This is part of a series of posts on how to initially configure you UCS B-Series system using UCS manager. With the information in this post, you will be able to configure the vHBAs needed for FC connectivity. Check the other posts under the Cisco section in my blog. If you are using iSCSI you can skip this step of the UCS B-Series configuration.
To start login into your UCS Manager, select the SAN Tab and Navigate to the Pool section. Right click on WWNN and click Create WWNN Pool
Give it a name, select Sequential and clock Next.
Now add the value for the WWNN, first click add then fill the quantity (in this case 16) and cick Ok and Finish.
The WWPN pool creation process is analog to the one just described, but chage one of the its on the WWN window (see below)
That’s it for this post, I am trying to keep them short to keep them coming. On the next post, I will show how to create a VLAN.
Now that we have our system up to date with the latest software, we can start configuring the different templates, pools, and policies. The UCS is a stateless system, meaning that you will be able to abstract all the usual properties (UUID, MAC Address, etc…) into a Service Profile and apply those to any compatible hardware.
Create a Sub-Organization: this step is recommended for multitenant implementations, it doesn’t hurt to make it the standard installation procedure. Right-Click on Sub-Organization to open the Create Organization window.
Create the UUID Pool: select the Server Tab, select Pools from the drop down menu, expand the Sub-Organizations and expand the new Sub-Organization (in this case Sub-Org-01). Select the UUID Suffix Pools and click Add.
Type in a name and select Sequential, then click Next
Click Add to define the value
Change one digit to make it unique and add in a decent size to configure it once and forget about it. the click Finish and click OK in the resulting pop-up window.
Create an IP address pool: this pool will be used to connect to the KVM for console access. First, navigate to the LAN tab and select Pools from the drop down menu, then under the Sub-Organization (Sub-Org-01 in this case) right click and select Create IP Pool.
Give at name, select Sequential and click Next
Click Add to define the IP address block.
Setup the IP address block information, you can do as many as you want, you can always add later, I usually configure one for each blade at the very beginning ad forget about it.
As a final step, click Next and then click Finish (assuming you won’t use IPv6).
Create a Server Pool: from the Servers tab, navigate to the Sub-Organization and with a right-click select Create Server Pool. Once there type in a name for the pool and click Next.
Select the blades and servers from the left pane and add them to the Pooled Servers pane, and click Finish.
Create the MAC Address Pools: We could use the default pool, or we can get very creative with this, especially if you are using VMware or any other host with multiple vNICs. The trick here is to Identify the FI, chassis, site, etc.
The MAC address is going to be of the format 00:25:B5:00:00:00, the first part
(00:25:B5) is the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) and the second part
(00:00:00) id the Device ID, and the second part is the one that we customize.
Is with the second part that we will get creative. Use it to identify the site and FI, and I go even further and if the deployment is small I also identify the vSwitch. For example 00:25:B5:1A:00:00 could be Site 1, FI A, vSwitch 0, and the last three places are for sequential values. Check the following image with a few MAC Pools.
In the previous image, you can see separate sets for management, vMotion, iSCSI, and VM traffic. You don’t have to do it exactly as I have it there, maybe you want to use the same vSwitch for management and vMotion, then you could designate one place as the vmk# for example. The next slideshow has the MAC Pool creation process.
I am going to submit this post the way I have it up to this point and then release the next steps including:
I’ve decided to learn a little bit more about how to use GitHub because I want to start writing some automation code for the UCS B-Series configuration. I did some research on which editor to use (I’ve only used vi, that was the last time I coded) and I found that Atom (www.atom.io) is really sleek and that it integrates with programming languages and you can git directly from it. I will try to present my findings in the next few paragraphs.
In Summary:
Go to http://www.github.com and create an account by clicking the ‘Sign up‘ button on the top right.
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Create a Repository (project): You can Read the guide or Start a project directly:
Copy the Clone/Download URL
git clone the URL (If you don’t have git installed, check this post from Chris Chernoff explaining how to go about it).
Mac:~ prmadness$ pwd
/Users/prmadness
Mac:~ prmadness$ which git
/usr/bin/git
Mac:~ prmadness$ git clone https://github.com/prmadness/new_project.git
Cloning into 'new_project'...
remote: Counting objects: 3, done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 3 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), done.
