VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘netapp’

After talking with NetApp at their booth on the VMworld 2009 Solutions Exchange floor I came to the conclusion that the Rapid Cloning Utility (RCU) does way more for VDI implementations then the tool’s name implies. Available for free to customers that already own NetApp’s file and volume cloning  features, RCU can create automated and customized virtual desktops more quickly and with better storage efficiency while still integrating the administrative convenience and control available in vCenter and VMware View. RCU has been elevated in my mind as a “must use” tool for VDI implementation using NetApp storage.

I went to their booth with a purpose. It was obvious to me that RCU would automate the mass creation of virtual desktops by cloning a volume that contained a template desktop image. Although that’s a great time saver available when you deploy a solution based on NetApp storage,
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vSphere has introduced several new features for storage performance enhancement. Most of the new features build on already accepted vSwitch standards and designs. An important example is the new Round Robin MPIO path policy for VMFS LUNs. However, based on what is the common vSwitch design today, the new iSCSI configuration needed for Round Robin multi-pathing may cause some admins to look twice.

I was motivated to write this post by 2 recently published storage vendor documents that both recommend the same basic iSCSI vSwitch with Round Robin MPIO configuration: create a single iSCSI vSwitch, assign 2 physical NICs, and then create as many as 8 VMKernel Portgroups each with their own ip address. The documents I am referring to are:

• NetApp TR-3749 – NetApp and VMware vSphere Storage Best Practices http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3749.pdf
• Dell Equallogic CONFIGURING VMWARE VSPHERE SOFTWARE ISCSI WITH DELL EQUALLOGIC PS SERIES STORAGE – http://www.equallogic.com/resourcecenter/assetview.aspx?id=8453

To give a visual of the recommended configuration (in case you are still doing a double take) here are screen shots of the configured vSwitch from: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s inevitable. If you are a virtual infrastructure administrator, architect, or blogger you will eventually talk about VMware VMFS and virtual disk alignment. I’m not going to try to explain the concepts in this post. My goal is to discuss whether to align VMware virtual disks (VMDKs) and what options are available for performing the alignment.

Bottom line is that if you are deploying new VMs from a template you should do so from an aligned master, but VMs created from physical to virtual migrations (P2Vs) present some practical challenges and don’t have to be treated as urgently.

Recommendations

First things first. My interpretation of VMware’s stance on alignment is that they do not advocate aligning every P2V-ed VM to the VMFS due to the administrative effort, disk space requirements, potential VM down time, and in most cases a nominal VM performance increase. On the other hand, it is crystal clear that VMware does recommend always formatting VMFS LUNs with the VI Client and always taking the time to align Gold Image templates so new servers deployed will automatically be aligned.

For reference here’s VMware’s PDF on the topic:

I’ll admit my perspective as a consultant may be a bit different than the normal VI admin. After all, I am mostly involved in the Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of companies are using NFS as the preferred protocol to shared storage for VMware Virtual Infrastructure. In my personal experience, The administrative options and convenience of NFS is unmatched, and the virtual machine (VM) performance is surprising.

For example, I recently helped migrate a company from ESX 2.X to new a installation of VI 3.5. Since the client did not have any additional space available on their fiber channel (FC) SAN for a new VMFS3 volume, we temporarily used a Windows Server 2003 R2 NFS share to host 2 dozen VMs until the existing FC volumes could be rebuilt and reconnected. The customer actually ran their production environment for 2 weeks in this configuration and was experiencing better performance. Newer hardware for the ESX hosts also contributed to this increase, but the point is that the NFS storage was not a bottleneck.

For those that are considering NFS, I was recently forwarded a list of links that provide sound arguments and testimonials on the unique advantages of using NFS with VMware. Although the published date of some of the posts that are referenced might be a bit dated, the content is still valid. Here is the list with quotes from some of the posts, but be sure to read the all in full for more information. Read the rest of this entry »

I received notice that NetApp will be hosting an on-line community event focused on VDI this week. This post is just a quick attempt to encourage all VM /ETC readers to check it out. From what I have seen so far NetApp is providing access to VDI tools, documents, and support that would normally only be available through a NetApp NOW account available only to customers and partners.

It looks like NetApp may be experimenting with establishing a public community similar to VMware’s VMTN Communities or VMworld.com, and I am excited to see it!

The rest of this post is a copy of the email invitation I received explaining the event. Read the rest of this entry »

Nick Triantos of NetApp has posted some preview vSphere vStorage integration information about NetApp’s ESX Host Utilities. The next version of Host utilities will be available as a plugin for vCenter and will allow the centralized configuration and monitoring of all managed ESX hosts. The current version 5.0 requires running a acript on each ESX host for installation and utilities configuration. As Nick explains on his Storage Nuts and Bolts Blog:

“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.”

If you’ve implemented NetApp filers for VMware Virtual Infrastructure then you know the importance of the NetApp Host Utilities. You can also recognize the immediate benefit of a centralized distribution and configuration feature. Installing the utilities on all your ESX hosts is not difficult, but it certainly is tedious and time consuming. The monitoring and status information in vCenter is “icing on the cake” for the Vmware admin because currently this information is only available via the NetApp Filer management interface.

Nick provides a video demonstration apparently from the VMware Europe 2009 booth in Cannes, France last week. The video is without sound but does provide some call out text to explain features and provide some narration. The video gets a little too fast for me in spots so I’ve taken some notes and listed them below. Read the rest of this entry »

For my project, 5 TB of raw disk space on a NetApp FAS3020 resulted in roughly 2.5 TB of usable NFS volumes. Sacrificing half the storage as overhead (for both ESX and NetApp) might seem like a big hit to take at first, but when you consider what you are able to do in the remaining useable space it can change your opinion. In my recent experience, after combining the features of Flexclones, VirtualCenter (VC) templates, deduplication, and NFS the remaining 2.5 TB enabled a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) storage solution for over 80 virtual machines (VMs). Your results may vary, but the concepts discussed in this post provide for a scalable and flexible design.

Although this post discusses NetApp, I imagine any NFS filer with similar features could be used in this same fashion. I’m curious for feedback on not only this solution, but the pros and cons of other vendor’s features in a similar scenario.

Here’s a logical diagram illustrating a NFS volume strategy followed by some high level details of each volume. Read the rest of this entry »