EMC SnapView has been around for some time on the CLARiiON and VNX. I don’t want to go into the how and what of using SnapView in your environment, but I thought this quick rundown of creating a SnapView Clone using naviseccli might be useful. You can also do all of this using the Wizard in Unisphere – if you’re into pointy hats and capes.

You’d be best served to test these commands in your own environment before trying them on data you care about. And I take no responsibility if you pooch it because you’ve followed my guide without thinking through the ramifications of your actions. Also, be careful of the line breaks here – if you don’t get the whole line copied you’ll run into issues. So let’s get to it.

I’m assuming that you’ve never done clones before, so we’re starting from scratch. Firstly, bind two LUNs for use as Clone Private LUNs. These can be any size you want, but their usefulness is limited beyond 1GB each.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 bind r5 901 -rg 1 -sp a -cap 1024 -sq mb

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 bind r5 902 -rg 1 -sp b -cap 1024 -sq mb

Note that I already had a RAID Group set aside for the LUNs. You then need to create a LUN to use as the clone. This LUN will evidently be the same size as the source. Note that it can reside on a different SP. Let’s assume the source LUN is 1TB.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 bind r5 910 -rg 7 -sp b -cap 1024 -sq gb

Now it’s time to allocate the 1GB LUNs as CPLs.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -allocatecpl -spA 901 -spB 902 -o

With SnapView, AllowProtectedRestore is disabled by default. You can change this on a global level with the following command. Note the -o prevents naviseccli from confirming my actions. If you’re unsure about the commands you want to use, you can leave -o off.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -changeclonefeature -AllowProtectedRestore 0|1(Disabled|Enabled) -o

 

Create a Clone Group to store the Source and Clone in. At this point we nominate the LUN(s) that we want to be cloned.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -createclonegroup -name VMwareMgmtSnapClone -luns 3 -description "Clone Group for vSphere Upgrade" -o

Now add the clone to the clone group.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -addclone -Name VMwareMgmtSnapClone -Luns 910

The listclonegroup is used to get info on the array’s SnapView clone status.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -listclonegroup

Name: VMwareMgmtSnapClone

CloneGroupUid: 50:06:01:60:C6:E0:43:CF:01:00:00:00:00:00:00:00

InSync: Yes

Description: Clone Group for vSphere Upgrade Testing

QuiesceThreshold: 60

SourceMediaFailure: No

IsControllingSP: No

SourceLUNSize: 2147483648

CloneCount: 1

Sources: 3

Clones:

CloneID: 0100000000000000

CloneState: Synchronizing

CloneCondition: Synchronizing

AvailableForIO: No

CloneMediaFailure: No

IsDirty: No

PercentSynced: 0

RecoveryPolicy: Auto

SyncRate: Medium

CloneLUNs: 910

UseProtectedRestore: No

IsFractured: No

 

Using -changeclone you can change the sync rate and protected restore options for the clone. In this example I’ve changed the rate to High (from Medium) and set it to use Protected Restore.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -changeclone -name VMwareMgmtSnapClone -cloneid 0100000000000000 -SyncRate high -UseProtectedRestore 1 -o

 

Depending on how much data needs to be synchronized, it might take a little time before the output looks like this:

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -listclonegroup

Name: VMwareMgmtSnapClone

CloneGroupUid: 50:06:01:60:C6:E0:43:CF:01:00:00:00:00:00:00:00

InSync: Yes

Description: Clone Group for vSphere Upgrade Testing

QuiesceThreshold: 60

SourceMediaFailure: No

IsControllingSP: No

SourceLUNSize: 2147483648

CloneCount: 1

Sources: 3

Clones:

CloneID: 0100000000000000

CloneState: Synchronized

CloneCondition: Normal

AvailableForIO: No

CloneMediaFailure: No

IsDirty: No

PercentSynced: 100

RecoveryPolicy: Auto

SyncRate: High

CloneLUNs: 910

UseProtectedRestore: Yes

IsFractured: No

 

After synchronization, use the Windows-based tool admsnap to flush I/O from the LUN

admsnap flush -o E:

Wait for the clone to transition to synchronized. Once this is complete, you can fracture the Clone.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -fractureclone -Name VMwareMgmtSnapClone -CloneId 0100000000000000 -o

Verify that it’s fractured and consistent

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 snapview -listclonegroup

Name: VMwareMgmtSnapClone

CloneGroupUid: 50:06:01:60:C6:E0:43:CF:01:00:00:00:00:00:00:00

InSync: Yes

Description: Clone Group for vSphere Upgrade Testing

QuiesceThreshold: 60

SourceMediaFailure: No

IsControllingSP: No

SourceLUNSize: 2147483648

CloneCount: 1

Sources: 3

Clones:

