toasters October 2009

toasters@lists.teaparty.net

30 participants
49 discussions

Netapp and VMware... It's all so confusing!
by Timothy Hollingworth 01 Apr '10

01 Apr '10

So, say for example, I want to virtualize an Exchange server. Lets also say that I want to manage it via Snapdrive and SME. Lets also say, just for the heck of it, that I want both the new front-engined Acura NSX as well as the Porsche RC3. The cars aside, I would have to run iSCSI from within the VM, install and use Snapdrive from within the VM to provision LUNs, install Exchange and then use SME? It seems kind of silly to use iSCSI from within a VM if the ESX box were fiber attached to the Filer, just to be able to use Snapdrive and SME, no? I would love to be able to use the features of SD and SME within a completely virtual environment and am wondering what some real world implementations other VMware/Netapp customers are running. Do you run storage for the databases and logs in VMDK's and manage snapshots and backups from a VMware virtual machine perspective or do you manage them as iSCSI LUNs and use SD and SME? Or am I completely blind and missing something? Timothy L. Hollingworth Sr. Network Engineer, ePlus Technology Inc. 678.462.6698 (cell) AIM: HollingworthTim YIM: t_holling

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RE: SMVI / VMWare Experiences...
by Ken Williams 03 Nov '09

03 Nov '09

Sounds like whatever user-defined script you have is failing sometimes? Or perhaps it's a VMWare tools issue. We've been able to track our issue down to the Guest OS level (win2k3 specifically). Looks like its an issue with VSS or LUN alignment. I would recommend ensuring your LUNs are aligned (use the VMWare host util kit, mbrscan / mbralign). There is detailed documentation on the NOW.netapp.com site. -----Original Message----- From: Nick Silkey [mailto:nick@silkey.org] Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 7:15 PM To: Ken Williams Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Re: SMVI / VMWare Experiences... Ken -- We too are experiencing issues with SMVI 1.2 bombing out when attempting to perform a VMware quiesce snap on _some_ RHEL5.3 32-bit VMs. A couple of notables: - These problematic VMs have a 100% success rate at taking VMware quiesce snaps within vCenter, independent of SMVI. - The problem is 100% reproducible during night, day, etc. - We will deploy several VMs at a crack, all the same build. When the next SMVI schedule hits, some fail while others succeed. Bizarre. - Over time (weve been experiencing this issue for several weeks now), the 'problem' VMs change. Example: VMs abc and xyz will fail for days; without intervention, VM abc will stop failing while VM xyz continues to fail ... even if theyre part of the same deploy base template/kickstart. - We are nowhere near our snap limit on the volumes. - These problematic VMs only bomb when attempting a quiesce. Non-quiesce SMVI snaps work like a champ. Been working with NetApp and VMware for some time now. Were at ESX 3.5u4+ to an 3160-R5 @ 7.2.6.1P3 via NFS + vCenter 4.0 + synch SnapMirror to another 3160-R5 @ 7.2.6.1P3. The only thing revealing is SMVI + vCenter logs of "cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the (user-supplied) custom prefreeze script in the virtual machine exited with a nonzero return code". -- Nick On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Ken Williams <kwillia(a)smud.org> wrote: > I'm looking for some experiences people out there may have with SMVI > with NetApp. We're currently experiencing major issues with SMVI > snapshots failing. I've had open tickets with NetApp/VMWare/Microsoft > for 3 months and still have yet to have a solution. > > My environment looks like such: > > 6 x HP DL380 G5 (32gb Ram) in a ESX Cluster Dual Emulex 10000 Cards in > each host. > Cisco MDS SAN > Netapp FAS3070 Cluster ~9tb aggregate for VMWare. > VMFS Datastores ~10-15 VMs per datastore. ~50gb per VM. > ASIS Turned on > Volume and LUNspace reservation turned off OnTap 7.2.5.1 Windows 2003 > Guest OS. > > I cant see us reaching any limitation on the Filers or the SAN. Yet we > have random VMs failing snapshots every night. Are other people seeing > these issues? (I've gone through the gamut of troubleshooting, version > management of ESX/VMWareTools/etc). Snapshots timeout and fail at the > VMWare/Guest level, not at the Netapp snapshot level. > > We want to have SMVI function with VSS enabled. > > Has anyone had failing snapshots been able to resolve a similar issue? > Or does anyone have SMVI working properly that we could use as a > reference to compare configuration? > > __________________________________________________________ > Ken Williams > Storage Administrator, Business Technology Operations Sacramento > Municipal Utility District > E-Mail: kwillia(a)smud.org > Phone: (916) 732-6744 > Cell: (916) 240-4213

