NetApp - Storage Nuts & Bolts

NetApp Virtual Storage Console (VSC) for ESX ready for Download

The VSC plugin, previewed here, provides NetApp storage visibility to the VMware administrator, displaying:

• The amount of storage available / used in the datastore / LUN / Volume / Aggregate that the datastore is contained in
• The amount of savings recognized by NetApp’s Deduplication technology
• The overall health and status of the controller
• The ability to optimize VMware hosts for connectivity to NetApp storage (Host timeouts, path settings, etc..)

Summary of supported functionality in the 1.0 release includes:

• Support for ESX 4.0 and ESXi 4.0 hosts.
• Limited support for ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 hosts (listed and details provided, but setting not set – requires using EHU for host settings)
• Viewing the status of storage controllers from a SAN (FC, iSCSI) perspective.
• Viewing the status of storage controllers from a NAS (NFS) perspective.
• Viewing the status of ESX hosts, including ESX version and overall status.
• Checking at a glance whether the following are configured correctly, and if not, automatically setting the correct values without needing to access the ESX console. You can select multiple ESX hosts and update settings for all hosts with a single command.
• Storage adapter timeouts
• Multipathing settings
• NFS settings
• Collecting diagnostic information from the ESX hosts, storage controllers, and Fibre Channel switches.
• Tools to identify and correct misaligned disk partitions (MBR Tools)
• Tools to set proper guest operating system disk timeout values

NetApp FAS series customers can download the VSC from the NOW site today.

For IBM N-Series customers, the IBM branded version will be distributed directly from IBM. I do not know, whether IBM has published it yet.

 

Technorati Tags: NetApp Virtual Storage Console,ESX ServerHost Utilities

ESXi - mbrscan/mbralign

As most of you know the mbrscan/mbralign utilities NetApp provides as part of the NetApp Host Utilities Kit for ESX server 5.1 require an ESX console. For those with ESXi, and depending on the protocol deployed, you may or may not be able to leverage these tools.

In particular, for those who are running NFS, there is a simple workaround which I will describe below. 

Requirements:

In order to align partitions you will need the following:

1) mbrscan/mbralign

2) Linux Guest

Steps:

1) Export and Mount the NFS volume/datastore directly onto the Linux Guest

# mkdir /nfs_datastore

# mount IP_adress_of_NFS_Server:/vol/nfs_datastore  /nfs_datastore

2) Download mbrscan/mbraling into some directory in the Linux Guest. I use /sbin but /usr/sbin is probably a better choice for non-OS binaries/utilities.

 

Mbrscan

Before you proceed with this step, you will need to make sure that either, your VMs have VMware Snapshots, or they are powered-off, otherwise mbrscan will fail.

Single VM

If you'd like to scan a single VM run:

# /usr/sbin/mbrscan <path to the flat.vmdk>

Multiple VMs

If you have a lot of VMs in the Datastore use "find" which will scan the entire datastore and will report the alignment status of all the vmkds for each VM present.

# find /nfs_datastore -name "*-flat.vmdk" -maxdepth 3 -exec /usr/sbin/mbrscan {}";"

Mbralign

Upon detecting which VMs, or rather vmdks, require partition alignment, you can use mbralign to address the issue.

Make sure you have enough space in the datastore to accommodate another copy of the target flat.vmdk and .vmdk files, because prior to partition alignment mbralign will make backup copies of these files.  Additionally, the target VM needs to be powered off and you can't have a VMware snapshot associated with it during this process.

However, if you do happen to have a VMware snapshot, the tool is intelligent enough to detect it and it will throw an error:

root@rhel1 WinXp2]# /sbin/mbralign WinXp2-flat.vmdk

Error: WinXp2.vmdk has a snapshot (WinXp2-000001.vmdk).  All snapshots must be removed before using this tool.

Unlike mbrscan, mbralign, works on a single vmdk at a time so:

# /usr/sbin/mbralign <path to the flat.vmdk>

After the process completes, power-up your vm and make sure everything is functioning properly. Then, make sure to remove the backup files.

Unmount

Once everything is functioning properly, remember to unmount the NFS datastore from the Linux Guest.

# cd /

# umount /nfs_datastore

Pretty simple stuff.