Mac:~ prmadness$ ls -ld new_project
drwxr-xr-x 4 prmadness staff 136 Feb 8 15:06 new_project/
Mac:~ prmadness$ cd new_project/
Mac:new_project prmadness$ pwd
/Users/prmadness/new_project
With the previous section, I demonstrated how to download or clone the project or repository into your computer. Now let’s move on to the Atom editor:
Download the Atom editor from www.Atom.io, then install and start the application.
Open the Atom editor and under the File menu click on “Add Project Folder”, Then select the project folder that came down from the git clone.
In the Atom editor, write your python code and save the file to the repository folder using a .py extension. In this example, we will use the filename “ucs-config.py“
If the atom-runner package is installed, you could execute the code directly from Atom pressing CTRL-R on your keyboard.
Go back to the command line (Terminal) and execute the following commands:
Mac:$cd new_project/
Mac:ucs-config prmadness$ pwd
/Users/prmadness/new_project
Mac:ucs-config prmadness$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
Untracked files:
(use "git add ..." to include in what will be committed)
ucs-config.py
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
Execute “git add ucs-config.py” and “git status” again
git add ucs-config.py
Mac:ucs-config prmadness$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
Changes to be committed:
(use "git reset HEAD ..." to unstage)
new file: ucs-config.py
At this point, the new file is committed to the project in my laptop, but not synced up.
Execute “git push“
Mac:ucs-config prmadness$ git push
warning: push.default is unset; its implicit value has changed in
Git 2.0 from 'matching' to 'simple'. To squelch this message
and maintain the traditional behavior, use:
git config --global push.default matching
To squelch this message and adopt the new behavior now, use:
git config --global push.default simple
When push.default is set to 'matching', git will push local branches
to the remote branches that already exist with the same name.
Since Git 2.0, Git defaults to the more conservative 'simple'
behavior, which only pushes the current branch to the corresponding
remote branch that 'git pull' uses to update the current branch.
See 'git help config' and search for 'push.default' for further information.
(the 'simple' mode was introduced in Git 1.7.11. Use the similar mode
'current' instead of 'simple' if you sometimes use older versions of Git)
Username for 'https://github.com': prmadness
Password for 'https://prmadness@github.com':
Counting objects: 3, done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.
Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 346 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To https://github.com/prmadness/ucs-config.git
fab300a..c04a7ac master -> master
If this was your first time pushing a file, execute “git config –global push.default simple” to get rid of the legacy message.
Everyone else who wants to have the latest revision of your project must execute a “git pull” if they already cloned the project or the “git clone URL” command to download the whole project.
All these git commands work when you are in the repository path/folder of your laptop, use the “pwd” command to check your current path.
Execute git with no arguments to display the Help:
Mac:ucs-config prmadness$ git
usage: git [--version] [--help] [-C <path>] [-c name=value]
[--exec-path[=<path>]] [--html-path] [--man-path] [--info-path]
[-p | --paginate | --no-pager] [--no-replace-objects] [--bare]
[--git-dir=<path>] [--work-tree=<path>] [--namespace=<name>]
<command> [<args>]
These are common Git commands used in various situations:
start a working area (see also: git help tutorial)
clone Clone a repository into a new directory
init Create an empty Git repository or reinitialize an existing one
work on the current change (see also: git help everyday)
add Add file contents to the index
mv Move or rename a file, a directory, or a symlink
reset Reset current HEAD to the specified state
rm Remove files from the working tree and from the index
examine the history and state (see also: git help revisions)
bisect Use binary search to find the commit that introduced a bug
grep Print lines matching a pattern
log Show commit logs
show Show various types of objects
status Show the working tree status
grow, mark and tweak your common history
branch List, create, or delete branches
checkout Switch branches or restore working tree files
commit Record changes to the repository
diff Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc
merge Join two or more development histories together
rebase Reapply commits on top of another base tip
tag Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG
collaborate (see also: git help workflows)
fetch Download objects and refs from another repository
pull Fetch from and integrate with another repository or a local branch
push Update remote refs along with associated objects
'git help -a' and 'git help -g' list available subcommands and some
concept guides. See 'git help <command>' or 'git help <concept>'
to read about a specific subcommand or concept.
