"Remember kids, the only difference between Science and screwing around is writing it down" -Alex Jason (made popular by Adam Savage)
I’ve noticed I am beginning to have some blog post sprawl as I update my UNMAP script over and over so I will be using this post from now on to record future updates. Please use this post as the final word on what is new with my UNMAP Script.
Continue reading “Pure Storage FlashArray UNMAP PowerCLI Script for VMware ESXi”
I wrote a post recently on the updates made to the PowerCLI 6.3 R1 esxcli implementation, so the logical next step was to implement this new behavior into my PowerCLI scripts that use esxcli. I still have a few scripts to update, but my two best practice-related scripts are ready to go. The two scripts are:
While I was updating them for esxcli changes, I figured i might as well improve them too, so there are quite a few changes for both. Let’s take a look.
Continue reading “FlashArray VMware Best Practices PowerCLI Scripts”
This is part 5 of this 7 part series. Questions around managing VMFS snapshots have been cropping up a lot lately and I realized I didn’t have a lot of specific Pure Storage and VMware resignaturing information out there. Especially around scripting all of this and the various options to do this. So I put a long series out here about how to do all of this.
The series being:
Just a quick tip here, I’ve noticed a fair amount of people do not know what happens when we restore a volume concerning the special “hidden” operation we take in case you make a mistake. So I thought it worth a quick post.
Continue reading “Automatic protection during a FlashArray Snapshot Restore”
It has been awhile since I have done a solely Purity operating environment post and with the recent release of our Purity 4.6 operating environment I thought it was a good opportunity to do one. I will overview some new features and changes, some big some small.
4.6 has been in Directed Availability (DA) for some time, so many of you might already have this, but I decided to wait until it was closer to GA (this is imminent) to post. Not a gigantic release, but I think there is some cool stuff in it regardless.
Here is a brief listing of some of the new stuff:
NEW FEATURES
Continue reading “Introducing FlashArray Purity Release 4.6”
I want to say this is the culmination of my last almost two years of creating vRealize integration for Pure Storage, but that isn’t the right word. It is a milestone, because there is still so much more cool stuff to be done. Especially with vRealize Automation. In many ways it is just the beginning! But I can now demonstrate Pure Storage FlashArray integration with the whole vRealize stack: Log Insight, Operations, Orchestrator and Automation.
Log Insight has a Content Pack. Operations has the Management Pack. Orchestrator has the Workflow Package. Automation also uses that Workflow Package. Let’s talk about how.
As you might be aware, there have been a few storage-related issues with ESXi 6.0 as of late:
Accidental PDL during dropped paths:
Storage PDL responses may not trigger path failover in vSphere 6.0 (2144657)
Host issues during smartd inquiries:
Issuing a 0x85 SCSI Command from a VMware ESXi 6.0 host results in a PDL error (2133286)
The question that comes up for the Pure Storage FlashArray is are we susceptible? The short answer is no. Let’s explain why. Continue reading “Recent ESXi 6 Storage Bugs and the FlashArray”
So in a blog series that I started a few weeks back (still working on finishing it), I wrote about managing snapshots and resignaturing of VMFS volumes. One of the posts was dedicated to why I would choose resignaturing over force mounting almost all of the time.
An obvious question after that post is, well when would I want to force mount? There is a situation where i think it is a decent option. A failover situation where the recovery site is the same site as the production site, in terms of compute/vCenter. The storage is what fails over to another array. This is a situation I see increasingly common as network pipes are getting bigger.
Continue reading “Semi-transparent failover with VMFS and Active/Passive Replication”
Having a best practices conversation the other day with a customer and the usual topic came up about any recommendations when it comes to virtual disk type. We had the usual conversation thin or thick, the ins and outs of those two. In the end it doesn’t matter too much, especially with some recent improvements in ESXi 6.0. The further question came up, well what about between zeroedthick and eagerzeroedthick? My initial reaction was that it doesn’t matter for the most part. But we had just had a conversation about Space Reclamation (UNMAP) and I realized, actually, I did have a big preference and it was EZT. Let me explain why.
Continue reading “ZeroedThick or EagerZeroedThick? That is the question.”
I just put the finishing touches on my workflow packages for the Pure Storage FlashArray for VMware vRealize Orchestrator! Download it here:
https://github.com/codyhosterman/orchestrator
Three important notes on this package:
The workflow has been tested with vRealize Orchestrator 6.0.3 and 7.0. It should work with older versions as long as they have the REST plugin. From the FlashArray perspective, it requires any Purity version that runs the REST API 1.4 or later. Nothing else really matters, it supports both the 400 series and FlashArray//m.
Continue reading “FlashArray Workflow Package for vRealize Orchestrator”