I was at two customer sites recently deploying VNXe Gen1 (VNXe3150) and VNXe Gen2 (VNXe3200) systems. On both occasions there was an element of surprise from the customer about provisioning capabilities of these systems to create NFS File Systems on the VNXe systems and then automatically add the VMware NFS datastores to appropriate ESXi hosts. The surprise was the tight integration with EMC VNXe and VMware vSphere making the provisioning process a quick, easy and painless process. Particularly the conversation around the VNXe3200 led me to identify some other great integrations between VMware VNXe3200 and VMware vSphere. This post will identify these integration points and outline how to configure them. Without further ado…
VMware Array Integration (VAI)
VAI is an end to end discovery of VMware environments from within the VNXe system console. VNXe3200 uses VAI to import and view VMware Virtual Centers, ESXi servers, virtual machines, and VM disks. Related ESXi hosts can be automatically registered by adding the vCenter or by entering IP address of individual ESXi hosts.
As indicated above the polling process to ESXi information is done in the background and you can also poll a host or all hosts at any time upon user request. As seen below all relevant VM info can be viewed which can be very useful indeed.
The VNXe3200 system can also create and monitor VMware NFS/VMFS datastores from within Unisphere for VNXe and VNXe CLI using VAI. Below is an example ESXi command that can be executed to achieve creating a 2TB NFS Datastore.
uemcli -d 10.244.221.76 -u admin -p Password123# /stor/prov/vmware/nfs create -name NFSSQLData01 -descr “SQL VMs” -server Nas01 -pool performance -size 2TB
The Datastore creation can be verified as follows;
uemcli -d 10.244.221.76 -u admin -p Password123# /stor/prov/vmware/nfs -id NFSSQLData01 show
The screenshots above were taken utilising the VNXe3200 demo tool which is freely available to download from ECN (EMC Community Network) site.
VMware vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI)
VAAI was brought about to improve host utilisation by offloading storage related tasks that would be more efficiently managed by the storage system than the ESXi host. The ESXi host hands off to the Storage Processor to complete the tasks which in turn acknowledges to the host when the task is complete. The following tasks (which are referred to as VAAI primitives) can be offloaded;
Block
- Fully Copy or Hardware-Assisted Move
- Block Zero or Hardware-Assisted Zeroing
- Atomic Test and Set (ATS) or Hardware-Assisted Locking
- Thin Provisioning (Dead Space Reclamation)
NAS
- Fast Copy
- Snap-of-Snap
- Extended Statistics
- Reserve Space
For VNXe3200 block the VAAI primitives are available by default on the ESXi host and no plug-in is required. You can verify VAAI is enabled as seen below
vSphere Client:
1. In the vSphere Client inventory panel, click the host.
2. Click the Configuration tab, then click Advanced Settings under Software.
3. Check that these options are set to 1 (enabled):
DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedMove
DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedInit
VMFS3.HardwareAcceleratedLocking
ESXi vCLI:
On the other hand the VAAI Plugin for file is not installed by default. It must be downloaded from EMC Support and then installed.
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Download
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Installing
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After you uncompress the zip file, the VAAI Plug-in is available for installation.
- On the Virtual Center host, import the EMCNasVAAI plugin.zip bundle by using VMware Update Manager (VUM) 6.0 or 5.5 release.
- Create and attach the baseline on VUM by selecting the baseline type as Host Extension.
- Proceed to remediate the bundle on ESXi 6.0 or ESXi 5.5 host.
- Run esxcli software vib list | grep “EMC” command on the ESXi 6.0 or ESXi 5.5 host to ensure the EMCNasPlugin is installed after the reboot.
VMware Storage Integrator (VSI)
VSI enables the VMware vSphere admin from within the Web Client to manage and maintain the VNXe3200 for the following funtions
- Viewing VNXe3200 Storage Property details
- Provisioning of VNXe3200 storage for associated NFS Datastores, VMFS Datastores or RDMs
From high level
- Download the Storage Integration service vApp ovf file
- Deploy the VSI vAPP
- Register the VSI Plug-In
- Registering the Storage Integration service in order to use VSI Plugin
- Login into Storage Integration service as a storage admin and configure storage access for VNXe
- Using VSI Plugin in vSphere Web Client register VNXe storage system
VSI at this stage can be used to view and manage VNXe3200 Storage provisioning.
Full details of VSI (which covers not just the VNXe3200 storage system) Product can be found below https://support.emc.com/docu62318_VSI_for_VMware_vSphere_Web_Client_Version_6.7_Product_Guide.pdf?language=en_US
VMware vStorage for Storage Awareness (VASA)
This VMware API enables storage vendors (EMC and it’s VNXe3200 in this instance) to present storage capabilities, topologies and state to vCenter via Storage Provider implementation. These exposed capabilities enables users to create storage policy based management.The VNXe3200 has native VASA support which means no plugin is required. The high level steps for utilising VASA with the VNXe can be summarised as follows;
- Create VNXe3200 VASA Storage Provider
- VASA URL and login credentials are all that is required
- Create a VM Storage Profile based on known storage capabilities
- e.g. Select a capability (Auto Tier Storage; Fast Cache; Thin) for a Fast Cache and Thin Enabled Pool with Tiered Storage
- Create a new VM and when assigning storage select VM Storage profile created to identify compatible data store.
Note: VASA 2.0 released with vSphere 6 has undergone significant development in support of vVols but that could be the subject of a whole other post.
A great demo of the VNXe3200 VASA implementation from EMC Corporate Engineering is included below for further reference
I hope people find this blog post covering the VNXe Integration points with VMware of benefit and can utilise this in their environments. Please feel free to share it about 🙂
Usual disclaimer folks
Technology Blog by Victor Forde 