The preceding steps came from these two videos:
Two things I learned after watching those videos:
Add the terminal-plus package to Atom to open a terminal on you current repository and execute the git commands directly from the Atom editor.
As an alternative to the command line add the git-plus package to use git directly from the Atom editor, after it is installed press “Command+Shift+P” to add, commit and push. To learn how to use git from atom check this video:
As always, excuse my grammar and lack of details, I mostly write these blogs to be able to remember the things I use once a month.
As part of the service portfolio at ABS Technology, we offer Data Center migrations. There are multiple technologies to achieve the data replication necessary in a migration. There are two main levels, host-level replication, and array level replication. With host replication, the granularity is a single operating system instance, it can be physical or virtual. You can use technologies like the vSphere Replication Appliance, Recoverpoint for VM’s, VEEAM, ZERTO, or Double-Take. All of these differ and the use of one vs the other will depend on a number of factors like RPO/RTO, budget, standardization policy, etc.
When it comes to array replication, you will have as many flavors as array vendors, but the two types are Asynchronous and Synchronous, again the selection of technology will depend on the requirements.
In this post, I will summarize what is needed for a migration from one Data Center to another of an environment using a UCS B-Series, a Nimble Storage Array, and vSphere.
In the Nimble storage array, the replication can be done over the Data subnet or the management subnet. If the array has a free NIC, you can configure it for data, but use it only for replication. this last case is the one I will be documenting here.
The first step is to configure the subnet in the Nimble Storage. I will user the network 10.10.10.0/24 as an example, with a discovery IP of 10.10.10.50 and an IP address of 10.10.10.51. The discovery IP will not be used because we will only use this subnet for replication purposes.
Figure 1. From the Administration main menu, select Network Configuration.
Figure 2. Click on Active Settings
Figure 3. Click the Subnets tab and then click the Edit button.
Figure 4. Then click the Add button
Figure 5. Click Done to finish.
As a final step, you can save the new configuration in the active settings by clicking the Update button, or save it as a draft to be applied later by selecting the Save as Draft button.
The next step is to configure the replication partner. You will need the nimble Group Name of each storage array, the hostname or IP address and a password to use as a shared secret.
In the next four images, we will navigate through the process of setting the replication partner. First, log in the Nimble and from the menu select Manage->Protection->Replication Partners.
Figure 6. From the menu select Manage->Protection->Replication Partners.
Figure 7. Click on the New Replication Partner button.
Figure 8. Input the information, in our case select the newly created network from the drop down menu as a Replication Network (see Figure 5 above).
Figure 9. Create an optional QoS policy and click Finish.
In the following slideshow, I configure the Volume Collection. The Volume Collection contains all the volumes that will replicate at the same time. At the end, you can see the way I would monitor the replication.
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Now that everything is replicating, wait for it to be synchronized and it’s time to migrate. There can be multiple ways to do this, you could clone a replica and chose the VM’s you want to migrate, or you could “Handover” the complete volume collection.
Option one: Create clone of the replica.
In this case, the pre-requisite is to stop I/O on the source VM, Datastore, or Volume collection. Do this to have a crash consistent copy of the source. After you stop the I/O, wait for the last replica to happen and now in the destination array, clone the volume replica snapshot and put it online. Then configure the cloned Volume for Host access. If you are satisfied with your VM, I would suggest a storage vMotion of that VM to another DS not involved in the replication and remove the clone. Just to keep things clean.
Option two: Handover the Volume Collection.
Before you click on that Handover button, make sure you shutdown your VMs and unmount the Datastores (don’t delete them!). In the case of a migration to a new set of hosts without replication back, remove the old hosts access to the volumes and rescan to remove dead paths.
Back in 1999, we hired a guy from Veritas to install our first Netbackup software, version 3.5 it was (I think). Little I knew that it would be 2016 and I would still be working with this. It outlived other things that look more promising at that time.
I wanted to create this quick post about how to gain root access to a Netbackup appliance because it changed a little bit from version 2.6 to version 2.7. See my input in red.
login as: admin
admin@<ip>'s password: <password>
Last login: Wed May 4 09:52:28 2016 from <my mac>
Appliance Manage master and media appliances.
