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    Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN
    Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN
    Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN
    Ebook324 pages2 hours

    Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN

    By Cedric Rajendran

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    About this ebook

    About This Book
    • Effectively understand the fundamental concepts and features of Virtual SAN
    • Implement and administer your VMware VSAN efficiently
    • Ensure stability and data reliability and meet service-level agreements for each virtual machine and application
    Who This Book Is For

    This book is intended for server administrators and storage administrators who would like to successfully build and scale a VSAN-backed vSphere infrastructure. A basic understanding of vSphere concepts and storage fundamentals will be helpful.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPackt Publishing
    Release dateMay 30, 2015
    ISBN9781784393694
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      Book preview

      Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN - Cedric Rajendran

      Table of Contents

      Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN

      Credits

      About the Author

      About the Reviewers

      www.PacktPub.com

      Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

      Why subscribe?

      Free access for Packt account holders

      Instant updates on new Packt books

      Preface

      What this book covers

      What you need for this book

      Who this book is for

      Conventions

      Reader feedback

      Customer support

      Downloading the example code

      Errata

      Piracy

      Questions

      1. An Introduction to Software-defined Storage and VSAN

      What is a Software-defined Data Center?

      The significance of Software-defined Storage

      The storage choices and form factors of Software-defined Storage

      Traditional storage

      Software-based storage

      Hyper-converged solutions

      An introduction to VMware Virtual SAN

      Summary

      2. Understanding Virtual SAN

      Why should I use VSAN?

      What is VSAN?

      Building blocks of VSAN

      Disk groups

      VMFS-L

      Storage Policy-based Management

      Where do I start? Back to the drawing board

      Software requirements

      Disk boot device

      Local storage and boot from SAN

      USB and SD card as boot devices

      Disk controller

      Disk flash devices

      Magnetic disks

      Network requirements

      Some simpler options

      Virtual SAN ready nodes

      EVO: RAIL

      Summary

      3. Workload Profiling and Sizing

      Capacity planning guidelines

      Profiling workloads

      Virtual SAN sizing utility

      Virtual SAN shapes and sizes

      Custom built

      VSAN ready nodes

      EVO: RAIL

      VMware guidelines for sizing and assumptions

      Summary

      4. Getting Started with VSAN – Installation and Configuration

      Key concepts

      Disk groups

      Virtual SAN network

      Prerequisite checklist

      Installation workflow

      Hardware specifications

      Server node

      Cluster layout

      Network layout

      Setting up a VSAN cluster

      VSAN ready nodes – installation

      Summary

      5. Truly Software-defined, Policy-based Management

      Why do we need policies?

      Understanding SPBM

      VSAN datastore capabilities

      Accessing the VSAN datastore capabilities

      Number of disk stripes per object

      Number of failures to tolerate

      Scenario based examples

      Scenario 1

      Scenario 2

      Scenario 3

      Flash read cache reservation

      Force provisioning

      Object space reservation

      Under the hood – SBPM

      vSphere APIs for Storage Awareness

      Managing Virtual SAN storage providers

      Summary

      6. Architecture Overview

      Why such an architecture?

      Anatomy of I/O

      Write buffer

      Destaging data to a magnetic disk

      The read cache

      The READ I/O workflow

      Objects, components, and witnesses

      What is an object?

