

Storage Configuration

  • iSCSI: 3 LUNs (20 GB each) with targetcli on CentOS 01
  • NFS: 3 shares (19.75 GB each) on CentOS 02
  • MPIO Round Robin: 6-path configuration per LUN for load balancing and failover
  • Dual storage networks (192.168.20.0/24 and 192.168.30.0/24) for redundancy

High Availability & Advanced Features

  • vSphere HA: Automatic VM restart on host failure (60-second restart time)
  • vMotion: Zero-downtime live migration between hosts
  • Storage vMotion: Live storage migration between iSCSI and NFS
  • Fault Tolerance: Dedicated network for mission-critical workloads
  • Cluster: MojKlaster62 with 2 nodes

Automation Scripts

Developed Bash automation for CentOS storage servers:

  • Network configuration: Dual NICs with static IPs
  • Disk provisioning: Automated partitioning, formatting (ext4), mounting
  • iSCSI target: targetcli configuration with LUN creation and ACL management
  • NFS exports: Automated share creation with persistent fstab entries

Deployment Impact: Reduced provisioning from 2+ hours to under 5 minutes per server

Testing & Validation

Successfully tested:

  • Compute migration: ESXi 01 ↔ ESXi 02 with zero downtime
  • Storage migration: iSCSI ↔ NFS with zero downtime
  • HA failover: VM automatic restart within 60 seconds
  • MPIO failover: Automatic path switching on network failure

Technical Stack

VMware vSphere 6.5 • VMware ESXi • vCenter Server • CentOS 7 • iSCSI (targetcli) • NFS v3 • VMFS 6 • vMotion • vSphere HA • Fault Tolerance • MPIO Round Robin • Bash


Results

oVirt Outcomes

  • Successfully deployed KVM-based private cloud with centralized management
  • Automated VM operations through custom scripting
  • Demonstrated dual-protocol storage integration

vSphere Outcomes

  • Achieved zero-downtime migrations for both compute and storage
  • 6-path MPIO configuration with automatic failover
  • 80% reduction in deployment time through automation
  • Production-ready HA cluster with 60-second failover capability

Key Learnings

  • Storage multipathing: MPIO Round Robin essential for I/O distribution and redundancy
  • Network segmentation: Dedicated VLANs for storage, vMotion, HA, FT critical for performance
  • Automation impact: Scripting eliminates manual errors and accelerates provisioning
  • vMotion capabilities: Enables maintenance windows without service interruption