Getting Started with VMware Virtual SAN
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About this ebook
- 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
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.
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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,