This is a topic that I get asked about a lot and a recent internal email thread prompted me to write a post about it. On a Symmetrix array if you want a volume larger than 240 GB you need to create a metavolume. When creating a metavolume you have two configuration choices; concatenated or striped. There are many benefits to striped over concatenated (all of them performance-related) but one disadvantage. Due to their nature striped metavolumes are harder to expand. Until a few years ago thin striped metas couldn’t even be expanded online. So the decision was easy–do you think you will need to expand or not. In Enginuity 5875 and Solutions Enabler online expansion of striped metavolumes was allowed.
The VMAX Content Pack for VMware vCenter Log Insight
Well, as I (Drew Tonnesen, [email protected]) mentioned I would soon be publishing a VMAX Content Pack for Log Insight and I have. It can be found here in the VMware Cloud Marketplace:
https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/products/emc-vmax-content-pack
All the information that you need to use the VMAX content pack is included in the download so I’ll keep this blog entry short. There is also a demo you can view to get an overview of the capabilities of the content pack.
Continue reading “The VMAX Content Pack for VMware vCenter Log Insight”
Request for input: SRDF SRA Techbook for VMware SRM
As you may or may not be aware, I am the sole author of the SRDF Storage Replication Adapter for VMware Site Recovery Manager Techbook. The Techbook for those of you who haven’t used it or aren’t aware of EMC Techbooks is a implementation guide for SRDF with SRM. Best practices, how-to, hints, etc.
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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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Scripting ESI PowerShell cmdlets and VMware
EMC offers a variety of tools to manage/enhance your virtual or physical environments–some free, some licensed. In most cases when you think of EMC tools for VMware one conjures up the free Virtual Storage Integrator which is more commonly referred to as VSI.
VSI is a great tool and continues to be improved through each version and allows you to provision storage, manage pathing, configure SRM etc. The one thing it does not have is a way to automate these tasks through an API or CLI. This is where another product comes in–one that many do not associate with VMware. The EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) is a lot of times seen as the Microsoft version of VSI–but that isn’t really true at all. While it might have started out that way and does indeed support Hyper-V and has a ton of Microsoft-specific features it is really the heterogeneous storage integrator. Importantly it has a very handy and powerful feature–PowerShell cmdlets.
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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.
Continue reading “Point-in-time test recovery with VSI RecoverPoint Management and VMware SRM”
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/
Continue reading “Using VMware vCenter Log Insight with Symmetrix VMAX”
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
Point-in-time test recovery with SRDF and VMware SRM
As many are probably aware, RecoverPoint 4.0 recently released support for Point-In-Time test recovery and recovery for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager. In conjunction with the RP SRA and the Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) users can select a PiT in the past instead of automatically being forced to use the latest copy.
Since this came out (and many times prior) I have been asked can we do this with the SRDF SRA and TimeFinder along with VMware SRM? The answer is yes! The process though is somewhat different of course. By far this question is mostly targeted for test recovery only, as most conversely prefer up-to-date images when they actually failover. So this post will focus on test recovery. Continue reading “Point-in-time test recovery with SRDF and VMware SRM”
Migrating a Raw Device Mapping with Federated Live Migration
Migrating a virtual machine that uses 100% virtual disks is a simple task due to VMware Storage vMotion but migrating a VM that uses Raw Device Mappings from one array to another is somewhat trickier. There are options to convert a RDM into a virtual disk but that might not be feasible for applications that still require RDMs to be supported. Other options are host based mechanisms/in-guest mechanisms to copy the data from one device to another. That option sometimes can be complex and requires special drivers or even possibly downtime to fully finish the transition. To solve this issue for physical hosts, EMC introduced for the Symmetrix a feature called Federated Live Migration.
Federated Live Migration (FLM) allows the migration of a device from one Symmetrix array to another Symmetrix array without any downtime to the host and also does not affect the SCSI inquiry information of the original source device. Therefore, even though the device is now residing on a completely different Symmetrix array the host is none the wiser. FLM leverages Open Replicator functionality to migrate the data so it has some SAN requirements–the source array must be zoned to the target array. A FLM setup looks like the image below:
Continue reading “Migrating a Raw Device Mapping with Federated Live Migration”