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Controller upgrade - ESX LUN re-signaturing
by Raj Patel 30 Oct '09

30 Oct '09

Hi all, We're planning to upgrade our controller (a 270c to a 2050ha) - my understanding is the iSCSI LUN's will retain their identity (ie the existing IQN strings will remain the same) however we will probably run into the ESX re-signaturing issue. Is there a way to avoid this as part of the controller upgrade or do I need to go into each connected ESX host and change the value of LVM.EnableResignature to 1 ? Are there any other potential 'gotchas' about an in-place head replacement ? The process itself looks fairly straightforward if all the steps are followed through in sequence. Thanks in advance, Raj.

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Re: NFS - network read / write throughput per protocol
by Blake Golliher 30 Oct '09

30 Oct '09

There's no specific counter for bytes / sec per protocol in priv set diag. For iops and latency's and size histograms, but nothing specific. -Blake On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 1:54 PM, Maxwell Reid <slinkywizard(a)integra.net> wrote: > > priv set diag or priv set advanced should display additional counters... > > ~Max > > > On Oct 29, 2009, at 10:12 AM, Blake Golliher wrote: > >> I don't see a counter for what you are looking for in 7.3.1.1, but you >> could add up all the volume stats for nfs_read_data and nfs_write_data >> and cifs_read_data/cifs_write_data. Add that all together, to get the >> total nfs throughput / sec and cifs throughput per second. >> >> It sounds like a good RFE for something under system:system:* >> >> -Blake >> >> On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Steffen Kammerer >> <steffen.kammerer(a)brainlab.com> wrote: >>> >>> Hi there, >>> >>> >>> >>> is there a possibility to get the read / write throughput in kilobyte per >>> protocol (separated NFS / CIFS) on a filer? >>> >>> >>> >>> I found only the operations but nothing else. >>> >>> >>> >>> Thanks and regards, >>> >>> >>> >>> Steffen > >

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NFS - network read / write throughput per protocol
by Steffen Kammerer 29 Oct '09

29 Oct '09

Hi there, is there a possibility to get the read / write throughput in kilobyte per protocol (separated NFS / CIFS) on a filer? I found only the operations but nothing else. Thanks and regards, Steffen

3 2

RE: Disk runtime
by Steffen Kammerer 27 Oct '09

27 Oct '09

I mean the runtime in hours the disks are running since they are in use... -----Original Message----- From: lists(a)up-south.com [mailto:lists@up-south.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:16 AM To: Steffen Kammerer Subject: Re: Disk runtime What do you mean by runtime ? Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

2 1

Disk runtime
by Steffen Kammerer 27 Oct '09

27 Oct '09

Hi there, is there a possibility to read-out the overall runtime of disks in a NetApp shelf? Regards, Steffen

2 1

trouble accessing nfs .snapshot dirs via cifs shares
by Romeo Theriault 22 Oct '09

