Tag: best practices

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Documentation Update, Best Practices and vRealize

So a few updates. I just updated my vSphere Best Practices guide and it can be found here:

Download Best Practices Guide PDF

I normally do not create a blog post about updating the guide, but this one was a major overhaul and I think is worth mentioning. Furthermore, there are a few documents I have written and published that I want to mention.

  1. FlashArray Plugin for vRealize Orchestrator User Guide
  2. Implementing FlashArray in a vRealize Private Cloud

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FlashArray VMware Best Practices PowerCLI Scripts

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:

  1. Script to check and set best practices. Download here:
  2. Script to just check best practices, and lists issues in a report. Download here.

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.

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FlashArray and VMware documentation update for vSphere 6

I have completed updates for two of my main VMware vSphere documents for the Pure Storage FlashArray. These include the standard best practices document and the white paper explaining VAAI in detail and how it works on the FlashArray.

vmwarebpvaai

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Practices Document Link

VAAI White Paper Link

The best practices document has mainly been updated with information that this blog has shown in the past couple of months. Notably:

  • vSphere 6 updates, support for Web Client Plugin versions, changes in virtual disk recommendations, in-guest UNMAP support, etc
  • VMFS UNMAP changes when it comes to best practice recommendations
  • vRealize Operations Management Pack
  • EFI-enabled VMs and Disk.DiskMaxIOSize

In the VAAI document, it is a similar update:

  • vSphere 6 changes, mainly focused on the thin virtual disk XCOPY enhancements
  • UNMAP changes, block counts, performance and in-guest support (EnableBlockDelete)

Both documents are also updated for FlashArray//m, but it is mainly a cosmetic change as nothing really changes for the VMware environment, no recommendations are changed. Of course the documents are also cleaned up and re-arranged to be more reader friendly with a semi-new format as well.

Important! If you have old versions of these documents, delete them! These get updated frequently (a few times a year at least) and these changes can be important. When needing to refer to the guides, please check back to the Pure Storage community for the latest version.

Enjoy! As always feedback on these documents is ALWAYS welcome.

 

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Setting FlashArray Multipathing Best Practices with ESXi Host Profiles

If my past posts are any indicator, there are a million ways to set/change/manage ESXi settings. Direct configuration (CLI or GUI) PowerCLI etc. One option I often overlook is host profiles. This has came up a few times in the past month so I thought I would visit this and do a quick walkthrough on configuring Pure Storage FlashArray multipathing best practices with host profiles.

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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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Updated Best Practices document for VMware vSphere and Pure Storage FlashArrays

Heyo–quick post here. One of my first focuses since joining Pure Storage was to update their best practices guide for VMware vSphere. It’s finally out! Updates include a lot of the stuff that I have posted on this blog as of late (essentially whatever I worked on that day went also directly here–I won’t always be this prolific).

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