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Posts Tagged ‘storage’

Using the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit to add vSphere Storage

June 9th, 2010 Jase 3 comments

Over the past year or so, I have started using PowerShell more and more.

I was really exited to see the release of the NetApp Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit 1.0. I say this, because I have been using the “unsupported” PoshOnTap PowerShell extensions for some NetApp management. I have to give credit where credit is due, and Glenn Sizemore has done a great job with PoshOnTap.

PowerShell is really powerful, and because more and more vendors are providing more and more modules for the management of different aspects of the enterprise. With one script, I can create a NetApp volume, export it as an NFS export, and then connect it to all of my VMware vSphere hosts.

Note: This script is meant to be run from the vSphere PowerCLI.

##########################################################
# Create-And-Add-Storage-example.ps1
# Jase McCarty 6/7/2010
# Posh Script to add a volume on a NetApp Filer
# and present it to all vSphere hosts
##########################################################

# Add the vSphere PowerCLI SnapIn and the DATA ONTAP Module
Import-module DataONTAP

# Set my variables
$vCenter = vcenter.jasemccarty.com
$Filer = netapp1.jasemccarty.com
$aggr = aggr1
$newvol = volx

# Connect to vCenter and our NetApp Filer
Connect-VIServer $vCenter
Connect-NaController $Filer

# Create a new volume
New-NaVol $newvol $aggr 500g

# Set some options for the new volume
Set-NaVolOption $newvol no_atime_update yes
Set-NaVolOption $newvol fractional_reserve 0

# Set the SnapShot Reserve to 0
Set-NaSnapshotreserve  $newvol 0
Set-NaSnapshotschedule $newvol -Weeks 0 -Days 0 -Hours 0

# Add an NFS export
Add-NaNfsExport /vol/$newvol -Persistent -ReadWrite all-hosts -NoSuid -SecurityFlavors sys,krb5

# Get all the vSphere Hosts and add the NFS export
$Hosts = Get-VMHost
ForEach ($H in $Hosts)
{
 New-Datastore -Nfs -VMHost $_.Name -NAME $newvol -Path /vol/$newvol -NfsHost $Filer;
}

**Note, this is a pretty incomplete script.  Security for the export will have to be addressed, and the Filer management IP (netapp1.jasemccarty.com) is probably not the same as the IP used for the NFS export.  This is just an example of how this can be used.

Pretty cool.  I can only imagine the Poshibilities.

Annie Get Your Gun – Virtual Casualties of War?

June 3rd, 2010 Jase No comments

Casualties of war?
How does that fit with Annie Get Your Gun?

Annie Get Your Gun is a fictional musical loosely based on Annie Oakley, an American sharpshooter born in 1860, and her husband, Frank Butler. In Act II of the musical, Annie and Frank are planning to get married.  Annie wants a big wedding, while Frank wants a small wedding.  They decide to resolve the conflict by having one last duel to decide how they will proceed.  In the musical, this leads into the song “Anything you can do” (I can do better).

How does this relate to technology?
Well, the thing that got me started thinking about this blog post, primarily has to do with the back and forth on Twitter and blogosphere from the likes of NetApp, EMC, and recently HP.

I’m not going to name names, because that’s not what is important.  What is important, is how life reflects art.  Here are a few comparisons that illustrate what I mean:

Annie/Frank Storage Vendors
Expert Sharpshooters Enterprise Storage Vendors
Have many talents (listed in the song) Provide a wide variety of features and options
Wants to get married Wants to provide the best storage for customers

Experts
In the musical, both Annie and Frank are expert sharpshooters and very capable people.  For everything one can do, the other says that they can do better.   It is not that one is truly better than the other, they are both experts.  They are both top of their game.  No one can dispute that.

The Goal
In the musical, the end goal is getting married.  Now I don’t foresee NetApp, EMC, and HP (or any combination of) getting “married”/merging/etc.  I do see the goal for the storage vendors to provide the best products ad services for all customers.

In the end, Annie lets Frank win to calm the waters so they can get on with their end goal of getting married.  Who is going to calm the waters?

The Casualties
I see a couple casualties in this war of words.

  1. The storage vendors
    I understand that people are passionate about their products… Sometimes at the expense of appearing unprofessional.
  2. The virtualization community
    People that know/work with parties on both sides can be put in a crossfire when one is pit against another…

It is odd to see one or more vendors say they are “fierce competitors” and also “good friends” while seeing this back and forth about products and their capabilities.  Some of this has really gotten downright dirty.

I would like to see things calm down… Maybe we can setup a virtual DMZ and come to a peace accord or something.

When attacks appear personal it gets a lot worse.  If it can just be kept out of the personal space, left to the facts, and discussed with an “appropriate” amount of passion…  Maybe it could end up simply being a  spirited debate.

Categories: Virtualization Tags: , ,