CloneID: 0100000000000000

CloneState: Consistent

CloneCondition: Administratively Fractured

AvailableForIO: Yes

CloneMediaFailure: No

IsDirty: No

PercentSynced: N/A

RecoveryPolicy: Auto

SyncRate: High

CloneLUNs: 910

UseProtectedRestore: Yes

IsFractured: Yes

 

If you wanted to use this clone to run a backup via a secondary host, you would then add it to the storage group of that host.

naviseccli -h 192.168.0.90 storagegroup -addhlu -gname SGNAME -hlu HOSTLUNID -alu ARRAYLUNID

Once you’ve added it to the storage group, you can use admsnap to scan for the clone on the secondary host

admsnap clone_activate

 

If for some reason you want to use the clone to restore the data on the source LUN, you’d use the Reverse Synchronize process.

naviseccli clone -reversesyncclone -name NAME -cloneid CLONEID -UseProtectedRestore 0|1 -o

If you want to keep the clone to use again in the future, fracture it from the source again.

naviseccli clone -fractureclone -name NAME -cloneid CLONEID -o

 

And that’s SnapView Clones with naviseccli in a nutshell.

 

 

 

1 comment

Those of you fortunate enough to have worked with me in a professional capacity will know that I’m highly opinionated. I generally try not to be opinionated on this blog, preferring instead to provide guidance on tangible technical things. On this occasion, however, I’d like to offer my opinion. I overheard someone in the office recently saying that best practices are just best practices, you don’t have to follow them. Generally speaking, they’re right. You don’t have to do what the vendor tells you, particularly if it doesn’t suit your environment, circumstances, whatever. What annoys me, though, is the idea that’s been adopted by a few in my industry that they can just ignore documents that cover best practices because there’s no way the vendor would know what’s appropriate for their environment. At this point I call BS. These types of documents are put out there because the vendor wants you to use their product in the way it was meant to be used. And – get this – they want you to get value from using their product. The idea being that you’ll be happy with the product, and buy from the vendor again.

BP Guides aren’t just for overpaid consultants to wave at know-nothing customers. They’re actually really useful guidelines around which you can base your designs. Crazy notion, right?

So, to my point. EMC recommend, when you’re using FAST VP on the CLARiiON / VNX, to leave 10% free space in your tiers. The reason they recommend this is that they want FAST VP to have sufficient space to move slices between tiers. Otherwise you’ll get errors like this “712d841a Could not complete operation Relocate 0xB00031ED4 allocate slice failed because 0xe12d8709″. And you’ll get lots of them. Which means that FAST is unable to move slices around the pool. In which case why did you by FAST in the first place? For more information on these errors, check out emc274840 and emc286486 on Powerlink.

If you want an easy way to query a pool’s capacity, use the following naviseccli command:

naviseccli -h ipaddress storagepool -list -tiers

Pool Name: SP_DATA_1

Pool ID: 3

 

Tier Name: FC

Raid Type: r_5

User Capacity (GBs): 33812.06

Consumed Capacity (GBs): 15861.97

Available Capacity (GBs): 17950.10

Percent Subscribed: 46.91%

Data Targeted for Higher Tier (GBs): 0.00

Data Targeted for Lower Tier (GBs): 0.00

Disks (Type):

 

Bus 6 Enclosure 7 Disk 14 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 6 Enclosure 7 Disk 12 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 6 Enclosure 7 Disk 10 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 3 Enclosure 5 Disk 3 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 3 Enclosure 5 Disk 1 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 4 Enclosure 5 Disk 2 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 4 Enclosure 5 Disk 0 (Fibre Channel)

 

[snip]

 

Bus 2 Enclosure 6 Disk 14 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 2 Enclosure 6 Disk 12 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 2 Enclosure 6 Disk 10 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 0 Enclosure 2 Disk 0 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 5 Enclosure 6 Disk 8 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 3 Enclosure 2 Disk 4 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 7 Enclosure 5 Disk 6 (Fibre Channel)

Pool Name: SP_TEST_10

Pool ID: 2

 

Tier Name: FC

Raid Type: r_10

User Capacity (GBs): 1600.10

Consumed Capacity (GBs): 312.02

Available Capacity (GBs): 1288.08

Percent Subscribed: 19.50%

Data Targeted for Higher Tier (GBs): 0.00

Data Targeted for Lower Tier (GBs): 0.00

Disks (Type):

 

Bus 1 Enclosure 7 Disk 3 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 1 Enclosure 7 Disk 5 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 1 Enclosure 7 Disk 7 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 1 Enclosure 7 Disk 2 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 1 Enclosure 7 Disk 4 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 1 Enclosure 7 Disk 6 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 1 Enclosure 7 Disk 9 (Fibre Channel)

Bus 1 Enclosure 7 Disk 8 (Fibre Channel)

