"Remember kids, the only difference between Science and screwing around is writing it down" -Alex Jason (made popular by Adam Savage)
This is part 3 of this 7 part series. The series being:
Continue reading “VMFS Snapshots and the FlashArray Part III: Why might a resignature fail?”
This is part 2 of this 7 part series. The series being:
This is a topic that I have looked into years ago, mainly in ESX 4.0 when they changed how it handled unresolved VMFS volumes by allowing it to be done selectively. I have had some customers working with array-based snapshots recently and have run into issues that prevent them from mounting them, or mounting them in the way they want. The problem is that I forgot most of the caveats from that testing because it was way before I started this blog. And as that quote popularized by Mythbusters’ Adam Savage says:
So let’s write it down to so I can’t forget it all again. That show is on its last season right now. I will certainly miss it! But anyways, I digress. Force mounting. Don’t do it and here is why.
Continue reading “VMFS Snapshots and the FlashArray Part II: Why not Force Mount?”
NOTICE: This has expired and is no longer valid. Was only for Accelerate 2016. Thanks for coming!
Want to go to Pure//Accelerate 2016 and want to save a bunch of money off of the registration fee? I have an easy way! Save $200 off of the $595 dollar registration by simply Tweeting out a reason you want to go to Pure//Accelerate or why you are interested in or like the Pure Storage FlashArray! Make sure to include the following:
I will monitor the hashtag and provide a code, if I don’t get back to you in an hour or so, please ping me!
Example:
https://twitter.com/codyhosterman/status/689897711772905473
See a post overview here:
https://www.codyhosterman.com/2016/01/pureaccelerate-2016-conference/
If you do not have a Twitter handle and don’t want to open an account post a comment on this blog!
If you have questions comment or hit me up on Twitter at @codyhosterman
Heads up post. Coming up on March 14th and 15th is the inaugural Pure Storage Pure//Accelerate user conference taking place in San Francisco at Pier 48. So, a nice thing right off the bat is it is not at the ever-too-familiar Moscone Center.
UPDATE GET A $200 Discount Code here!
Quick post here. An updated version of the Pure Storage FlashArray Management Pack for VMware vRealize Operations (vROPs) has been posted to the VMware Solutions Exchange. No new features, but a variety of internal improvements and bug fixes. Please download the latest version here:
I recommend updating your pak to this version.
Notable issues fixed in build 1.0.126 (v1.0.1):
For a functional review, please check out this post here:
https://www.codyhosterman.com/2015/06/the-pure-storage-flasharray-vrops-adapter-v1/
A question came up in a today at work that I answered and I thought it might be a good topic for a quick blog post:
How do you change your connection key for FlashArray replication?
The question misunderstands what the connection key actually is, so let me explain.
When you connect one FlashArray to another, you need three pieces of information:
Continue reading “Understanding the FlashArray Replication Connection Key”
This is a post that is somewhat a long time coming as I did the work for this jeez basically in August 2015, but never got around to actually writing a blog post. Shame on me. Anyways, here it is!
Let us start with the requirements:
Some documentation links:
Pure Storage Community Commvault Page
FlashArray VMware & Commvault White Paper
Continue reading “Commvault IntelliSnap technology with VMware and the FlashArray”
UPDATE: This is a older post, but after working with vRO for longer and learning a lot more about it I decided I needed to re-write this post. Too much of it was not the best way to do things.
One of the projects that I have recently taken up is figuring out how to leverage vRealize Orchestrator to manage and execute operations on the FlashArray. Managing the FlashArray is rather easy of course, most of the work revolved around getting vRO up and running (note in vRO 7.0 all of this is much easier) and learning the product itself and brushing up on my Javascript. I think vRO is a pretty great tool, just takes some time to figure out as not everything in it is quite intuitive, but it seems well ahead of what is was when I last used it a few years back. Once you get the feel of how to leverage it though, you can see how powerful it could be. I’ve just scratched the surface of it and am already excited on what I can put together.
Continue reading “Understanding vRealize Orchestrator Authentication with the FlashArray REST API”
That time of the year again, VMworld Europe! My second one with Pure Storage and my 5th VMworld Europe (just finished my 8th VMworld US!). I am hoping I get to actually attend some sessions this time, was far too busy at the US show, but most likely won’t this time around either. Anyways, what’s in store for Pure Storage in Barcelona? Continue reading “Pure Storage at VMworld Europe 2015”
One of the things in vSphere 6.0 that I really wanted to look at was the Instant Clone functionality that was included in the release. Instant Clone (AKA Project Fargo AKA VMFork) is the ability to essentially instantly create new virtual machines that are identical copies of a running parent VM by sharing the current memory and virtual disk files of that parent. The “forked” VMs are basically resumed copies of a stunned parent and the disk write/memory changes are committed down to delta VMDKs or delta memory pages while the children continue to read from any unchanged data in the parent VMDKs.
Plenty of other people have gone into more detail on this and the architecture, so instead of me re-writing all of this check out this post from Duncan Epping:
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2014/10/07/project-fargo-aka-vmfork-what-is-it/
Or Google it.
Cool stuff. So I plan on doing a few different posts on this, tons of thoughts how this could be used, this first post though will focus on just simply setting it up. Continue reading “VMFork, InstantClone, Project Fargo Oh My! Part 1: Walkthrough”