Tag Archives: VSAN

Random Short Take #105

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Random short take #105. Want news? Sorry I’ve had a bit on. Let’s get random.

Random Short Take #100

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Welcome to Random Short Take #100. I’m back from my holiday, but it’s only a few weeks until Christmas, so this is likely the last Random Short Take for the year. Let’s get random.

Bonus round. vExpert applications are now open for next year. Read more about that here. In the meantime, stay safe, don’t get shot, and see you in the new year.

VMware Cloud on AWS – What’s New – February 2024

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It’s been a little while since I posted an update on what’s new with VMware Cloud on AWS, so I thought I’d share some of the latest news.

 

M7i.metal-24xl Announced

It’s been a few months since it was announced at AWS re:Invent 2023, but the M7i.metal-24xl (one of the catchier host types I’ve seen) is going to the change the way we approach storage-heavy VMC on AWS deployments.

What is it?

It’s a host without local storage. There are 48 physical cores (96 logical cores with Hyper-Threading enabled). It has 384 GiB memory. The key point is that there are flexible NFS storage options to choose from – VMware Cloud Flex Storage or Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP. There’s support for up to 37.5 Gbps networking speed, and it supports always-on memory encryption using Intel Total Memory Encryption (TME).

Why?

Some of the potential use cases for this kind of host type are as follows:

  • CPU Intensive workloads
    • Image processing
    • Video encoding
    • Gaming servers
  • AI/ML Workloads
    • Code Generation
    • Natural Language Processing
    • Classical Machine Learning
    • Workloads with limited resource requirements
  • Web and application servers
    • Microservices/Management services
    • Secondary data stores/database applications
  • Ransomware & Disaster Recovery
    • Modern Ransomware Recovery
    • Next-gen DR
    • Compliance and Risk Management

Other Notes

New (greenfield) customers can deploy the M7i.metal-24xl in the first cluster using 2-16 nodes. Existing (brownfield) customers can deploy the M7i.metal-24xl in secondary clusters in the same SDDC. In terms of connectivity, we recommend you take advantage of VPC peering for your external storage connectivity. Note that there is no support for multi-AZ deployments, nor is there support for single node deployments. If you’d like to know more about the M7i.metal-24xl, there’s an excellent technical overview here.

 

vSAN Express Storage Architecture on VMware Cloud on AWS

SDDC Version 1.24 was announced in November 2023, and with that came support for vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) on VMC on AWS. There’s some great info on what’s included in the 1.24 release here, but I thought I’d focus on some of the key constraints you need to look at when considering ESA in your VMC on AWS environment.

Currently, the following restrictions apply to vSAN ESA in VMware Cloud on AWS:
  • vSAN ESA is available for clusters using i4i hosts only.
  • vSAN ESA is not supported with stretched clusters.
  • vSAN ESA is not supported with 2-host clusters.
  • After you have deployed a cluster, you cannot convert from vSAN ESA to vSAN OSA or vice versa.
So why do it? There are plenty of reasons, including better performance, enhanced resource efficiency, and several improvements in terms of speed and resiliency. You can read more about it here.

VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery Updates

There have also been some significant changes to VCDR, with the recent announcement that we now support a 15-minute Recovery Point Objective (down from 30 minutes). There have also been a number of enhancements to the ransomware recovery capability, including automatic Linux security sensor installation in the recovery workflow (trust me, once you’ve done it manually a few times you’ll appreciate this). With all the talk of supplemental storage above, it should be noted that “VMware Cloud DR does not support recovering VMs to VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC with NFS-mounted external datastores including Amazon FSx for NetApp datastores, Cloud Control Volumes or VMware Cloud Flex Storage”. Just in case you had an idea that this might be something you want to do.

 

Thoughts

Much of the news about VMware has been around the acquisition by Broadcom. It certainly was news. In the meantime, however, the VMware Cloud on AWS product and engineering teams have continued to work on releasing innovative features and incremental improvements. The encouraging thing about this is that they are listening to customers and continuing to adapt the solution architecture to satisfy those requirements. This is a good thing for both existing and potential customers. If you looked at VMware Cloud on AWS three years ago and ruled it out, I think it’s worth looking at again.

VMware Cloud on AWS – Check TRIM/UNMAP

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This a really quick follow up to one of my TMCHAM articles on TRIM/UNMAP on VMware Cloud on AWS. In short, a customer wanted to know whether TRIM/UNMAP had been enabled on one of their clusters, as they’d requested. The good news is it’s easy enough to find out. On your cluster, go to Configure. Under vSAN, you’ll see Services. Expand the Advanced Options section and you’ll see whether TRIM/UNMAP has been enabled for the cluster or not.