Exit Log out and exit from the current shell.
Manage Manage NetBackup appliance.
Monitor Monitor NetBackup appliance activities.
Network Network Administration.
Reports Examine the running and historical state of the host.
Settings Change NetBackup appliance settings.
Shell Shell operations.
Support NetBackup Support.
<NBU-Appliance-Hostname>.Main_Menu> Support
Entering NetBackup support view...
Checkpoint Appliance Checkpoint Management.
DataCollect Gather device logs.
Disk Gather disk information.
Errors Display NetBackup errors.
Exit Log out and exit from the current shell.
FactoryReset Reset this system to factory install image
InfraServices Show/control infrastructure services.
iostat Execute the iostat command.
IPMI Remote management port configuration.
KillRemoteCall Terminate running or hung remote calls on peer compute nodes.
Logs Set level, share, unshare, view, and upload debug logs.
Maintenance Launch maintenance shell.
Messages Display the messages file.
NBDNA Network traces with NBDNA tool (Select Create or Remove).
Nbperfchk Execute the disk IO or network bandwidth check.
NBSU Manage NetBackup support data files (Select Create or Remove).
Processes Show/control NetBackup and Admin Console processes.
Reboot Reboot the system.
RecoverStorage View or delete directories backed up during appliance re-image.
Return Return to the previous menu.
Service Service management.
Shell Shell operations.
Show Display information.
Shutdown Power off the system.
Storage Storage data and configuration
Test Test the current status of various appliance components.
<NBU-Appliance-Hostname>.Support> Maintenance
<!-- Maintenance Mode --!>
maintenance's password: <password>(this script was for 2.6)
maintenance-!> /opt/Symantec/scspagent/IPS/sisipsoverride.sh
bash: /opt/Symantec/scspagent/IPS/sisipsoverride.sh: No such file or directory
(this is the right script for 2.7)
maintenance-!> /opt/Symantec/sdcssagent/IPS/sisipsoverride.sh
Symantec Data Center Security Server Policy Override
Agent Version: 6.5.0 (build 355)
Current Policy: NetBackup Appliance Prevention Policy, r38
Policy Prevention: Enabled
Policy Override: Allowed
Override State: Not overridden
To override the policy and disable protection, enter your login password.
Password: <password>
Choose the type of override that you wish to perform:
1. Override Prevention except for Self-Protection
2. Override Prevention Completely
Choice? [1] 2
Choose the amount of time after which to automatically re-enable:
1. 15 minutes
2. 30 minutes
3. 1 hour
4. 2 hours
5. 4 hours
6. 8 hours
Choice? [1] 4
Enter a comment. Press Enter to continue.
<comment or just Press Enter>
Please wait while the policy is being overridden.
.................
The policy was successfully overridden.
maintenance-!> elevate
<NBU-Appliance-Hostname>:/home/maintenance #
After the initial setup is done, I recommend to go ahead and install the latest available firmware to get the most out of your environment. First, go to http://www.cisco.com, and from the Support Menu, click “All downloads.”
Image 1. Cisco Support Site – > All Downloads
Note: just hover over Support, don’t click
Image 2. Select The UCS B-Series Blade Server Software
Image 3. Select the Server Software Bundle
Image 4. Select the UCS Manager version and download the respective bundles.
Number one (1) is the UCS Manager release version, number two (2) is the Blade Firmware, number three (3) is the bundle for the C-series. The C-Series bundle is not necessary, but it’s recommended to upload it too. Number four (4) is the UCS Manager and the FI firmware. With this, now your are ready to start the software update.
Phase 1: Pre-Work
Check that the NTP is configured and working (view Figure 6 on Part 1)
Take note of the management interfaces IP addresses and check that the admin status is enabled.
Backup the UCS configuration
Verify the status of each FI, the status should be ok and green before proceeding.
Verify that the IO modules are up and operable
If the environment has been previously configured and is in production, check that all the servers (and all the rest of the equipment in general) are working correctly.
Verify that there is available capacity for the upgrade. If space is low delete any packages that are not in use (from the same place we will upload the packages later).