22 Oct '09

Hello, We have a VMware environment with nfs as the transport protocol. What I'm testing out is snapvaulting the vmware datastores to another filer and then creating cifs shares on the snapvaulted volumes (qtrees), so the windows client vm's can access their vmdk files to restore files. I should state that I'm a newbie to cifs on the netapps as we are a unix shop. But, I have the snapvault setup all working. Where I'm running into problems is accessing the directories in the shares when I map a drive in windows to the share. I configured cifs to authenticate against: (3) Windows Workgroup authentication using the filer's local user accounts So I created a user 'vmrestore' though the useradmin tool and user vmrestore is part of a group cifsonly which has role none assigned to it. I then added an entry to /etc/passwd for the vmrestore user. At this point I can create a share to the vmware .snapshot directory on the snapvault destination and give the vmrestore user access to the share via: filer> cifs access vmsnaps vmrestore rwx I can now connect to the share fine but cannot access any of the shares folders as I get a "Access is denied" error. I've been reading the netapp docs and googling around for a while now but am having a difficult time understanding how I need to configure the local user account so I can access the folders/files on the unix security style volumes. I've tried mapping the vmrestore user to the root user via the usermap.cfg file. Thinking that since the vm files are owned by root maybe the vmrestore user has to be mapped to a user with a uid of 0 to have access to them. I've also tried the --forcegroup option on the share. Basically, I'm not having any luck and wanted to see if anyone has run into this (or just knows what I'm doing wrong). Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks, -- Romeo Theriault System Administrator Information Technology Services

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7.3.1.1 and SnapDrive 4.1 for Windows Compatibility?
by John Stoffel 21 Oct '09

21 Oct '09

Hi all, We've got some Windows Boxes running SnapDrive 4.1 (not sure about Windows OS, but mostly Windows Server 2003 I think) and we're currently using 7.2.6.1P1 on the 2050. We'd like to move to 7.3.1.1, but the SnapDrive Compatibilty Matrix doesn't seem to acknowledge SnapDrive 4.1 in any useful way. I know it's old client software, but it does the job. Anyone know if it's going to work or not? Thanks, John John Stoffel - Senior Staff Systems Administrator - System LSI Group Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. - http://www.toshiba.com/taec john.stoffel(a)taec.toshiba.com - 508-486-1087

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Re: Netapp Contract / Support questions
by Blackmor, Chris 21 Oct '09

21 Oct '09

I agree with Matt. USUALLY we get outstanding support from NA. We also track people we work with and keep an informal ranking system. +5=walks on water to -5=hang up and try again. We are a large shop with more than 140 filers world wide. This equates to a lot of interaction. Yes, we pay out the nose for support but we usually so pretty well with them. In the instances where your engineer is falling flat remember two little words... Duty Manager As far as tier 1 support, I have not found a large company that has quite met NA's bar but there is always room for improvement. C- ----- Original Message ----- From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com <owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com> To: Rasta Surfer <rsurfer(a)gmail.com> Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com <toasters(a)mathworks.com> Sent: Tue Oct 20 17:59:30 2009 Subject: Re: Netapp Contract / Support questions I'm a big netapp fan - I think the tech is great and I've worked with them on and off for years. I think the one thing that netapp support does require in some situations, similar to some other vendors, is proactive effort on your part. Netapp has a bunch of very bright technical people, but support can be hit or miss. If you feel like your support engineer doesn't care or doesn't want to help (hasn't been my experience) or is just not understanding the problem/resolving it fast enough (definitely seen this), escalate. And netapp, as opposed to other vendors I work with, will come through for you. You'll get someone from engineering on the phone, or a service manager, etc. You can argue that you shouldn't have to do this, and in a perfect world, I agree. But whenever I or a customer of mine who is a netapp shop has been in a bind, netapp has delivered. I think that's worth something. There are third party companies that provide netapp support, but other than for basic parts replacement on legacy systems, I can't recommend them. Thanks, Matt On Oct 20, 2009, at 6:49 PM, "Rasta Surfer" <rsurfer(a)gmail.com> wrote: > We're a small shop a couple of FAS 3020's doing basic, NFS, CIFS, > Snapdrive/SnapManager For SQL and Snapmirror. We are up for our > contract renewal soon. I have been in the biz for quite a number of > years and can remember back to amazing support from Netapp. I have > found quite the opposite over the past two years. Most are problems > with first addressing the case, usually it took a phone call. Then > it gets to incompetence with their products, like SnapManager for > SQL and Snapdrive. Cases went on forever, i always had to hound > them for status, making it quite frustrating. The end result of > most cases is me getting a note from some support manager at Netapp > apologizing. > > I still like the products, just hate the support methods. > What do you folks do? We of course want to upgrade when possible to > keep up to date from bugs. We don't want to blow the bank though > for their support if we can go somewhere else for better. > > tia for your thoughts, > rsurfer > >

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toasters October 2009