VMware Virtual SAN Cookbook

VMware Virtual SAN Cookbook

by Jeffrey Taylor
Released August 2015
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781782174547

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Book description

The perfect guide to successful VMware Virtual SAN implementation and operations, with recipes to guide you through the process

About This Book

  • Design a Virtual SAN infrastructure from selecting hardware to full capacity.
  • Deploy and manage a software-defined storage solution with VMware Virtual SAN
  • Prepare for architectural and scale changes as your enterprise grows and develops

Who This Book Is For

If you are an administrator of a VMware vSphere infrastructure and want to simplify storage delivery by integrating storage into vSphere, this book is for you. No extensive storage background is needed as VMware Virtual SAN integrates into the existing vSphere solutions with which you are already familiar.

What You Will Learn

  • Prepare your infrastructure for VMware Virtual SAN
  • Plan and build infrastructure solutions to suit your needs
  • Implement VMware Virtual SAN
  • Exploit the power of policy-based management
  • Increase or decrease the scale of your Virtual SAN as needs change
  • Monitor your Virtual SAN infrastructure effectively
  • Respond to and troubleshoot problems

In Detail

VMware Virtual SAN is a radically simple, hypervisor-converged storage, designed and optimized for vSphere virtual infrastructure. VMware introduced the software to help customers store more and more virtual machines.

As data centers continue to evolve and grow, managing infrastructure becomes more challenging. Traditional storage solutions like monolithic storage arrays and complex management are often ill-suited to the needs of the modern data center. Software-defined storage solutions, like VMware Virtual SAN, integrate the storage side of the infrastructure with the server side, and can simplify management and improve flexibility.

This book is a detailed guide which provides you with the knowledge you need to successfully implement and manage VMware VSAN and deployed infrastructures.

You will start with an introduction to VSAN and object storage, before moving on to hardware selection, critical to a successful VSAN deployment. Next, you will discover how to prepare your existing infrastructure to support your VSAN deployment and explore Storage policy-Based Management, including policy changes, maintenance, validation, and troubleshooting VSAN. Finally, the book provides recipes to expedite the resolution process and gather all the information required to pursue a rapid resolution.

Style and approach

A practical guide to implementing VMware Virtual SAN filled with recipes, tips, and detailed explanations.