Before upgrading to Cisco UCS Manager Release 3.1, ensure that the key ring in use has a modulus size of 2048 bits or more by doing the following:
Connect to the UCS manager via ssh
Verify the modulus size of the key ring in use by using the following commands:
If the default key ring is in use and has a modulus size less than 2048 bits, reconfigure the modulus size to 2048 bit or more, and regenerate the certificate by using the following commands:
UCS-A# scope security
UCS-A /security # scope keyring default
UCS-A /security/keyring # set modulus mod2048
UCS-A /security/keyring # set regenerate yes
UCS-A /security/keyring # commit-buffer
UCS-A /security/keyring # show detail
Upload the packages, click on the plus sign to upload the files.
If the UCS Manager cluster uses the Fiber Interconnect 6296, please verify the Hardware version. SSH into the cluster and issue the “connect nxos” command, then “show module”
If the system has version 1.0 installed, then open a support case with Cisco to update it to version 1.1.
Click on the drop-down menu to select the new version
In case this error message pops:
Go ahead and clear the start up version and try again:
Re-login after a few minutes
Phase 3: FI Firmware
Equipment->Equipment->Firmware Management->Firmware Auto Install and then Click Install Infrastructure Firmware
Select Ignore All and click Next.
Select the version from the drop-down menu, check the Upgrade Now button and Click Finish.
Click OK
Verify the pending activities on top of the UCS manager to acknowledge the reboot of the FI’s. Verify that the hosts are working properly before the acknowledge.
Click Yes
Click OK
Monitor the Progress, this could take 40 minutes per FI
When the primary FI reboots, the UCS manager will disconnect, and you will have to re-login. Check the progress and reboot the secondary FI when the option appears in pending activities on top.
Phase 4: Blade Servers
Now is the blade server turn. If the system is in production, check that all Service Profiles have the Maintenance Policy set to User Ack to avoid an immediate reboot of the servers. Before continuing, it is advisable to check that all components are up and operable.
Click on the Install Server Firmware link
Follow the wizard clicking next, at the end click Install and click Confirm Install to the pop-up windows.
Monitor the progress and check the Pending Activities on the top for the Acknowledge, if the system is in production make sure you schedule a maintenance window for this.
An alternative would be to create a new Firmware Policy with the new version and then apply the policy to the Service Profile or the Service Profile Template.
With the system at the latest software version, we are ready to continue with the configuration of the Pools, Policies, and Templates.
I always wanted to write about the UCS B-Series installation process, but I was always in a hurry and could not take snapshots of a real installation. Here is a summary of that I did on my last installation:
Part I: Initial Setup
First, you need to rack and cable the equipment. For the correct way to install the equipment in the rack please check the Cisco UCS 5108 Server Chassis Installation Guide. In this guide, you can use pages 41-49 for the Chassis rack instructions and page 81 for the power cables needed. Then check the Cisco UCS 6200 Series Fabric Interconnect Hardware Installation Guide on pages 26 to 28. The next step would be to connect to the console port in the Fiber Interconnect (FI).
From the Guide (pp. 55-56):
Plug the RJ-45 end of the serial management cable into the Console port on the fabric interconnect, and connect the DB-9 male end into the serial port on a laptop or other computer. If the computer you will use does not have a serial port, you will need to use the Serial to USB adapter. Be sure to install the drivers for your adapter.
Start your terminal software.
Configure the terminal software as follows:
The COM port for the connection you are about to establish is the connection to the fabric interconnect. You may need to look in the computer’s device manager to confirm this. Example COM1 or COM5.
The other connection parameters are 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.
Use the terminal software’s command to open the connection to the Fabric Interconnects. A session window will start, let’s take a look at the next to screenshots:
Now you are ready to connect to your UCS manager using your browser (Using the Cluster IPv4 address from the first screenshot).
Configure the Fiber Interconnect ports used to connect the Chassis as Server Ports. This will acknowledge the chassis and let you configure the rest.
Figure 4. Set the Chassis ports to Server Ports
I would like to show a few basic initial steps before we are ready to upgrade the firmware. After login into the UCS manager using your browser, change the Power Policy to “grid”. Equipment->Policies->Global Policies->Grid
Figure 4. Power Policy
The grid redundant configuration is sometimes used when you have two power sources to power a chassis or you require greater than N+1 redundancy. If one source fails (which causes a loss of power to one or two power supplies), the surviving power supplies on the other power circuit continue to provide power to the chassis. A common reason for using grid redundancy is if the rack power distribution is such that power is provided by two PDUs and you want the grid redundancy protection in the case of a PDU failure.