VMware Cloud on AWS – TMCHAM – Part 11 – Storage Policies

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In this edition of Things My Customers Have Asked Me (TMCHAM), I’m going to cover Managed Storage Policy Profiles (MSPPs) on the VMware-managed VMware Cloud on AWS platform.

 

Background

VMware Cloud on AWS has MSPPs deployed on clusters to ensure that customers have sufficient resilience built into the cluster to withstand disk or node failures. By default, clusters are configured with RAID 1, Failures to Tolerate (FTT):1 for 2 – 5 nodes, and RAID 6, FTT:2 for clusters with 6 or more nodes. Note that single-node clusters have no Service Level Agreement (SLA) attached to them, as you generally only run those on a trial basis, and if the node fails, there’s nowhere for the data to go. You can read more about vSAN Storage Polices and MSPPs here, and there’s a great Tech Zone article here. The point of these policies is that they are designed to ensure your cluster(s) remain in compliance with the SLAs for the platform. You can view the policies in your environment by going to Policies and Profiles in vCenter and selecting VM Storage Policies.

 

Can I Change Them?

The MSPPs are maintained by VMware, and so it’s not a great idea to change the default policies on your cluster, as the system will change them back at some stage. And why would you want to change the policies on your cluster? Well, you might decide that 4 or 5 nodes could actually run better (from a capacity perspective) using RAID 5, rather than RAID 1. This is a reasonable thing to want to do, and as the SLA talks about FTT numbers, not RAID types, you can change the RAID type and remain in compliance. And the capacity difference can be material in some cases, particularly if you’re struggling to fit your workloads onto a smaller node count.

 

So How Do I Do It Then?

Clone The Policy

There are a few ways to approach this, but the simplest is by cloning an existing policy. In this example, I’ll clone the vSAN Default Storage Policy. In the VMware Cloud on AWS, there is an MSPP assigned to each cluster with the name “VMC Workload Storage Policy – ClusterName“. Select the policy you want to clone and then click on Clone.

The first step is to give the VM Storage Policy a name. Something cool with your initials should do the trick.

You can edit the policy structure at this point, or just click Next.

Here you can configure your Availability options. You can also do other things, like configure Tags and Advanced Policy Rules.

Once this is configured, the system will check that your vSAN datastore are compatible with your policy.

And then you’re ready to go. Click Finish, make yourself a beverage, bask in the glory of it all.

Apply The Policy

So you have a fresh new policy, now what? You can choose to apply it to your workload datastore, or apply it to specific Virtual Machines. To apply it to your datastore, select the datastore you want to modify, click on General, then click on Edit next to the Default Storage Policy option. The process to apply the policy to VMs is outlined here. Note that if you create a non-compliant policy and apply it to your datastore, you’ll get hassled about it and you should likely consider changing your approach.

 

Thoughts

The thing about managed platforms is that the service provider is on the hook for architecture decisions that reduce the resilience of the platform. And the provider is trying to keep the platform running within the parameters of the SLA. This is why you’ll come across configuration items in VMware Cloud on AWS that you either can’t change, or have some default options that seem conservative. Many of these decisions have been made with the SLAs and the various use cases in mind for the platform. That said, it doesn’t mean there’s no flexibility here. If you need a little more capacity, particularly in smaller environments, there are still options available that won’t reduce the platform’s resilience, while still providing additional capacity options.

Random Short Take #86

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Welcome to Random Short Take #86. It’s been a while, and I’ve been travelling a bit for work. So let’s get random.

  • Let’s get started with three things / people I like: Gestalt IT, Justin Warren, and Pure Storage. This article by Justin digs into some of the innovation we’re seeing from Pure Storage. Speaking of Justin, if you don’t subscribe to his newsletter “The Crux”, you should. I do. Subscribe here.
  • And speaking of Pure Storage, a survey was conducted and results were had. You can read more on that here.
  • Switching gears slightly (but still with a storage focus), check out the latest Backblaze drive stats report here.
  • Oh you like that storage stuff? What about this article on file synchronisation and security from Chin-Fah?
  • More storage? What about this review of the vSAN Objects Viewer from Victor?
  • I’ve dabbled in product management previously, but this article from Frances does a much better job of describing what it’s really like.
  • Edge means different things to different people, and I found this article from Ben Young to be an excellent intro to the topic.
  • You know I hate Netflix but love its tech blog. Check out this article on migrating critical traffic at scale.

Bonus round. I’m in the Bay Area briefly next week. If you’re around, let me know! Maybe we can watch one of the NBA Finals games.

Random Short Take #72

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This one is a little behind thanks to some work travel, but whatever. Let’s get random.

Random Short Take #61

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Welcome to Random Short take #61.

