Hi,

We have just released the 7th version! Of the VSI (Virtual Storage Integrator) vCenter plugin, this release includes

  1. VPLEX VIAS Provisioning (and viewing support), yes, its been a feature that was long due and I’m proud to say it’s here now, so first we need to register VPLEX which is a pretty much straightforward thing to do

    VPLEX VIAS Provisioning Support – Use
    Cases


    VPLEX Integrated Array Service (VIAS)
    ŸCreate virtual volumes from pre-defined storage pools on supported arrays. These storage pools are visible to VPLEX through array management providers (AMPs)
    ŸSimplify the provisioning, by comparing with the traditional provisioning from storage volumes

    VPLEX VIAS Provisioning Support –
    Prerequisites

    Software Prerequisites
    VMware vSphere 6.0 or 5.5
    VMware vSphere Web Client
    VMware ESX/ESXi hosts
    VMware vCenter Servers (single or linked-mode)
    ŸStorage Prerequisites
    VPLEX 5.5/6.0
    Only support XtremIO/VMAX3/VNX Block
    Storage pool is created on the array
    AMP is registered with VPLEX, connectivity status is OK.

    VPLEX VIAS Provisioning Support –
    Provision VMFS Datastore on Host Level


    VPLEX VIAS Provisioning Support –
    Provision VMFS Datastore on Cluster Level


    VPLEX VIAS Provisioning Support –
    Provision VMFS Datastore


    VPLEX VIAS Provisioning Support –
    Provision VMFS Datastore


    VPLEX VIAS Provisioning Support –
    Provision VMFS Datastore


    Let’s see a demo about how it all works, thanks for Todd Toles who recorded it!

    Multiple vCenters Support – Background
    VSI 6.7 or Older
    Designed to work with single vCenter
    Multiple vCenters are not supported totally
    More and more customers requested this
    capability
    ŸVSI 6.8
    XtremIO use cases
    ŸVSI 6.9.1 & 6.9.2
    RecoverPoint & SRM use cases
    Unity/UnityVSA use cases

    Quality Improvement – Batch
    Provisioning Use Case
    Customer provisions 30 datastores on a
    cluster which has 32 ESXi hosts, the vCenter
    will fall into no response
    ŸRoot Cause: there are huge tasks (e.g.
    ~900+ “Rescan all HBA” and “Rescan VMFS”
    tasks) created in a short time, which
    generates a rescan storm and impacts the
    vCenter much

    What have we done to fix it?

    Code changes to optimize the host rescan
    operations invoked by VSI
    ŸManually configure the vCenter advanced settings to add “config.vpxd.filter.hostRescanFilter=false
    , which disables the automatic VMFS rescanning on each host (under the same
    cluster) when create a new datastore for the cluster. Enable this filter when batch provisioning is done.

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