Tag: VMware

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Setting up Software iSCSI Multipathing with Distributed vSwitches with the vSphere Web Client

Sorry the title is a bit of a mouthful.

I have written some posts on iSCSI in the past, around setup:

Setting up iSCSI with VMware ESXi and the FlashArray

Configuring iSCSI CHAP in VMware with the FlashArray

Another look at ESXi iSCSI Multipathing (or a Lack Thereof)

These have been on various parts, but primarily the setup around standard vSwitches, which generally, in at least in larger environments, is not the norm. Distributed vSwitches are. I have seen a few posts on doing this with the old C# client, but not the vSphere Web Client. Reference those posts here:

http://everything-virtual.com/installing-the-home-lab/installing-the-home-lab-creating-and-configuring-an-iscsi-distributed-switch-for-vmware-multipathing/

https://www.yelof.com/2011/07/13/dr-iscsi-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-virtual-distributed-switches-on-vsphere-v5/

So with the amount of questions I have received on it, it is probably worth putting pen to paper on it. Nothing profound here, basically a walkthrough.

This is of course assuming you are doing port binding. If you are not, then just the standard software iSCSI setup (as described in the above 1st post) is needed.

Continue reading “Setting up Software iSCSI Multipathing with Distributed vSwitches with the vSphere Web Client”

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Importing a VVol Snapshot with PowerCLI

This is all very exciting for me, finally able to really start blogging about VVols in earnest. As you may or may not be aware we (Pure Storage) currently have our VVol implementation in beta. So I can finally start digging into some VVol work. Not going to get into implementation details just yet, but instead a quick walkthrough of importing a VVol snapshot with PowerCLI.

First, enjoy a poorly photoshopped Back To the Future reference:

Continue reading “Importing a VVol Snapshot with PowerCLI”

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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

Continue reading “Documentation Update, Best Practices and vRealize”

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Understanding VMware ESXi Queuing and the FlashArray

So I am in the middle of updating my best practices guide for vSphere on FlashArray and one of the topics I am looking into providing better guidance around is ESXi queue management. This breaks down to a few things:

  • Array volume queue depth limit
  • Datastore queue depth limit
  • Virtual Machine vSCSI Adapter queue depth limit
  • Virtual Disk queue depth limit

I have had more than a few questions lately about handling this–either just general queries or performance escalations. And generally from what I have found it comes down to fundamental understanding of how ESXi queuing works. And how the FlashArray plays with it. So I put a blog post together of a use case and walking through solving a performance problem. Explaining concepts along the way.

Please note:

  • This is a simple example to explain how queuing works in ESXi
  • Mileage will vary depending on your workload and configuration
  • This workload is targeted specifically to make relationships easier to understand
  • PLEASE do not make changes in your environment at least until you read my conclusion at the end. And frankly not without direct guidance from VMware support.

I am sorry, this is a long one. But hopefully informative!

If you prefer a video, here is my 1 hr VMworld session that goes into depth on what I write below:

Continue reading “Understanding VMware ESXi Queuing and the FlashArray”

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Introducing the FlashArray Plugin for vRealize Orchestrator v1.0

This is a blog I have been waiting a long time to write. The past year and a half of my work has heavily focused on improving and building our VMware vRealize integration at Pure Storage. Log Insight and Operations Manager integration already existed (analytics etc.), so the next logical step is actually provisioning (orchestration). So vRealize Orchestrator and Automation. The first step I took was using the built-in REST plugin in vRO to build a workflow package that customers could use to actually manage the FlashArray without much work on their own part inside of vRO.

I started to realize that a workflow package was not enough. Especially when it comes to vRA Anything-As-A-Service integration. A big part of what is missing from a workflow package is custom objects and inventory management. Something that a plugin can easily achieve. So, without further ado–please meet the FlashArray vRO plugin! Downloadable at the VMware Solution Exchange and fully certified by VMware and Pure Storage:

FlashArray vRO Download

My vRO plugin white paper Continue reading “Introducing the FlashArray Plugin for vRealize Orchestrator v1.0”

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PowerShell GUI VMware and FlashArray Storage Management Tool

Here is my storage manager for the FlashArray and VMware. Based on PowerCLI, but uses a front end GUI. Enjoy!

NOTICE THIS HAS BEEN DEPRECATED IN FAVOR OF THE POWERSHELL MODULE HERE:
https://www.codyhosterman.com/scripts-and-tools/pure-storage-powershell-vmware-module/

There are a variety of methods of managing VMware objects (VMFS volumes, VMs, VMDKs and RDMs) and the underlying snapshots to recovery or clone them. But often I get asked if I have a PowerShell (PowerCLI) script to do one or all of them. I have a bunch on my GitHub, but I decided a week or so ago to put something a bit more robust together. At first I was making it a standard interactive script, but it morphed into a GUI, using combo-boxes etc:

Continue reading “PowerShell GUI VMware and FlashArray Storage Management Tool”

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VMFS Snapshots and the FlashArray Part VI: Mounting a FlashArray VMFS Snapshot

This is part 6 of this 8 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:

  1. Mounting an unresolved VMFS
  2. Why not force mount?
  3. Why might a VMFS resignature operation fail?
  4. How to correlate a VMFS and a FlashArray volume
  5. How to snapshot a VMFS on the FlashArray
  6. How to mount a VMFS FlashArray snapshot
  7. Restoring a single VM from a FlashArray snapshot

Using vCenter and our Web Client plugin, recovering a snapshot is a pretty straight forward process. So the pre-requisite here is having our Web Client plugin installed and configured. Info on that here. If you want to know the manual steps, scroll down further and the whole process is described in detail that does not use the plugin–just our GUI and vCenter. Continue reading “VMFS Snapshots and the FlashArray Part VI: Mounting a FlashArray VMFS Snapshot”

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Issue with Manual VMFS-6 UNMAP and Block Count

So vSphere 6.5 introduced VMFS-6 which came with the highly-desired automatic UNMAP. Yay! But some users still might need to run manual UNMAP on it for some reason. Immediate reasons that come to mind are:

  • They disabled automatic UNMAP on the VMFS for some reason
  • They need to get space back quickly and don’t have time to wait

When you run manual UNMAP one of the options you can specify is the block count. The UNMAP process since 5.5 iterates through the VMFS, by issuing reclaim to a small part of the VMFS, one at a time, until UNMAP has been issued to all of the free space. The block count dictates how big that segment is. By default ESXi will use 200 blocks (which is 200 MB). Continue reading “Issue with Manual VMFS-6 UNMAP and Block Count”