dell sc series integration with vmware vvols6 hands-on lab manual | dell sc series integration with...

1 Hands-on Lab Manual | Dell SC Series Integration with VMware VVols | DS06-VVOL

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Dell SC Series Integration with VMware VVols

Dell Storage Hands-on Lab

Estimated completion time: 30 minutes

Audience

The audience for this document includes technical professionals who wish to learn about using VMware Virtual Volumes with Dell™ SC Series storage.

Reminder: This is a virtualized lab environment running GA (Generally Available) versions of SCOS (Storage Center Operating System) 7.1 and Dell Storage Manager (DSM) 2016 R2 software. Since the hardware is virtualized, performance may be slower than labs using physical hardware. Please be patient. Some of the steps in this lab will take longer to execute than it would normally take in a typical production environment.

What is demonstrated in this lab?

This lab will take you through several tasks relating to software-defined storage management within a VMware® vSphere® software-defined data center.

In this lab you will:

1. Verify the VASA Provider configuration 2. Create Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) policies and verify compliance 3. Manage the lifecycle of a virtual machine leveraging SPBM

Lab start

The lab begins with logging into the DSM client.

1. On the desktop, double-click the Dell Storage Manager Client icon.


2. Provide the login credentials (if necessary), using those shown in the screenshot and a password of password, and click Log In.

3. If the DSM client does not automatically connect to both SC Series arrays after logging in (disconnected arrays appear with a red circular X), reconnect them manually with the following procedure and click OK to reconnect the SC Series array.

a. Highlight any disconnected array (for example, SC73900 Demo Array 01 or SC73902 Demo Array 02) within the navigation tree.

b. In the Summary pane, click Reconnect to Storage Center. c. Verify that the Hostname or IP Address field is populated with the default management IP address of the array:

SN73900=172.20.0.100 or SN73902=172.20.0.200. d. Enter the User Name: Admin (case sensitive). e. Enter the Password: Password (case sensitive).

Verify the VASA 2.0 Provider configuration and create a storage container in DSM

Key elements in a VVol deployment are the VASA 2.0 Provider, protocol endpoints, and a storage container. The following steps verify protocol endpoints and the VASA 2.0 Provider, and create the storage container.


1. In DSM, on the lower-left side, click the Storage view and highlight the SC73900 Demo Array 01 SC Series array.

2. Click the Storage tab and drill down into Servers > Clusters > ESX_Lab Cluster. Highlight the esx1 vSphere host. Verify a protocol endpoint has been automatically assigned by the SC Series array to the vSphere host. On the Protocol Endpoints tab a protocol endpoint device should be visible with an assigned LUN ID of 256.

3. In DSM, on the lower-left side, click the Servers view and highlight the 172.20.0.25 vCenter server. Right-click 172.20.0.25, and choose Update Information, followed by clicking OK.


4. Verify the VASA 2.0 Provider registration.

5. Drill down one level, right-click ESX_Lab_Cluster, and choose Create Datastore.

6. Provide the Datastore Name of Storage_Container, Datastore Type of VVol Datastore, and click Next.

7. Click Create New Storage Container, set the Size to 1TB, and Change the Volume Folder to VVol.

8. Select Compression Allowed and Deduplication Allowed for the storage container.


9. Click Change to configure the Allowed Storage Profiles.

10. Select all storage profiles but deselect Low Priority (Tier 3). Click OK and click Finish.

Note: Multiple tasks are invoked both on the storage side and the vSphere side when creating and deploying a storage container. DSM automates all of the tasks within a single workflow for consistency, efficiency, and ease-of-use purposes.

Log in to the vSphere web client

1. From the desktop, double-click the vSphere Web Client icon.


2. Log in using the User name of demouser and the Password of password, and click Login. If the login screen does not appear, enter the URL https://vcenter.mydemo.local/vsphere-client/.

Verify the VASA 2.0 Provider and storage container in vSphere

1. From the Navigator pane on the left, click Hosts and Clusters. Highlight the VCenter.mydemo.local vCenter server.

2. In the pane to the right, select the Manage tab and Storage Providers. The Dell Storage VASA 2.0 Provider should be shown.


3. Additional VASA 2.0 Provider information is shown in the following screenshot.

4. From the Navigator pane on the left, drill down through DSM-Datacenter > ESX_Lab_Cluster, and highlight the esx1.mydemo.local vSphere host.


5. In the pane to the right, select the Manage tab and Storage. Highlight Protocol Endpoints. Ensure the Protocol Endpoint assigned by the SC Series array is recognized by vSphere as Accessible.

6. From the Navigator pane on the left, click the Datastores icon. Highlight the DSM-Datacenter data center.

7. In the pane to the right, select the Related Objects tab > Datastores. The Storage_Container created in a previous step should be shown.

Note: In vSphere, a storage container appears as a datastore of the type VVOL into which VMs can be deployed.


Create an SPBM policy

This section defines storage policies based on underlying storage capabilities and services offered by the storage container. These policies will be used in the next section to deploy VMs with VVols and audit for compliance.