      A swap object

      The virtual machine home namespace

      Virtual disks and snapshot delta-disks

      Components

      A witness

      Connecting the dots

      Internal building blocks of VSAN

      Reliable datagram transport

      Cluster monitoring, membership, and directory services

      Cluster level object manager

      The distributed object manager

      The local log structured object manager

      VSAN and high availability

      A magnetic disk failure

      A flash device failure

      A host failure

      Summary

      7. Design Considerations and Guidelines

      Network optimizations

      Jumbo frames

      Speed of the network interface

      Network IO control

      Isolation, shares, and limits

      Quality of Service

      Storage configuration optimizations

      A flash device

      Magnetic disks

      I/O controllers

      Cache-to-capacity ratio

      Capacity

      Performance

      Availability

      A scale-out design

      Backing up your VSAN workloads

      Creating a local backup through VDP

      Creating a local backup to VMFS/NFS through VDP

      Creating a remote backup through VDP

      vSphere Replication to protect VSAN

      Summary

      8. Troubleshooting and Monitoring Utilities for Virtual SAN

      Troubleshooting workflow

      Validating the hardware and configuration limit

      Understanding the software components of VSAN

      The log structured object manager

      The distributed object manager

      Cluster monitoring, membership, and directory services

      The ESXCLI namespace

      Datastore

      Network

      Storage

      Cluster

      Policy

      Other useful namespaces

      esxcli vsan maintenancemode

      esxcli vsan trace

      cmmds-tool

      vdq

      Ruby vSphere Console

      Manoeuvring around RVC

      Command-line options with RVC

      Enabling and disabling VSAN

      Disk-related commands

      Viewing the virtual machine layout

      Viewing the physical disk layout

      cmmds_find

      resync.dashboard

      VSAN Observer

      Monitoring live statistics

      Offline diagnosis

      Interpreting VSOB data and key metrics

      Summary

      9. What's New in VSAN 6.0?

      VSAN architecture types

      Hybrid VSAN

      All-flash VSAN

      Disk group creation for an all-flash setup

      Tagging flash capacity devices through ESXCLI

      Tagging flash capacity devices through Ruby vSphere Client

      Validation

      Points to remember with all-flash VSAN

      The new on-disk format

      Snapshot enhancements

      The fault domain

      JBOD support

      Serviceability improvements

      LED locators

      A what-if scenario

      The rebalance operation

      Scalability

      Summary

      Index

      Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN

      Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN

      Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

      Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

      Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

      First published: May 2015

      Production reference: 1260515

      Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

      Livery Place

      35 Livery Street

      Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

      ISBN 978-1-78439-925-2

      www.packtpub.com

      Credits

      Author

      Cedric Rajendran

      Reviewers

      Jason Langer

      Julien Mousqueton

      Mario Russo

      Vikas Shitole

      Akmal Khaleeq Waheed

      Commissioning Editor

      Ashwin Nair

      Acquisition Editor

      Kevin Colaco

      Content Development Editor

      Susmita Sabat

      Technical Editors

      Rikita Poojari

      Aman Preet Singh

      Copy Editor

      Pranjali Chury

      Project Coordinator

      Milton Dsouza

      Proofreaders

      Stephen Copestake

      Safis Editing

      Indexer

      Monica Ajmera Mehta

      Graphics

      Disha Haria

      Jason Monteiro

      Production Coordinator

      Alwin Roy

      Cover Work

      Alwin Roy

      About the Author

      Cedric Rajendran is a staff engineer technical support with VMware. He has around 10 years of experience in the IT space, with a wide exposure to datacenter technologies. He holds a master's degree in business administration and has served extensively in the fields of network operations, technical support, and consulting.

      His areas of expertise center around the virtualization of server, storage, and networks, and he has an insatiable appetite for studying emerging technologies in the SDDC arena.

      A VMware vExpert in 2014 and a virtualization enthusiast in general, he is a regular speaker at VMware events. He holds certifications with VMware and Microsoft and is also a TOGAF-certified enterprise architect.

      You can view his blog at http://virtualknightz.com/.

      I would like to dedicate this to book to my wife, Ankita, and my daughter, Samantha. All the time spent on writing this book is borrowed from them and is rightfully theirs, I promise to make up for it from now on.

      My deepest gratitude goes out to my dear parents, and my siblings, Dominic and Anita, for always being there when I most needed them.

      Special thanks to the entire leadership team and colleagues at VMware GSS for their support and encouragement.

      Many thanks to the entire Packt team of reviewers and editors for coordinating the whole effort in getting this book published.

      Certain things are just not possible without divine intervention, the mysterious hand that leads you through all impediments. This book would not have been possible without that unseen power. I thank God for all the blessings and guidance at the right time and in just the right quantities to keep me going. In gratitude, some of the proceeds from this book will go out to the children at the Gerizim home (http://gerizimhome.com); they need your support too.

      About the Reviewers

      Jason Langer works as a solutions architect for a VMware partner in the Pacific Northwest, helping customers achieve their datacenter server virtualization and end user computing goals. He has obtained multiple levels of certification both from Microsoft (MCSE/MCSA) and VMware (VCP/VCAP), and brings over 15 years of IT experience to the table. When not working at his day job, Jason is active in the VMware community as a member of the Seattle VMUG Steering Committee and generates content for his blog, http://www.virtuallanger.com/.

      He worked as the technical reviewer for VMware ESXi CookBook and Troubleshooting vSphere Storage, and VMware Horizon View 5.3 Design Patterns and Best Practices, all published by Packt Publishing.

      Julien Mousqueton has been in the Information Technology field for 16 years, starting out as a systems administrator. Along the way, he worked at different positions, such as an IT manager, a systems engineer, and, most recently, as the chief technology officer (CTO) for a financial group. Currently, he works as a senior consultant in an independent provider of IT infrastructure services.

      In addition, Julien is the leader of the French VMware User Group. VMware awarded him a vExpert in 2009.

      Mario Russo has worked as an IT architect, a senior technical VMware trainer, and in the pre-sales department. He has been working on the VMware technology since 2004.

      In 2005, he worked for IBM on the first large project consolidation for Telecom Italia on the Virtual VMware Esx 2.5.1 platform in Italy with the Physical to Virtual (P2V) tool.

      In 2007, he conducted a drafting course and training for BancoPosta, Italy, and project disaster and recovery (DR Open) for IBM and EMC.

      In 2008, he worked for the project Speed Up Consolidation BNP and the migration of P2V on VI3 infrastructure at BNP Cardif Insurance.

      In 2014, he completed a project on customizing the dashboard and tuning smart alert VCOPs 5.7 for PosteCom, Italy, Rome.

      He is a VCI-Certified Instructor 2s Level of VMware and is certified VCAP5-DCA, VCP3-4, VCP5-DVVCP5-DT, and VCP-Cloud.

      He is the owner of Business to Virtual, which specializes in virtualization solutions.

      He was also the technical reviewer of the following books:, Implementing VMware Horizon View 5.2, Implementing VMware vCenter Server, Troubleshooting vSphere Storage, VMware Horizon View 5.3 Design Patterns and Best Practices, Instant Getting Started with VMware Fusion, Implementing VMware vCenter Server, and VMware vSphere Security Cookbook all by Packt Publishing.

      I would like to thank my wife, Lina, and my daughter, Gaia. They're my strength.

      Vikas Shitole is a member of the technical staff at VMware R and D, where he primarily contributes to the vSphere API team, which is focused on vCenter server features such as vSphere DRS, DPM, SDRS, SIOC, and so on. He was awarded vExpert 2014 and 2015, a recognition from VMware for outstanding contributions to the virtualization and cloud computing community. Also, he is the owner of http://vThinkBeyondVM.com, a blog site focused on VMware and virtualization. He has completed his M.Tech in computer science from VIT University, India,

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