  • VMworld is on this week. I still find the virtual format (and timezones) challenging, and I miss the hallway track and the jet lag. There’s nonetheless some good news coming out of the event. One thing that was announced prior to the event was Tanzu Community Edition. William Lam talks more about that here.
  • Speaking of VMworld news, Viktor provided a great summary on the various “projects” being announced. You can read more here.
  • I’ve been a Mac user for a long time, and there’s stuff I’m learning every week via Howard Oakley’s blog. Check out this article covering the Recovery Partition. While I’m at it, this presentation he did on Time Machine is also pretty ace.
  • Facebook had a little problem this week, and the Cloudflare folks have provided a decent overview of what happened. As someone who works for a service provider, this kind of stuff makes me twitchy.
  • Fibre Channel? Cloud? Chalk and cheese? Maybe. Read Chin-Fah’s article for some more insights. Personally, I miss working with FC, but I don’t miss the arguing I had to do with systems and networks people when it came to the correct feeding and watering of FC environments.
  • Remote working has been a challenge for many organisations, with some managers not understanding that their workers weren’t just watching streaming video all day, but actually being more productive. Not everything needs to be a video call, however, and this post / presentation has a lot of great tips on what does and doesn’t work with distributed teams.
  • I’ve had to ask this question before. And Jase has apparently had to answer it too, so he’s posted an article on vSAN and external storage here.
  • This is the best response to a trio of questions I’ve read in some time.

Random Short Take #57

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Welcome to Random Short Take #57. Only one player has worn 57 in the NBA. So it looks like this particular bit is done. Let’s get random.

  • In the early part of my career I spent a lot of time tuning up old UNIX workstations. I remember lifting those SGI CRTs from desk to desk was never a whole lot of fun. This article about a Sun Ultra 1 project bought back a hint of nostalgia for those days (but not enough to really get into it again). Hat tip to Scott Lowe for the link.
  • As you get older, you realise that people talk a whole lot of rubbish most of the time. This article calling out audiophiles for the practice was great.
  • This article on the Backblaze blog about one company’s approach to building its streaming media capability on B2 made for interesting reading.
  • DH2i recently announced the general availability of DxEnterprise (DxE) for Containers, enabling cloud-native Microsoft SQL Server container Availability Groups outside and inside Kubernetes.
  • Speaking of press releases, Zerto has made a few promotions recently. You can keep up with that news here.
  • I’m terrible when it comes to information security, but if you’re looking to get started in the field, this article provides some excellent guidance on what you should be focussing on.
  • We all generally acknowledge that NTP is important, and most of us likely assume that it’s working. But have you been checking? This article from Tony does a good job of outlining some of the reasons you should be paying some more attention to NTP.
  • This is likely the most succinct article from John you’ll ever read, and it’s right on the money too.

Random Short Take #56

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Welcome to Random Short Take #56. Only three players have worn 56 in the NBA. I may need to come up with a new bit of trivia. Let’s get random.

  • Are we nearing the end of blade servers? I’d hoped the answer was yes, but it’s not that simple, sadly. It’s not that I hate them, exactly. I bought blade servers from Dell when they first sold them. But they can present challenges.
  • 22dot6 emerged from stealth mode recently. I had the opportunity to talk to them and I’ll post something soon about that. In the meantime, this post from Mellor covers it pretty well.
  • It may be a Northern Hemisphere reference that I don’t quite understand, but Retrospect is running a “Dads and Grads” promotion offering 90 days of free backup subscriptions. Worth checking out if you don’t have something in place to protect your desktop.
  • Running VMware Cloud Foundation and want to stretch your vSAN cluster across two sites? Tony has you covered.
  • The site name in VMware Cloud Director can look a bit ugly. Steve O gives you the skinny on how to change it.
  • Pure//Accelerate happened recently / is still happening, and there was a bit of news from the event, including the new and improved Pure1 Digital Experience. As a former Pure1 user I can say this was a big part of the reason why I liked using Pure Storage.
  • Speaking of press releases, this one from PDI and its investment intentions caught my eye. It’s always good to see companies willing to spend a bit of cash to make progress.
  • I stumbled across Oxide on Twitter and fell for the aesthetic and design principles. Then I read some of the articles on the blog and got even more interested. Worth checking out. And I’ll be keen to see just how it goes for the company.

*Bonus Round*

I was recently on the Restore it All podcast with W. Curtis Preston and Prasanna Malaiyandi. It was a lot of fun as always, despite the fact that we talked about something that’s a pretty scary subject (data (centre) loss). No, I’m not a DC manager in real life, but I do have responsibility for what goes into our DC so I sort of am. Don’t forget there’s a discount code for the book in the podcast too.