Another set of basic configuration parameters: the Call Home, the NTP and the Timezone.
Figure 5. Call Home Setting (leave it off until everything has been configured)
Figure 6. NTP and Timezone Settings
In the next new blogs, I will discuss the rest of the steps for configuration.
Recently I joined this community: https://www.cloudcredibility.com, and I feel that is not fair. I mean for people like me that love leveling in a game or score points or climb the positions in a list is really difficult. I consider myself to have some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder and joining is going to give me a few long nights for a few days, until I lose interest and find the next shining thing.
The topic of resource reservation and allocation is very delicate. I am of the school of thought that is better to have enough resources to make everyone happy and still be at 75% utilization rather than having to manage resource shares. Well, in an ideal world everyone gets its own share and never takes more, right? For the real world in which the budget is never enough, and VM’s roam the hosts consuming resources unscrupulously we have the vSphere feature of resource allocation/management.
Resource Allocation Shares
Shares specify the relative importance of a virtual machine (or resource pool). If a virtual machine has twice as many shares of a resource as another virtual machine, it is entitled to consume twice as much of that resource when these two virtual machines are competing for resources.
Shares are typically specified as High, Normal, or Low and these values specify share values with a 4:2:1 ratio, respectively. You can also select Custom to assign a specific number of shares (which expresses a proportional weight) to each virtual machine.
These values depend on the number of vCPUs and RAM on each VM. Take a look at Table 2-1 on page 12 in the vSphere Resource Management pdf (link at the bottom).
Figure 1. Right click on a VM and select Edit Resource Settings:
Figure 2. Edit Resource Settings Window:
Here you will find the values I mentioned before, and a couple more. The Reservation is the guaranteed allocation of resources and the Limit is the upper limit.
We can also configure Resource Pools to simplify the administration of resources, instead of configuring resources on a per VM basis, we can manage those VMs in groups.
One last concept you should be familiar with is Admission Control (before we dive into the blueprint for this topic).
When you power on a virtual machine, the system checks the amount of CPU and memory resources that have not yet been reserved. Based on the available unreserved resources, the system determines whether it can guarantee the reservation for which the virtual machine is configured (if any). This process is called admission control. If enough unreserved CPU and memory are available, or if there is no reservation, the virtual machine is powered on. Otherwise, an Insufficient Resources warning appears.
Check this post about Resource Pools by Duncan Epping on Yellow-Bricks, it is a little bit old, but I think is still relevant.
After this brief introduction, I am going back to the exam blueprint and try to explain each concept. In this section we are going to cover the following topics:
Create/Remove a Resource Pool
Add/Remove virtual machines from a Resource Pool
Configure custom resource pool attributes
Determine the effect of the Expandable Reservation parameter on resource allocation
Create a resource pool hierarchical structure
Determine how resource pools apply to vApps
Describe vFlash architecture
Create/Delete vFlash Resource Pool
Assign vFlash resources to VMDKs
Given a scenario, determine appropriate shares, reservations and limits for hierarchical Resource Pools
Create/Remove a Resource Pool
From you Home view in the vSphere Web Client, click Hosts and Clusters in the middle pane, then right click on a host to find the New Resource Pool link.
Figure 1. New Resource Pool
Figure 2. New Resource Pool Configuration Window
After you create a Resource Pool you ca delete it by going to the same view from which you created it and right cl1ck on the Resource Pool name.
Fogire 3. Remove Resource Pool
Click Yes on the popup confirmation dialog window and done.
Add/Remove virtual machines from a Resource Pool
You can drag and drop the VM in and out of at Resource Pool or you can migrate the VM into a Resource Pool.
Video 1. Migrate a VM to a new Resource Pool
Configure custom resource pool attributes
Going back to Resource Allocation Shares:
Shares are typically specified as High, Normal, or Low and these values specify share values with a 4:2:1 ratio, respectively. You can also select Custom to assign a specific number of shares (which expresses a proportional weight) to each virtual machine.