1. In the vSphere Web Client, on the top left, click the home icon to navigate to the home page.

2. Click VM Storage Policies.

3. Click the icon shown to create a new VM storage policy.

4. Name the policy Gold. Click Next twice.


5. Enter the policy information:

- From the Rules based on data services drop-down menu, choose com.dell.storagecenter. - From the <Add rule> drop-down menu, choose ScStorageProfile. - From the right drop-down menu, choose Recommended (All Tiers). - From the <Add rule> drop-down menu, choose SnapshotCapable. - From the right drop-down menu, choose Yes.

6. Click Next. Verify that Storage_Container is compatible with the new policy. Also note incompatible storage which does not meet the Gold policy requirements. Click Finish.


7. Repeat the process to create another policy. Click the icon shown to create a new VM storage policy.

8. Name the policy Bronze. Click Next twice.

9. Enter the policy information:

- From the Rules based on data services drop-down menu, choose com.dell.storagecenter. - From the <Add rule> drop-down menu, choose ScStorageProfile. - From the right drop-down menu, choose Low Priority (Tier 3).


10. Click Next. Verify the Storage_Container is not compatible with the new policy and click Finish.

Note: The Storage_Container storage is incompatible with the Bronze policy because the storage container does not have the tier 3 storage profile capability which Bronze policy requires.

Deploy a VM with VVols using SPBM

This section deploys a new virtual machine with VVols using SPBM and audit compliance.

1. From the Navigator pane on the left, click VMs and Templates. Highlight the VMTemplate template.


2. From the Actions drop-down menu, choose New VM from This Template.

3. Provide a name for the new VM and deploy the VM into the ESX_Lab_Cluster cluster within the DSM-Datacenter data center.


4. On the Select storage page, choose the Gold VM storage policy, Thin Provision disk format, and verify compatibility with the storage container.

5. Click Next twice and click Finish.


6. In DSM, click the Servers view near the bottom left and highlight the 172.20.0.25 vCenter server. Drill down through ESX_Lab_Cluster, esx1.mydemo.local, and Datastores and highlight Storage_Container. To the right, click the VVols tab and observe the two Virtual Volumes vSphere has created as part of the VM deployment process performed in a previous step.

7. Go back to the vSphere web client. From the Navigator pane on the left, click VMs and Templates. Highlight your VM. In this example the VM is named mssql.

8. Right-click the VM (or use the Actions drop-down menu) and choose Power > Power On. 9. In the right pane, choose the Summary tab and verify the VM is compliant with the Gold VM storage policy.


10. Right-click the virtual machine and create a vSphere snapshot of your VM. In the interest of time, uncheck the box labeled Snapshot the virtual machine’s memory.

11. In DSM, click the Servers view near the bottom left and highlight the 172.20.0.25 vCenter server. Drill down through ESX_Lab_Cluster, esx1.mydemo.local, and Datastores and highlight Storage_Container. To the right, click the VVols tab and observe the third Virtual Volume vSphere has created for VMkernel swap as part of the VM power on process performed in a previous step.


12. Click the Storage view near the bottom left and highlight the SC73900 Demo Array 01 SC Series array. In the window to the right, click the Storage tab. Drill down through Volumes, VVol, and Storage_Container and highlight the data VVol which has an extension of .vmdk. Click the Snapshots tab. The vSphere snapshot of the VM performed in a previous step results in an array-based snapshot of the type Managed. This is a VVol-specific capability which is provided by the storage container and tied to the Gold SPBM policy.



14. Right-click the VM (or use the Actions drop-down menu) and choose Snapshots > Manage Snapshots. Delete the vSphere snapshot and click Close.

15. Go back to the DSM client. Click the blue refresh arrow in the top-left area of the Storage tab. Note that the managed array-based snapshot has now either been removed or expired as a result of deleting the vSphere snapshot in the VM in the previous step.


Modify a virtual machine storage policy and decommission the deployment

The virtual machine is at the end of its lifecycle and it is now time to take it out of production and decommission it. As part of that process, you will migrate the VM to the Bronze storage policy.


2. Right-click the VM (or use the Actions drop-down menu), choose VM Policies, and then Edit VM Storage Policies. Select the Bronze storage policy, click Apply to all, and click OK.

3. Back on the Summary tab under the VM Storage Policies section, click Check Compliance. The VM should now be noncompliant because the storage container does not provide tier 3 storage to satisfy the Bronze policy applied to the VM.


4. Right-click the VM (or use the Actions drop-down menu) and choose Power > Power Off. Delete the vSphere snapshot and click Close.

5. Right-click the VM (or use the Actions drop-down menu), choose Delete from Disk, and click Yes. 6. In DSM, click the Servers view near the bottom left and highlight the 172.20.0.25 vCenter server. Drill down to the

Datastores level, right-click Storage_Container, and choose Delete.

7. Click OK.

Lab complete

You have successfully managed VMware Storage Policy Based Management and Virtual Volumes with Dell SC Series storage.

dell sc series integration with vmware vvols6 hands-on lab manual | dell sc series integration with...

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