Category: White Paper

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Updated Pure Storage Content Pack for vRealize Log Insight 2.5

VMware vRealize Log Insight is a product I have been quite fond of since it first came out–I liked it for a variety of reasons–one is the simplicity of use. As far as VMware’s entire management suite, it is the easiest to install/configure and understand how to use. You can really become an accomplished user in a day. Anyways, I finally got around to updating the Pure Storage FlashArray Content Pack to expand support for version 2.5 and also leverage some new functionality from Purity syslog messages.

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Updated VMware and Pure Storage Best Practices Guide

Update: Please see this page for latest updates on best practices and relevant links.

Quick post here. I have updated the Pure Storage FlashArray Best Practices Guide for VMware vSphere. Not a total overhaul but there are some changes to note.

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Updates include:

  • New information for vSphere 6.0 This mostly focuses on what supports vSphere 6.0 and re-enforcing that current best practices remain the same. Expect a lot more vSphere 6 content though in forthcoming updates. As new storage features are tested and considered in the latest version of the VMware platfom they will be included in this guide, such as VVols.
  • Queue Depth changes are no longer mentioned in this document. Messing with this is considered a tweak that most people will not need. Don’t broke what isn’t broken is the mantra here.
  • More instruction on iSCSI setup and clarified instruction.
  • General tightening and simplification of the document
  • New content pack for Log Insight (which will be out soon). The changes are detailed in the document

 

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The Pure Storage Content Pack 1.0 for VMware vCenter Log Insight

The Pure Storage Content Pack for VMware vCenter Log Insight is now live on the VMware Solution Exchange! Download it today for free. As past posts have shown I have done a decent amount of work with Log Insight here at Pure and in my previous job. A product I have really liked from VMware for a variety of reasons, a big one being that it is so very easy to use. We really improved our syslog feature on the FlashArray in the 4.0 Purity release, so it was the perfect time to create our first content pack!

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Pure Storage and VMware VAAI

Today I posted a new document to our repository on purestorage.com: Pure Storage and VMware Storage APIs for Array Integration—VAAI. This is a new white paper that describes in detail the VAAI block primitives that VMware offers and that we support. Furthermore, performance expectations are described, comparing before/after and how the operations do at scale. There are some best practices listed as well, the why and how of those recommendations are also described within.

I have to say, especially when it comes to XCOPY, I have never seen a storage array do so well with it. It is really quite impressive how fast XCOPY sessions complete and how scaling it up (in terms of numbers of VMs or size of the VMDKs) doesn’t weaken the process at all. The main purpose of this post is to alert you to the new document but I will go over some high level performance pieces of information as well. Read the document for the details and more.


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The VMAX Content Pack v1.5 for VMware vCenter Log Insight v1.5

It’s been a bit but I’m (Drew Tonnesen, [email protected]) back for another guest spot on Cody’s blog.   In August 2013 I wrote about the VMAX Content Pack for VMware’s newly released Log Insight product (v1.0).  At the time of release VMware was pushing hard for content packs and rode me pretty ragged for 2 weeks to produce one.  As a result much of the detail around items like widgets was minimal.  This was perfectly acceptable as VMware was also in the nascent stages of the product and content packs.  Now with VMware’s release of Log Insight 1.5, they have made some important changes, particularly to the content pack component, which has allowed me to expand our VMAX Content Pack.   As I’m only going to cover the new features of the content pack and how it relates to Log Insight v1.5, if you want the full Monty on Log Insight v1.5, VMware’s lead developer goes into detail here.  Another great resource for everything Log Insight is Steve Flander’s blog:  http://sflanders.net/ .  Steve does a great job explaining the new features and how to use them as well as answering any questions.

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Log Insight with Symmetrix VMAX – revisited for Unisphere

Cody recently posted an entry that discussed how Solutions Enabler can be configured to send logs to VMware vCenter Log Insight (https://www.codyhosterman.com/2013/07/10/using-vmwares-vcenter-log-insight-with-symmetrix-vmax/).  He mentioned that in order for Unisphere for VMAX to send its information, additional configuration was required.   So here is that additional information.

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Point-in-time test recovery with VSI RecoverPoint Management and VMware SRM

Today I’ll be filling in for Cody on his blog since I couldn’t find time for one if I tried and he has been gracious enough to let me post when topics come up.  My name is Drew Tonnesen (@drewtonnesen) and I’m a systems engineer in the ESD organization at EMC (basically the engineering side of the house).  I work on the integration of virtualization technologies (mostly VMware) with the Symmetrix platform but also focus on VPLEX and RecoverPoint.  Cody and I have worked together for many years now and though we get moved around a bit and re-organized, we both continue to work on VMware/Symmetrix integration like our TechBook (yes, shameless plug:  http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/solution-overview/h2529-vmware-esx-svr-w-symmetrix-wp-ldv.pdf).

So since I mentioned I work on Symmetrix, VPLEX, and RecoverPoint I thought what better post than one on all those – and Oracle Extended RAC to boot.  I’ve recently updated my white paper on this topic and it can be found here:

http://www.emc.com/collateral/white-papers/h11767-vmware-vplex-rp-srm-wp.pdf.

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VMAX and VMware VAAI White Paper Update

One of the documents that my colleague Drew Tonnesen (@drewtonnesen) and I maintain is a white paper that explains the how, what, why, when, etc. of  using VMware’s VAAI block primitives (WRITE SAME, XCOPY, ATS and UNMAP) with Symmetrix VMAX storage systems. We update this document around twice a year or as needed to take into account new Enginuity releases or VMware releases. We just posted the latest update this weekend on EMC’s website:

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h8115-vmware-vstorage-vmax-wp.pdf

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