Virtualization Adapted Adapting Business Processes for Virtual Infrastrcuture (and vice-versa)

2010/10/28

VAAI – Netapp

Filed under: virtualization — Tags: , , , , , — iben @ 15:21

New NetApp Virtual Storage Console 2.0 (VSC) integrates with VMware vSphere vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). VAAI provides additional interfaces to enable advanced capabilities developed by VMware vSphere workflows to integrate advanced storage capabilities from NetApp and other vendors.

http://media.netapp.com/documents/wp-7106.pdf

VSC consists of three distinct capabilities:

  • Storage Console is the foundation capability, providing storage discovery, health monitoring, capacity management, and storage configuration according to best practices.
  • Provisioning and Cloning (formerly NetApp Rapid Cloning Utility) provides end-to-end datastore management-provisioning, resizing, and deletion-and rapid, space-efficient VM server and desktop cloning, patching, and updating utilizing NetApp FlexClone technology.
  • Backup and Recovery (formerly NetApp SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure) automates data protection processes by enabling VMware admins to centrally manage backup and recovery of datastores and VMs without impacting guest performance, and to rapidly recover from backups at any level of granularity-datastore, VM, VMDK, or guest file.

Provisioning and Cloning

The provisioning and cloning capability of VSC 2.0 includes all the capabilities of previous versions of RCU, including the ability to efficiently clone new virtual machines from a baseline using NetApp FlexClone technology, manage and secure storage paths, configure deduplication and thin provisioining for storage efficiency, and resize datastores.

Another significant feature is the ability to redeploy existing virtual machines to bring them up to date with the latest patches and so on. Working from a baseline virtual machine that contains the same OS and applications as your deployed virtual machines plus the desired updates, this feature allows you to quickly reconstruct your existing VMDK files while keeping the unique configuration files for each VM intact. You can also choose to maintain current customization settings or apply new settings.

baselines_902x646.jpg

Figure – Redeploying your existing virtual machines from an updated baseline.

2009/05/19

Netapp Security Best Practices

Filed under: virtualization — Tags: , , — iben @ 09:58

Roles and RBAC on NetApp filers – http://www.netapp.com/us/library/technical-reports/tr-3358.htm or http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3358.pdf


2009/04/08

NetApp A-SIS DeDuplication for VMware ESX Virtual Machines using NFS

Filed under: virtualization — Tags: , , , , , , — iben @ 21:06

I just wanted to share with you all. We are using a small NetApp with NFS for hosting ESX 3.5 Update 4 and ESX 4 RC Virtual Machines.

MODEL: FAS2020-R5
SW VERSION: 7.2.4L1

We have about 9 Windows VMs each one using about 20 GB disk space. There are Active Directory Domain Controllers, Exchange 2003 and 2007 servers, Windows Administration and Application servers and workstations and even Solaris 10 and Windows 2008 64 bit machines.

# du -h vmnfs/
21G vmnfs/vhq/dc1
21G vmnfs/vhq/dc2
21G vmnfs/vhq/vc
21G vmnfs/vhq/wadmin
8.6G vmnfs/vhq/w2008
91G vmnfs/vhq
31G vmnfs/eng/solaris10
31G vmnfs/eng
21G vmnfs/W2K3template
21G vmnfs/SW-Node01
21G vmnfs/SW-Node02

If we include the snapshots there is 1.6TB of data available and being served up with only 21GB of disk space being used!

> df -h /vol/vmnfs
Filesystem total used avail capacity Mounted on
/vol/vmnfs/ 400GB 21GB 378GB 5% /vol/vmnfs/

> df -sh /vol/vmnfs
Filesystem used saved %saved
/vol/vmnfs/ 21GB 160GB 88%

> man nfs
The disk space savings generated by the shared space is
shown in the saved column. The space used plus the space
saved would be the total disk space usage, if no space was
shared. The %saved is calculated as [saved / (used + saved)].

Below is a list of the maximum volume size for each storage system:

Storage system (with nearstor_option enabled) Max. A-SIS deduplication volume size
FAS6070, FAS6080, N7800 16TB
FAS6030, FAS6040, N7600 10TB
FAS3070, N5600 6TB
NearStore R200 4TB
FAS3040, N5300 3TB
FAS3050, N5500 2TB
FAS3020, N5200 1TB
FAS2050 1TB
FAS2020 0.5TB

You can use MRTG to graph the disk space saved by A-SIS deduplication by volume name.

http://www.usenet-forums.com/mrtg/392860-mrtg-mrtg-ntap-probe-release-0-5-0-sis-disk-space-savingsreport-added.html

What has your experience been with using A-SIS from NetApp with ESX hosts over NFS?

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