Quick post here.
I received a question today on using the FlashArray REST API with Postman, so I figured I would write a quick walkthrough on how to do it.
Continue reading “Using Postman with the FlashArray REST API”
ActiveCluster and VAAI
Pure Storage recently offered up support for active/active replication for the FlashArray in a feature called ActiveCluster. And a common question that comes up for active/active solutions alongside VMware is how is VAAI supported?
The reason it is asked is that it is often tricky if not impossible to support in an active/active scenario. Because the storage platform first has to perform the operation on one array, but also on the other. So XCOPY, which offloads VM copying, is often not supported. Let’s take a look at VAAI with ActiveCluster, specifically these four features:
- Hardware Assisted Locking (ATOMIC TEST & SET)
- Zero Offload (WRITE SAME)
- Space Reclamation (UNMAP)
- Copy Offload (XCOPY)
Setting Up FlashArray Active/Active Replication (ActiveCluster)
In Purity 5.0 Pure Storage released support for Active/Active replication on the FlashArray. This provides the ability to present the same storage volume simultaneously from two different FlashArrays.
For a good overview, check out this video:
Continue reading “Setting Up FlashArray Active/Active Replication (ActiveCluster)”
Assigning a VVol VM Storage Policy with vRO
Amidst writing a vMSC guide for our newly-introduced Active-Active replication called ActiveCluster, I have been taking some breaks to finish my vRealize Orchestrator Workflow Package for Virtual Volumes. I posted a starter post recently:
Getting Started with vRealize Orchestrator and VVols
I am almost done with v1, but until then another starter post. Continue reading “Assigning a VVol VM Storage Policy with vRO”
Announcing Pure Storage FlashArray VVol GA
This is a blog post I have been waiting to write for a long time. We at Pure Storage are pleased to announce that vSphere Virtual Volume support on the FlashArray is officially GA!
The FlashArray now supports running VVols in Purity 5.0.0 and later. The cool thing about the FlashArray is the flexibility of the Purity Operating Environment–so VVols are supported on all FA 400 models (405, 420, and 450), //M models (m10, m20, m50, m70) and FlashArray//X. Continue reading “Announcing Pure Storage FlashArray VVol GA”
Getting Started with vRealize Orchestrator and VVols
Over the past few weeks, I have been working on writing a vRealize Orchestrator workflow package for Virtual Volumes and the FlashArray. While that is not quite ready to go out, I think some basics for starting to use vRO and VVols are worth noting.
There are three main parts of using VVols with vRO:
- Core vCenter SDK–this is what you use to create VMs, datastores, etc.
- SMS–this is the service that manages storage providers (VASA) and replication for VVols.
- PBM–this is the service that you use for storage policy based features.
Continue reading “Getting Started with vRealize Orchestrator and VVols”
VCSA 6.5 Fails to Boot
So one of our field engineers reached out to me because they had a power outage of some sort and their vCenter appliance failed to boot with these errors about starting up the services.
So this is a common that has happened many times as seen from these KBs and community posts:
- https://communities.vmware.com/thread/547779
- https://cormachogan.com/2015/06/03/fsck-of-vcenter-server-appliance-6-0-partitions/
- https://communities.vmware.com/thread/567888
- https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2147154
Etc. Etc.
Simple blog post, and this is really more for my own future reference. But could help you if you don’t have the common mount problems in the forums etc.
What is a VVol Datastore?
I have been traveling around lately talking about VVols and one of the most commonly misunderstood objects is the VVol datastore. What is it? What does capacity mean on it? Why does it even exist?
These are all good questions. The great thing about VVols is that very little changes in how the VMware user interacts with vSphere. But at the same time, what actual happens is VERY different. So let’s work through this.
Issue with Consistent LUN ID in ESXi 6.5
Having consistent LUN IDs for volumes in ESXi has historically been a gotcha–though over time this requirement went away.
For example:
- 2012 https://cormachogan.com/2012/09/26/do-rdms-still-rely-on-lun-id/
- 2013 https://cormachogan.com/2013/12/11/vsphere-5-5-storage-enhancement-part-7-lun-idrdm-restriction-lifted/
These days, the need for consistent LUN IDs is mainly gone. The lingering use case for this is Microsoft Clustering and how persistent SCSI reservations are handled. The below KB doesn’t mention 6.5, but I believe it to still be relevant to 6.5:
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2054897 Continue reading “Issue with Consistent LUN ID in ESXi 6.5”
FlashArray 3.0 Plugin for the vSphere Web Client
This is the start of many blog posts around the recent Purity 5.0 release. I figured I would start with one that doesn’t require an upgrade of Purity to even get!
Alongside Purity 5.0, we released the 3.0 version of theFlashArray plugin for the vSphere Web Client. This is bundled in Purity 5.0, so if you upgrade any one of your FlashArrays you can then use it to upgrade the plugin in one or all of your vCenters.
Let me be clear though–if you want to use VVols or ActiveCluster you need Purity 5.0. Without Purity 5.0, you can use the 3.0 plugin of course, but you can only use non-VVol or non-ActiveCluster features.
Continue reading “FlashArray 3.0 Plugin for the vSphere Web Client”