Cisco ISE on Thin provisioned disk ok?

[Andy White]

Hello,

We need to installed Cisco ISE and Prime into VMware but space is limited.  We only have 25 APs and 250 users are we ok to use thin provisioned disks for the 600GB ISE disk and the 300GB Prime disk?

We use Thin on SQL servers and they are ok.

Thanks

[Karsten Iwen]

This is von the install-guide:

Cisco ISE supports both thick and thin provisioning. However, we recommend that you choose thick provisioning for better performance, especially for Monitoring nodes. If you choose thin provisioning, operations such as upgrade, backup and restore, and debug logging that require more disk space might be impacted during initial disk expansion. 

[Ivan Gonzalez]

You  are right, just took at the difference for each version.

It will be necessary to determine which version we are talking about, if it will be supported or not.

For PI, it will also necessary to confirm the version planning to be installed to determine if it is or not supported.

[Andy White]

Guys we will be using 1.4 if that helps?

[Ivan Gonzalez]

Hello Andy,

Thank you so much for your confirmation. 

In that case the answer for your question would be the following:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/ise/1-4/installation_guide/b_ise_InstallationGuide14/b_ise_InstallationGuide14_chapter_0100.html#ID-1417-00000271

Extracted from link:

"Cisco ISE supports both thick and thin provisioning. However, we recommend that you choose thick provisioning for better performance, especially for Monitoring nodes. If you choose thin provisioning, operations such as upgrade, backup and restore, and debug logging that require more disk space might be impacted during initial disk expansion."

[Andy White]

600gb think provisioned for a small environment seems so big though don't you think? Shame I can't start with 300gb.

I have to install prime too and that is another thick 300gb disk.

[Ivan Gonzalez]

Hello Andy,

Basically, I would personally abide by the official documentation for the installation guide, since in case you run into any performance issues, you will be suggested to use the recommended space.

You might take the chance and start with 300 GB, however, as you can see it is not the recommended for production environments.

[Ivan Gonzalez]

Hello Andy,

Thin provisioning is not supported independently on the amount of users that will be handled by ISE server.

Link for reference:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/ise/1-2/installation_guide/ise_ig/ise_vmware.html#pgfId-1056218

Extracted from link:

• Do not choose VMware thin provisioning as a storage type. This release of the Cisco ISE software does not support using VMware thin provisioning as a storage type on any of the supported VMware servers. Thin provisioning is not a default setting and Cisco advises against selecting it in Step 13(as shown in Figure 4-13).
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• Note: please marked as answered if applicable.

[Karsten Iwen]

Your link is for the (quite outdated) version 1.2. Both install-guides for 1.3 and 1.4 don't show this restriction any more.