Technorati Tags: ESXi,mbrscan,mbralign

vSphere: Upgrading from non-ALUA to ALUA

Since vSphere provides ALUA support and enables Round-Robin I/O via the default PSP, here are the steps to migrate from a non-ALUA to an ALUA configuration and enabe the Round-Robin algorithm using a NetApp disk array.

1) Make sure you're running a supported  ONTAP version such as any version above 7.3.1

FAS2020A> version
NetApp Release 7.3.1.1: Mon Apr 20 22:58:46 PDT 2009

2) Enable the ALUA flag on the ESX igroups on each NetApp controller

FAS2020A> igroup show -v vmesx_b
    vmesx_b (FCP):
        OS Type: vmware
        Member: 21:00:00:1b:32:10:27:3d (logged in on: vtic, 0b)
        Member: 21:01:00:1b:32:30:27:3d (logged in on: vtic, 0a)
        ALUA: No

FAS2020A> igroup set vmesx_b alua yes

FAS2020A> igroup show -v vmesx_b
    vmesx_b (FCP):
        OS Type: vmware
        Member: 21:00:00:1b:32:10:27:3d (logged in on: vtic, 0b)
        Member: 21:01:00:1b:32:30:27:3d (logged in on: vtic, 0a)
        ALUA: Yes

3) VMotion the VMs to another host in the Cluster and reboot the ESX host

4) After the Reboot, the SATP will change to VMW_SATP_ALUA and the PSP to VMW_PSP_MRU.

5) You will need to change the PSP to VMW_PSP_RR. There are 2 options

a) With the NetApp ESX Host Utilities Kit 5.1

  1a) #/opt/netapp/santools/config_mpath -m 

      -a CtlrA:username:password -a CtlrB:username:password

  2a)  You will get a message to Reboot the host 

b) Manually

  1a) # esxcli nmp satp setdefaultpsp --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA 

       --psp VMW_PSP_RR

  2a) Reboot

6) On the ESX Host verify the new setting per device

    # esxcli nmp device 

naa.60a9800050334b356b4a51312f417541
    Device Display Name: NETAPP Fibre Channel Disk (naa.60a9800050334b356b4a51312f417541)
    Storage Array Type: VMW_SATP_ALUA
    Storage Array Type Device Config: {implicit_support=on;explicit_support=off;explicit_allow=on;alua_followover=on;{TPG_id=2,TPG_state=AO}{TPG_id=3,TPG_state=ANO}}
    Path Selection Policy: VMW_PSP_RR
    Path Selection Policy Device Config: {policy=rr,iops=1000,bytes=10485760,useANO=0;lastPathIndex=3: NumIOsPending=0,numBytesPending=0}
    Working Paths: vmhba2:C0:T2:L1, vmhba1:C0:T2:L1

Technorati Tags: VSphere Multipathing,NetApp,PSP,SATP

Virtual Storage Console

Back in March, I posted a blog and a video that was shown at VMworld Europe 2009 regarding the upcoming vCenter Host Utilities Kit. Since then I've gotten several inquires about it.  So let me dig a little deeper and provide a bit more insight.

First of all, the ESX Host Utilities Kit has been renamed to Virtual Storage Console (VCS). In fact, the last standalone ESX Host Utilities Kit that supports vSphere is the 5.1 version that's already posted on the NOW site. The next release will be the VSC 1.0.

UPDATE 09/02/2009: Although the VSC 1.0 has been formally announced by NetApp it is NOT yet available for download from NOW. However, it is getting ready for release but, again, I will not be able to publicly state release dates given it is NDA.

What is it?

VSC is NetApp specific software that enables administrators to manage and monitor NetApp specific storage side attributes of ESX-ESXi hosts. VSC functions as a plugin to vCenter and uses NetApp specific APIs to set and retrieve information from the array .

By default VSC uses SSL and SSL signed certificates. Furthermore any array credentials and passwords are stored using 128bit encryption.

What does it do? 

