WilliamLam.com

SMART drive data now available using vSAN Management 6.6 API

by // 1 Comment

One of the major storage enhancements that was introduced in vSphere 5.1 as part of the new I/O Device Management (IODM) framework was the addition of SMART (Self Monitoring, Analysis And Reporting Technology) data for monitoring FC, FCoE, iSCSI, SAS protocol statistics, this is especially useful for monitoring the health of an SSD device. Historically, there was not a public vSphere API to consume this information and customers had to rely on ESXCLI which is not very friendly from a programmatic standpoint.


One of the nice enhancements that was introduced in vSAN 6.6 from an API standpoint is that you can now access SMART data using the vSAN Management 6.6 API. The other really cool thing about this enhancement is that although this API was added under the vSAN Management API, you do not actually have to be using vSAN to be able to use this new API!

There are two methods in which you can access the SMART data:

  • vCenter Server - When connecting to a vCenter Server, you can access the VsanQueryVcClusterSmartStatsSummary() method which is available as part of the VsanVcClusterHealthSystem and you simply just provide it the name of a vSphere Cluster.
  • ESXi Host - When connecting directly to an ESXi host, you can access the VsanHostQuerySmartStats() method which is available as part of the HostVsanHealthSystem.

To demonstrate how these two new APIs work, I have create two sample scripts: vsan-smarts-data-sample.py using vSAN Management SDK for Python and VSANSmartsData.ps1 using the new PowerCLI Get-VsanView cmdlet.

Here is an example of running the python sample:

python vsan-smarts-data-sample.py -s 192.168.1.200 -u '*protected email*' -p 'VMware1!' -c VSAN-Cluster


Here is an example of running the PowerCLI sample:

Get-VSANSmartsData -Cluster VSAN-Cluster

Project USB to SDDC - Part 2

by // 1 Comment

In the previous article, I provided some background on the origin of the project. In this article, we will now focus on the technical details and how the solution actually works.

Hardware

This solution was originally developed against an Intel NUC but I had designed it to be generic so that it could run on any system which meets the minimum requirements which is just having two disks (HDD & SSD or two SSDs) which is used to create a vSAN datastore.

Here is the BOM for the Intel NUC that we had used:

During the Sydney VMUG, we had did a live demo using an Intel NUC. Prior to the Melbourne VMUG, fellow VMware colleague Tai Ratcliff reached out and offered to let us borrow his Supermicro kit for the demo which was great as the hardware was much beefier than the NUC. Thanks Tai!


I had already been hearing great things about E200-8D platform but I had not had the opportunity to get my hands on the system to play with. After only spending a little bit of time with the platform while prepping for the VMUG event, I can see why is a pretty slick system for a vSphere/vSAN based home lab, especially if you need to go beyond 32GB of memory which is where the Intel NUCs currently max out at.

The other appealing features for this platform is that it comes with 2x10GbE, 2x1GBe and an IPMI interface for remote management which is a huge benefit for not needing to connect an external monitor and keyboard. The system is also Xeon based w/6-Cores and can go all the way up to 128GB of memory. Tai had also recently published a blog article comparing the Supermicro E200-8D and the Intel NUC, which I think is worth a read if you are deciding between these two platforms.

Note: If you are considering purchasing the Supermicro E200-8D or any other system for that matter, check out this exclusive vGhetto discount here.

[Read more...]

Native VCSA bootstrap installer in vSAN 6.6

by // 5 Comments

Graphic courtesy of Emad Younis

Almost four years ago, I documented a really cool vSAN capability here and here, which demonstrates how to bootstrap a vSAN datastore onto a single ESXi host. This powerful capability, which was by design, enables customers to easily standup new infrastructure including the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) in a pure greenfield environment where you only had bare-metal hardware to start with and no existing vCenter Server.

As you can probably guess, I am a huge advocate for this capability and I think it enables some really interesting use cases for being able to quickly and easily stand up a complete vSphere environment without having to rely on an external storage array or playing games with Storage vMotion'ing the VCSA between local VMFS and the vSAN datastore for initial provisioning.

Over time, this vSAN capability has gone mainstream not only from a customer standpoint but also internal to VMware. In fact, the use of this feature has made its way into several VMware implementations including but not limited to VMware Validated Designs (VVD), VxRail, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and even in the upcoming VMware Cloud on AWS. This really goes to show how useful and critical of a feature this has become for standing up brand new VMware infrastructure which runs on top of vSAN. Huge thanks goes out to the original vSAN Architects who had envisioned such use cases and designed vSAN to include this functionality natively within the product and not have to rely or depend on vCenter Server.

[Read more...]