Two-node Hyper-Converged Solution with Open-E JovianDSS

 

Hyper-converged Storage for SMBs and Small Enterprises.


Generally speaking, Hyper-converged Storage is the combination of computing, networking and storage in one unified hardware platform. Using commodity HDDs and solid state drives, the Software-defined Infrastructure automatically takes care of the storage and virtualization. The hardware platform is normally based on cheap x86 hardware which can be easily and cost-effectively scaled to growing requirements for performance and storage space.

Therefore, such solutions are ideal for data centers and medium to big enterprises. Hyper-converged Infrastructures easily handle big amounts of data as well as the simulation of lots of virtual machines. Especially MSPs long for this solution, since they want to have the highest degree of automation and the least effort on their side. However, what if small and medium businesses or small enterprises want to take advantage of a Hyper-converged Infrastructure?

In most cases, it would be unreasonable to invest in a Hyper-converged Infrastructure when the requirements are ordinary. The typical Hyper-converged Environment starts with 3 to 4 nodes and is consequently oversized for smaller installments. But with Open-E JovianDSS it is possible to create a Hyper-converged Storage with any hypervisor and only two servers!

A Scheme Presenting Open-E Hyper-Converged Data Storage Diagram

Hyper-Convergence Advantages with Open?E JovianDSS


In a typical scenario, two physical servers are setup using any hypervisor certified with Open-E JovianDSS. The software is installed as a virtual machine on each node and exports the storage space into the virtual and physical network. Open-E JovianDSS runs in a virtual environment just as well as in a physical one and combines the advantages of both worlds!

Advantages of Open-E Hyper-converged Storage:

With Open-E JovianDSS you can take full advantage of your data storage appliances' performance thanks to:

  • Acceleration of random writes with Write Log (ZIL)
  • Hybrid Read Cache with the first level in RAM (ARC -Adaptive Replacement Cache) and second Read Cache level on an SSD or NVMe (L2ARC)
  • High cache hit rate by using ARC's most recently used (MRU) and most frequently used (MFU) Read Cache algorithms
  • Data Compression for higher performance
  • Data resilvering of used space only

Traditional Storage Advantages in Open-E HCI Storage:

  • Multi-protocol support
    In general, Hyper-converged Storage only delivers storage to the internally hosted VMs. There is no choice between file or block-based protocols which is a missed chance for optimization. Open-E JovianDSS supports iSCSI, NFS and SMB/CIFS
  • Sharing with non-virtualized systems
    Very often, a company wants to have some storage space which is available to all users in the network, for example a NAS for data sharing. Since typical Hyper-converged Infrastructure solutions only provide storage to the internal VMs, it would be necessary to buy an additional NAS system. However, Open-E JovianDSS is fully customizable and can provide storage for the internally hosted VMs and external users at the same time. No need for additional investments

Open‑E JovianDSS Advantages for Hyper-converged Storage:


RAM and SSD caching are still available with Open-E JovianDSS when it is used as a virtual machine. This drastically increases performance of the whole installation with minimum investment.

Open-E JovianDSS includes a variety of features that will keep your data safe. Snapshots, self-healing check-sums and atomic writes will keep data consistent while the storage still performs at maximum performance.

Thin provisioning, compression and deduplication are included in Open-E JovianDSS automatically. They drastically reduce the required amount of physical storage space and thus the price of the whole installation.

The complete data is asynchronously replicated to local sites or co-locations with consistent snapshots, secure archiving, encryption and buffering.

Open-E JovianDSS can use the disks in each node to build its storage pool, but it is also possible to share disks between both nodes; effectively cutting the amount of required physical storage
space in half.

Tailored Hyper-converged Infrastructure with Open‑E JovianDSS


Open-E JovianDSS, in collaboration with any certified hypervisor, is able to create sophisticated Hyper-converged Infrastructures for small and medium companies, as well as small enterprises. The result is a cost-effective, flexible and scalable solution for virtualization that offers performance and data efficiency.