Figure 4. Custom Resource Pool Attributes
If you click on the Resource Pool (RP-Parent) then you can click on Edit resource pool settings and the configuration dialog will appear.
Determine the effect of the Expandable Reservation parameter on resource allocation
When the check box is selected (default), expandable reservations are considered during admission control. If you power on a virtual machine in this resource pool, and the combined reservations of the virtual machines are larger than the reservation of the resource pool, the resource pool can use resources from its parent or ancestors.
In other words, if my son wants to watch a movie and he only has $3 he will come to me and ask for money, if I have some cash and I can give it to him, then he can go to the theater, if not he stays home.
There is a great example on page 57 of the Managing Resource Pools pdf (link at the bottom).
Create a resource pool hierarchical structure
Figure 5. Parents, Children, and Siblings in Resource Pool Hierarchy
The root resource pool is the cluster in this case.
Determine how resource pools apply to vApps
A vSphere vApp allows packaging of multiple interoperating virtual machines and software applications that you can manage as a unit and distribute in OVF format.
A vApp can contain one or more virtual machines, but any operation carried out on the vApp, such as clone or power off, affects all virtual machines in the vApp container
Reservations on vApps and all their child resource pools, child vApps, and child virtual machines count against the parent resources only if those objects are powered on.
Procedure
1. Navigate to a vApp in the inventory and click Edit vApp Settings.
2. In the Deployment section, click CPU resources to allocate CPU resources to this vApp.
3. In the Deployment section, click Memory resources to allocate memory resources to this vApp.
4. Click Ok.
Describe vFlash architecture
VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache virtualizes server side flash providing a high performance read cache layer that dramatically lowers application latency. The caching is fully transparent to the VM without requiring any guest agents. Flash Read Cache enables allocation of flash resources at a per-VMDK granularity providing VMware vSphere vMotion consistent read caching and integration with VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler for initial placement.
vFRC is enabled on a per-VMDK basis. Each VMDK can be configured with a certain size of flash cache with a certain cache block size. Once vFRC is enabled for a virtual disk, the cache is created when the virtual machine boots. vFRC is a writethrough cache. This means that even though write I/O requests are cached by vFRC, I/O request completion status is sent to the guest virtual machine only after the data is written to physical storage. Because of this design, there is no change in the existing data reliability and availability guarantees.
Create/Delete vFlash Resource Pool
Figure 6. Navigate to Host and Clusters -> Click a Host -> Click Manage -> Click Settings -> Click Virtual Flash Resource Management and then click on Add Capacity
Figure 7. Selection Dialog Window
After you select the capacity in figure 7, you will be able to see the available amount in figure 6.
Assign vFlash resources to VMDKs
Figure 8. Edit settings on a VM to add vFlash to a vmdk. Click Advance to enable the cache
Given a scenario, determine appropriate shares, reservations and limits for hierarchical Resource Pools
For individual VMs take into consideration the number of vCPUs and the amount of memory:
For example, an SMP virtual machine with two virtual CPUs and 1GB RAM with CPU and memory shares set to Normal has 2×1000=2000 shares of CPU and 10×1024=10240 shares of memory.
I love the Brocade GUI, but I hate Java. I usually find my way with the workarounds out there to be able to display the Java plugins, but this time I wasted too much time on something that can be done in the command line. I was at a customer’s site and we added a few servers to the Fabric. These are the commands I used to update the zoning.
switchshow: Displays switch and port status.
portloginshow <port #>: display WWPN on NPIV ports
alishow: Displays zone alias information.
cfgshow: Use this command to display zone configuration information.
zoneshow: Displays zone information
zonehelp: To help find the commands you will need.
With the information I gathered from the commands above I was able to add aliases, zones and then add the zone to the current configuration. The save and enable the config.
And there you have it, three servers with two HBA’s each, added to a VNX with two FC connections to each Fabric. In this case the original configuration doesn’t make any distinctions between servers on each switch. I always try to add HBA1 or HBA2, or SPA_P0 and SP_P1, but the approach used here makes it very simple. Check the complete guide:
The WWPN pool creation process is analog to the one just described, but chage one of the its on the WWN window (see below)
