"Remember kids, the only difference between Science and screwing around is writing it down" -Alex Jason (made popular by Adam Savage)
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).
Continue reading “Updated Best Practices document for VMware vSphere and Pure Storage FlashArrays”
Ah access controls…always popular–who doesn’t want everyone to be admins?! Well…um…admins don’t! In this post I am going to run through integrating Active Directory with the Pure Storage FlashArray. Then talk about how it works with the vSphere Web Client Plugin because I would be ashamed if I didn’t at least mention VMware once in a post.
Continue reading “Integrating Active Directory with the Pure Storage FlashArray”
One of the many VMware integration pieces that I have been impressed with since I’ve joined Pure Storage was the vSphere Web Client Plugin. While not only being one of the first storage vendor plugins released for the Web Client but also one of the simplest ones that I have used.
Continue reading “The Pure Storage Plugin for the vSphere Web Client”
As you might have read on my blog a few days ago, EMC released an updated version of the Virtual Storage Integrator tool for vSphere Web Client that supports direct provisioning and some management of VNX and VMAX storage. The previous version supported ViPR-only provisioning. If you didn’t see that post you can check it out here. Inevitably when a product involves cross-application and importantly cross-server integration many customers ask the question about what are the firewall requirements to get this thing to work? Let’s take a look.
Continue reading “Firewall requirements for EMC VSI 6.1 for vSphere Web Client”
Today the long-awaited update to Virtual Storage Integrator for the vSphere Web Client as been released! Six months or so ago EMC released the first iteration of the VSI Web Client (version 6.0) that supported provisioning of storage but only for environments enabled with ViPR. The latest release (version 6.1) now adds support for direct provisioning of storage from a VMAX or VNX array.
Continue reading “Virtual Storage Integrator for vSphere Web Client”
As some of you are aware, myself and my colleague Drew Tonnesen (@drewtonnesen) write and update an EMC document called Using EMC Symmetrix Storage in VMware vSphere Environments. This document is what we call a “TechBook”. Essentially a very detailed explanation of the best practices of using VMware with Symmetrix storage as well as overviews of integration points. If you are using Symmetrix and VMware this is a document you should use/know.
Continue reading “Updated Symmetrix with VMware TechBook for vSphere 5.5”
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”
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