Check out our latest information

WEBINAR | Cut Proxmox VE Data Storage Costs 20% | Open-E JovianDSS Plugin Overview & Live Demo
Webinar Video

WEBINAR | Cut Proxmox VE Data Storage Costs 20% | Open-E JovianDSS Plugin Overview & Live Demo

Watch a detailed solution breakdown showing where the 20% savings come from, followed by an in-depth live demo by Janusz Bak, Open-E CTO, who demonstrates the full feature set and functionality step-by-step.During the webinar we received a number of questions. As promised here we provide all the answers from our Q&A session:[ ? ] Can I send the ZFS snapshots to PBS, or is it Proxmox Backup Server taking the backupsCurrently, you cannot send ZFS snapshots directly to Proxmox Backup Server (PBS). PBS handles backups by taking full backups that are split and stored in chunks. However, developers and the community are actively working on a plugin solution to integrate ZFS snapshot transfers with PBS in the future.[ ? ] Is this a single plugin for both iSCSI and NFS, or are there two separate plugins?It is a single plugin that contains both iSCSI and NFS functionality built into it. It was initially advertised for iSCSI while NFS was undergoing QA testing, but both capabilities were included in the same plugin from the beginning and are now fully supported.[ ? ] Can Proxmox operate over iSCSI with a JovianDSS HA Metro Cluster as the target? Proxmox runs on several independent servers (hypervisors).Yes. A JovianDSS HA Metro Cluster running on separate bare-metal servers can provide iSCSI storage to multiple Proxmox hosts or even multiple Proxmox clusters. This is supported through the cluster-prefix property in the plugin configuration.[ ? ] Are there any performance differences of VMs when comparing iSCSI vs NFS?The performance difference is very minimal and comparable, depending on whether you measure random or sequential reads/writes. However, iSCSI is preferred for mission-critical setups because it supports true switch-agnostic multipathing, whereas NFS requires network bonding, which depends on specific switch capabilities and can encounter issues during network disruptions.[ ? ] Is PBS using a JovianDSS Pool as Backup Storage, or is it using disks of the 3rd PVE Node in this demo?In the demo, PBS uses local NVMe disks on the Proxmox server (configured as a local ZFS pool passed through to the PBS instance), not a JovianDSS pool. The setup relies directly on built-in ZFS capabilities within PBS, so JovianDSS is not required for backup storage here.[ ? ] In case we use NFS isn't better to backup snapshots to 3rd Open-E JovianDSS instance on that 3rd server?Yes. When using NFS, JovianDSS On- and Off-site Data Protection (OODP), the built-in backup and replication functionality, can be used as a backup and disaster recovery solution.With the NFS part of the plugin, multiple virtual disks are stored in a single ZFS dataset. A single OODP replication task can therefore back up all virtual disks stored in that dataset at the same time.[ ? ] Does Metro Cluster need extra Network interfaces between the Open-E VM on the PVE?Yes. The Metro Cluster requires a dedicated Mirror Path. The recommended configuration is a switchless, direct point-to-point connection using either a single network interface or bonded interfaces.In our webinar demo, we configured one NIC as a PCI passthrough device. As a result, JovianDSS sees it as a physical NIC rather than a virtual interface. This passthrough NIC is used for the Mirror Path.The passthrough NICs in pve1 and pve2 are connected directly to each other using a point-to-point connection, without a network switch.A direct point-to-point connection is recommended for the Mirror Path, although a switched network connection is also supported.

Open-E JovianDSS HA2026-HC Cluster-in-a-Box
Certified Server

Open-E JovianDSS HA2026-HC Cluster-in-a-Box

The Open-E JovianDSS HA2026-HC Cluster-in-a-Box is a high-availability, purpose-built data storage system engineered for mission-critical enterprise workloads. Developed in collaboration with Abacus and AIC, this solution combines high-performance all-flash NVMe hardware with enterprise-grade software-defined storage. Featuring active-active dual-node redundancy, full ZFS data integrity, native dataset encryption, real-time deduplication, and automated self-healing, it delivers seamless zero-downtime operation for demanding environments.

Open-E JovianDSS Integration with Proxmox VE - Efficient Virtualization with Open-source Solution
Solution

Open-E JovianDSS Integration with Proxmox VE - Efficient Virtualization with Open-source Solution

See how our team took hypervisor-agnosticism to the next level! Experience a new, stable, and reliable way of managing your virtual machines & their data thanks to Open-E JovianDSS storage back-end for Proxmox VE!

Hypervisor-agnosticism as a Key to Cost-Efficient Virtualization
Blog

Hypervisor-agnosticism as a Key to Cost-Efficient Virtualization

Virtualization is a great way to cut energy costs, even up to 80%, with an additional 31% when creating a hyper-converged infrastructure. It stands as a pivotal technology for running …

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