VSC adds a tab into vCenter and enables the following:

• View Status of Storage Controllers
• View Status of physical hosts, including versions and overall status

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

•   Check for the proper configuration of ESX settings as it applies to:
• • Multipathing Settings
  • NFS timeouts
  • HBA driver timeouts
• Provide the ability to set the appropriate to set the appropriate timeouts on multiple ESX hosts simultaneously with a single mouse click 

 

• Launch FilerView from within VSC  for storage provisioning

 

• Provides access to mbrtools (mbrscan, mbralign, mbrcreate) to identify and correct partition alignment issues

 

• Ability to set credentials to access storage controllers
• Ability to collect diagnostics from the ESX hosts, FC switches and Storage controllers

• Capacity Reports on:
  • Datastore
  • LUN
  • Volume
  • Aggregate
• Deduplication Reports
  • Deduplication State
  • Deduplication Status
  • Space Savings
• LUN Status
  • Pathname
  • NAA ID
  • Status - Online/Offline
  • Protocol
  • ALUA - Enable/Disable

Requirements:

• DataONTAP 7.3.1.1 or later
• VCenter Server 4.0
• ESX/ESXi 4.0

How about ESX 3.5?

In order to use all of the VSC functionality, ESX 4.0 is needed and vCenter 4.0. However, at a minimum, vCenter 4.0 is required. ESX 3.5 hosts will be discovered however the appropriate timeouts can not be modified from within the console.

VSC Status

VSC is currently under Beta and we believe we'll have it available as soon as the Beta process is complete. I can not comment any further on this without getting into NDA specifics. 

Technorati Tags: NetApp Virtual Storage Console,VMWare

mbraling in ESX Host Utilities 5.1

First of all, I'd like to apologize since I haven't posted in over a month but it's been a pretty tough couple of months for me and my family.

My mother was diagnosed with NHL lymphoma on April 18 and then within 30 days, she passed away. Very rapid and shocking developments that forced me to fly back and forth some 8,000 miles away. What makes it even harder was the fact that she was only 69 years old. 

On a happier note, over the past 4-5 mos I've gotten more that 40 requests from partners and customers asking for access to the mbralign utility. For those who don't know what it does, you may want to take a look at  this post.

As of May 21, 2009, NetApp released a new version of the ESX Host Utilities (HUK), 5.1, which now contains both the mbrscan and mbraling utilities. Both utilities are now fully supported by NetApp and documentation is provided as part of the ESX HUK 5.1 Install and Configuration Guide available in the Download section of the Now Site

New Additions to the HUK

Support for vSphere.

Support for role-based access control (RBAC) user names so that root access to storage controllers is not required.

The mbralign program that fixes misaligned VMDK partitions.

New timeout values added to config_hba to support software iSCSI initiators using 10 Gb Ethernet. 

Updated SNIA API libraries for Emulex and QLogic adapters.

An -expert option for the Host Utilities install command that installs the Host Utilities components but does not set timeouts or paths.

 

Technorati Tags: NetApp Host Utilities,VMware VDI,vSphere

NetApp ESX Host Utilities vCenter Plugin

Last week we showed a NetApp demo at VMworld Europe of the NetApp ESX Host Utilities Kit (HUK) running as a vCenter Plugin.

Thus far, the Host Utilities, including the current 5.0R2 release needed to be installed at the console of each ESX host. With the 6.0 release this will changes and a single vCenter plugin instance will manage all the ESX hosts in the Datacenter from a centralized management location.

It will support both ESX and ESXi implementations as well as all protocols, FC, iSCSI, FCoE, NFS and you will be able to set all the necessary parameters for every ESX host in the cluster regardless of protocol implementation.

All wizards, and panels have similar look at feel to vCenter. Access to NetApp Arrays is provided via NetApp Zephyr APIs (ZAPI) over SSL  but if SSL has not been configured, or it's not required, a non-secure authentication method is available.

Additionally, you will be able to view the configuration details such as like Total capacity, Total used, Total allocated, System status,  IP information, and alerts that pertain to possible pathing problems, or any misconfigured driver parameters that NetApp recommends when connecting to ESX hosts. You will be able to address any of these issues from vCenter with the use of the Plugin.

In fact, we've demo the upcoming ESX Host Utilities Kit 6.0 at VMworld Europe last week. I apologize for the absence of sound on the video however, the Callouts makes it easy to follow.

The release of the new ESX Host Utilities Kit is dependent upon the official release of VMware's vSphere.