Table of contents

  1. VMware Virtual SAN Cookbook
    1. Table of Contents
    2. VMware Virtual SAN Cookbook
    3. Credits
    4. About the Author
    5. About the Reviewers
    6. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more
        1. Why subscribe?
        2. Free access for Packt account holders
        3. Instant updates on new Packt books
    7. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Sections
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      5. Conventions
      6. Reader feedback
      7. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    8. 1. Hardware Selection for Your VSAN Cluster
      1. Introduction
      2. Using the VMware Compatibility Guides
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
      3. Selecting a server platform
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. There's more…
      4. Selecting a storage controller
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. There's more…
      5. Selecting a solid-state drive (SSD) for the cache tier
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. There's more…
        4. See also
      6. Selecting capacity tier disks
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. There's more…
        4. See also
      7. Deciding on a network standard
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. See also
      8. Choosing a VSAN Ready Node (an alternative option)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. See also
    9. 2. Initial Configuration and Validation of Your VSAN Cluster
      1. Introduction
      2. Preparing the vCenter cluster for VSAN
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. There's more…
        4. See also
      3. Applying VSAN licensing (optional)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
      4. Configuring VSAN networking on a new standard switch
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      5. Configuring VSAN networking on an existing switch
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      6. Enabling SSH on the ESXi hosts (if applicable)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      7. Tagging disks as local solid-state drives (if applicable)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      8. Enabling VSAN on your cluster
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      9. Manually claiming disks for use by VSAN (if applicable)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      10. Performing initial validation of the new VSAN cluster
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      11. Enabling vSphere HA
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. See also
    10. 3. Storage Policy-based Management
      1. Introduction
      2. Creating VM storage policies
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      3. Applying storage policies to a new VM or a VM deployed from a template
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      4. Applying storage policies to an existing VM migrating to VSAN
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      5. Viewing a VM's storage policies and object distribution
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      6. Changing storage policies on a VM already residing in VSAN
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      7. Modifying existing storage policies
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
      8. Summary
    11. 4. Monitoring VSAN
      1. Introduction
      2. Examining VSAN datastore health
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      3. Examining VSAN disk health
        1. Getting ready…
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      4. Examining VM object health
        1. Getting ready…
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
      5. Creating VSAN-specific alarms
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      6. Examining VSAN resync activity (vSphere 6.0)
        1. Getting ready…
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
    12. 5. VSAN Maintenance Operations
      1. Introduction
      2. Understanding and using VSAN Maintenance Mode
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. There's more…
        4. See also
      3. Adding disks to VSAN
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
          1. Expand an existing disk group
        3. How it works…
        4. See also
      4. Removing disks/disk groups from VSAN
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it...
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      5. Replacing disks in VSAN in the event of a disk failure
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      6. Changing VSAN networking
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      7. Permanently decommissioning a VSAN node
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      8. Recovering a VSAN cluster in the event that vCenter is lost/migrating a VSAN cluster to a new vCenter server
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
    13. 6. Ruby vSphere Console
      1. Introduction
      2. Launching RVC (Windows vCenter)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works...
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      3. Launching RVC (Linux vCenter Appliance)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
      4. Navigating RVC
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      5. The vsan.cluster_info command
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      6. The vsan.disks_stats command
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      7. The vsan.vm_object_info command
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
      8. The vsan.vm_perf_stats command
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      9. The vsan.resync_dashboard command
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
    14. 7. Troubleshooting VSAN
      1. Introduction
      2. Investigating network partitions (with vSphere Web Client)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      3. Investigating network partitions (without vSphere Web Client)
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      4. Investigating storage provider registration problems
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      5. Investigating other SPBM problems
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      6. Investigating VM provisioning or power-on failures
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
          1. Out-of-space failures
          2. Availability-related failures
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
      7. Investigating disk failures
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. See also
      8. Investigating VSAN performance with VSAN Observer
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
        4. There's more…
        5. See also
    15. 8. Support Success
      1. Introduction
      2. Formulating a problem description
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works …
      3. Formulating a problem summary
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it …
        3. How it works…
      4. Collecting logging information
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
          1. Collecting logs with the vSphere Web Client
          2. Collecting logs with the legacy vSphere Client
          3. Collecting logs via the command line with vm-support
        3. How it works …
      5. Collecting other diagnostic information
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
          1. Collecting VSAN support information (Linux RVC)
          2. Collecting VSAN support information (Windows RVC)
          3. Collecting VSAN Observer Data
        3. How it works…
    16. 9. VSAN 6.0
      1. Introduction
      2. Tagging disks as SSDs in vSphere 6.0
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
      3. VSAN 6.0 fault domains
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works...
      4. Upgrading to the VSAN 6.0 on-disk format
        1. Getting ready
        2. How to do it…
        3. How it works…
    17. A. Chapter-specific Expansions
      1. Chapter 1 – VSAN Capacity Planning
        1. Best-practice limits to space consumption
        2. Data working set size and capacity-tier sizing
        3. Cluster symmetry
        4. Other considerations
      2. Chapter 2 – HA requirements for VSAN enablement
        1. HA behavior in non-VSAN clusters
        2. HA behavior in VSAN clusters
        3. The benefits of moving HA to the VSAN network
      3. Chapter 3A – VSAN-specific storage-policy options
        1. Number of failures to tolerate
          1. Limitations
        2. Number of disk stripes per object
          1. Limitations
        3. Object space reservation
          1. Limitations
        4. Force provisioning
          1. Limitations
        5. Flash read cache reservation
          1. Limitations
      4. Chapter 3B – VSAN Default Storage Policy
      5. Chapter 6 – vCenter inventory layout in RVC
    18. B. Additional VSAN Information
      1. VSAN network considerations
        1. Uplinks
        2. Link speed
        3. Link Aggregation
        4. The role of multicast
        5. The role of unicast
        6. Jumbo frames
      2. VSAN object distribution
      3. vCenter object distribution view and VM snapshots
      4. Understanding VSAN striping
      5. Per object quorum in VSAN
      6. VSAN synchronous I/O flow
      7. VSAN object resynchronization
      8. VSAN cluster expansion
        1. Adding a node to the VSAN cluster
        2. Node addition and auto-claim
        3. Rebalancing after node addition
      9. VSAN rebuild logic and thresholds
        1. VSAN object rebuilds due to a disk fault or failure
        2. VSAN object rebuilds due to extended outage
        3. VSAN object rebuilds during maintenance
      10. RVC scripting and redirects
        1. Executing RVC operations as a single command
        2. Redirecting RVC output to a file
        3. Avoiding the use of plain-text passwords in the RVC command
      11. Third-party utilities
        1. Utilities for HP SmartArray controllers
        2. Utilities for LSI/Avago-based controllers
    19. Index

Product information

  • Title: VMware Virtual SAN Cookbook
  • Author(s): Jeffrey Taylor
  • Release date: August 2015
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781782174547