 

And if you want to get the status of FAST VP operations on your pools, use the following command:

naviseccli -h ipaddress autotiering -info -opstatus

Storage Pool Name: SP_DATA_1

Storage Pool ID: 3

Relocation Start Time: N/A

Relocation Stop Time: N/A

Relocation Status: Inactive

Relocation Type: N/A

Relocation Rate: N/A

Data to Move Up (GBs): 0.00

Data to Move Down (GBs): 0.00

Data Movement Completed (GBs): N/A

Estimated Time to Complete: N/A

Schedule Duration Remaining: N/A

 

Storage Pool Name: SP_TEST_10

Storage Pool ID: 2

Relocation Start Time: N/A

Relocation Stop Time: N/A

Relocation Status: Inactive

Relocation Type: N/A

Relocation Rate: N/A

Data to Move Up (GBs): 0.00

Data to Move Down (GBs): 0.00

Data Movement Completed (GBs): N/A

Estimated Time to Complete: N/A

Schedule Duration Remaining: N/A

And next time you’re looking at a pool with tiers that are full, think about what you can do to alleviate the issue, and think about why you’ve automatically ignored the best practices guide.

No comments

Just a quick note to advise that FLARE 31 for the VNX has received an update to version .716. I had a quick glance at the release notes and noted a few fixes that take care of some SP panics. If you want a bit of a giggle, go and look at the kb article for emc291837 – it’s a scream. Or maybe I’m just being cynical. As always, go to Powerlink for more info, and talk to your local EMC people about whether it’s appropriate to upgrade your VNX’s code.

No comments

Mat has updated the DIY Heatmaps for EMC CLARiiON and VNX arrays to version 3.019. You can get it from the Utilities page here. Any and all feedback welcome.

Latest fixes:

· Search Path environment variable for naviseccli

· Search common install locations for naviseccli

· Improve cross browser support – tested on IE, Chrome and FireFox

· Improve debug details – add module version reporting

· Fix divide by zero bug in rendering routine

2 comments

A few months ago someone asked me if I had documentation on how to do FLARE upgrades on a CLARiiON. I’d taken a video last year, but realised that it used the old Navisphere Service Taskbar and covered the upgrade of a CX700 to FLARE 26. So, basically, my doco was a little out of date.

I recently had the opportunity to upgrade some of our CX4-120s to the latest release of FLARE 30 (.524), so thought it might be an opportune moment to document the process in a visual sense. Once I’d completed the articles, I realised this may have been done better with a series of videos. Maybe next time. In any case, here’s a four-part series (part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4) on how to upgrade FLARE on a CX4 using Unisphere Service Manager. It’s a classic death-by-screenshot scenario, and I apologise in advance for the size of the files. While we’re talking about documentation, have a look through the rest of the articles page, there might be something useful there. And if you want something covered specifically, I do take requests.

No comments

Mat has updated the DIY Heatmaps for EMC CLARiiON and VNX arrays to version 3.018. You can get it from the Utilities page here. Any and all feedback welcome.

Latest fixes:

## 0.3.016 Add options to add array name and SP name to output file

## Fix –display_drive_type so that it displays empty drive slots as white, Removed / Failed drives as gray and unknown as green

## Add attributes to display total array and bus IOPS and Bandwidth

## Add –display_actual option to view actual IO stats

## Add read and write attributes for SP IOPS and bandwidth metrics

## Add –time_zone option

## Add the time zone to the heatmap output

## Add LUN bandwidth total, read & write and LUN IOPS total, read & write attributes

## Fix display problem when all of trays have their last disks configured as hotspares or not in use

## Add 2TB drive size

## 0.3.017 Change display options to allow controll of how many Disk, LUN and SP heatmaps per column

## Add –disk_maps, –lun_maps and –sp_maps

## 0.3.018 Add –debug option to print detailed debug information

No comments

Just a quick note to remind you all that, if you’ve upgraded the version of PowerPath/VE that you’re using to accommodate the upgrade to vSphere 5 (that is, you’ve moved from 5.4 SP2 to 5.7.0.173), you should have also upgraded the version of rpowermt you’re using. Otherwise, you’ll end up with the following error message when using the older version of rpowermt on newer hosts.

Note that the 5.7.x version of rpowermt works with earlier versions of PP/VE.

1 comment

I’ve added a very basic article to the Articles page on Joining an ESXi Host to an Active Directory Domain. I’ll probably update it in the next few weeks with more information on why you would do this.

No comments

Just a quick note that FLARE 30 for the CX4 has received an update to version .524. I haven’t gotten hold of the release notes yet, so I can’t say what’s been fixed, etc. As always, go to Powerlink for more info, and talk to your local EMC people about whether it’s appropriate to upgrade your CX4(s).

1 comment