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In-Guest UNMAP and VMware Snapshots

Here we go with another in-guest UNMAP post. See other posts here:

https://www.codyhosterman.com/pure-storage-vmware-overview/flasharray-and-vmware-best-practices/space-reclamationunmap/

I was asked the following question the other day “does in-guest UNMAP work when snapshots exist?” To save you a long read: it does not work. But if you are interested in the details and my testing, read on.

My initial answer was “no” but I thought about some changes in VMFS-6 and reconsidered. If you refer to the vSphere 6.5 documentation you can see this change for VMFS 6:

“SEsparse is a default format for all delta disks on the VMFS6 datastores. On VMFS5, SEsparse is used for virtual disks of the size 2 TB and larger” Continue reading “In-Guest UNMAP and VMware Snapshots”

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vSpeaking Podcast Guest Spot on vRealize Automation

Quick post. I had the pleasure and honor of being invited back to the vSpeaking Podcast hosted by Pete Flecha and John Nicholson to talk about vRealize Automation use cases. Alongside me was Aaron Patten of Solidfire to discuss the same topic.

https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2017/06/08/vspeaking-podcast-episode-47-vrealize-automation-use-cases/

Continue reading “vSpeaking Podcast Guest Spot on vRealize Automation”

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Managing In-Guest UNMAP and Automatic VMFS-6 UNMAP with PowerCLI

Another UNMAP post.  I was working on updating my best practices script the other day and I realized a lot of UNMAP configuration from a PowerCLI standpoint was not well documented, especially for the vSphere 6.5 stuff which introduces automatic UNMAP to VMFS. Automatic UNMAP  is great. But what if someone turns it off? Or what if, for some reason, I want to disable it? Or I want to make  sure it is on? Well there are a lot ways to do this–so let’s look at PowerCLI.

Continue reading “Managing In-Guest UNMAP and Automatic VMFS-6 UNMAP with PowerCLI”

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Using CLI and REST API to perform a FlashArray Protection Group Recovery

In Purity 4.6 a new CLI and REST API function has been released called protection group recovery. This feature allows you to take a protection group that has replicated snapshots and quickly provision its data to a host or cluster for DR or test/dev purposes or whatever.

A continuation of my 4.6 overview post.

replication

Continue reading “Using CLI and REST API to perform a FlashArray Protection Group Recovery”

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FlashRecover replication on the Pure Storage FlashArray

Last year Pure Storage introduced built-in replication on the FlashArray 400 series in our Purity Operating Environment version 4.0. Our replication offers a variety of benefits–they center around two things. First it is completely free. There is no license charge for replication itself or by capacity. If you need to have is two FlashArrays and a TCP/IP network between the two of them to replicate over. No additional hardware to buy for the array or license packages required (all of our software is always free). Secondly, it is very easy to use–from a green field array to replicating volumes takes maybe five minutes–in reality probably far less than that. So I wanted to take some time to review how our replication is setup and how it works. I went over replication briefly when we released Purity 4.0, but I think it is time for a closer look.

replication

Continue reading “FlashRecover replication on the Pure Storage FlashArray”

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PowerActions–The PowerCLI Plugin for the vSphere Web Client with UNMAP

The other day I stumbled upon a new VMware labs “Fling” called PowerActions. Basically it allows you to run in-context PowerShell/PowerCLI scripts right from within the vSphere Web Client. My mouth drooled at the promise of what this could deliver–and it really delivered! This is my new favorite tool by a landslide. See the announcement here from @alanrenouf http://www.virtu-al.net/2014/09/16/powercli-vsphere-web-clientannouncing-poweractions/. I’d recommend readin this first before you continue down with my post.

homepage

 

Continue reading “PowerActions–The PowerCLI Plugin for the vSphere Web Client with UNMAP”

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Using PowerCLI to correlate VMware VMFS and ScaleIO volume info

In my previous post I wrote about expanding a ScaleIO volume in a VMware environment. During that procedure there is a requirement  to correlate the EUI of the device hosting the VMFS to the ScaleIO identifier so that you can ensure that you actually expand the correct volume. Especially important in large environments. So I thought is there a way to script this correlation in a simple fashion to save you some work? Can the whole process be automated?

The answer to both is yes!

intro

Continue reading “Using PowerCLI to correlate VMware VMFS and ScaleIO volume info”

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Provisioning a new ScaleIO volume in a VMware environment

I recently posted about adding capacity to a ScaleIO storage pool, so the next logical step is provisioning a new volume. In this post, I am going to cover the straight-forward act of creating a new volume from a storage pool, mapping it to a ScaleIO Data Client (SDC) and then presenting it to the VMware cluster.

scaleio_arch

The first step is to assure we have enough space to configure a new volume of the size we desire. GUI or CLI will suffice:

gui_new_Capacity

Continue reading “Provisioning a new ScaleIO volume in a VMware environment”

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Using VMware vCenter Log Insight with Symmetrix VMAX

A bit of a long one here. At some point this might turn into a white paper (update: it is now). But for now…

Check out my post on the Pure Storage integration with Log Insight here!

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UPDATE: We have released a content pack that automatically configures dashboards and fields for the VMAX, it will save you a lot of work and the pack is free! Read about it here:

https://www.codyhosterman.com/2013/08/09/the-vmax-content-pack-for-vmware-vcenter-log-insight/

And updated here:

http://drewtonnesen.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/auditing-with-the-vmax-content-pack-v1-5-1/

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Earlier this summer VMware announced a new product called vCenter Log Insight which just went GA today. You can download it and try it out from here:

http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vcenter-log-insight/

insight

Continue reading “Using VMware vCenter Log Insight with Symmetrix VMAX”