XtremIO Plugin for VMware vRealize Orchestrator 1.1.0 is out.
Hi
We have just released an update for our XtremIO vRO adapter, if you are new to the adapter, you can read about it here
You can download the new version from here
And the documentation from here
VMware vRealize Orchestrator is an IT process automation tool that allows automated management and operational tasks across both VMware and third-party applications.
Note: VMware vRealize Orchestrator was formerly named VMware vCenter Orchestrator.
The XtremIO plugin for vRealize Orchestrator facilitates the automation and orchestration of tasks that involve the XtremIO Storage Array. It augments the capabilities of VMware’s
vRealize Orchestrator solution by providing access to XtremIO Storage Array-specific management workflows.
This plugin provides many built-in workflows and actions that can be used by a vRealize administrator directly or for the construction of higher level custom workflows to automate storage tasks. The major workflow categories are provided by the XtremIO plugin for vRealize Orchestrator for storage configuration, provisioning, LUN and VM snapshot backup and VM recovery.
Basic Workflow Definition
A basic workflow is a workflow that for the most part represents a discrete piece of XtremIO functionality, such as creating a Volume or mapping a Volume. The workflows in the management folders for Consistency Groups, Cluster, Initiator Groups, Protection Scheduler, Snapshot Set, Tag, Volume and XMS are all examples of basic workflows.
High-level Workflow Definition
A high-level workflow is a collection of basic workflows put together in such a way as to achieve a higher level of functionality. The workflows in the XtremIO Storage Management
folder and the XtremIO VMware Storage Management folder are examples of high-level workflows. The Host Expose Storage workflow in the VMware Storage Management folder, for example, allows a user to create Volumes, create any necessary Initiator Groups and map those Volumes to a host, all from one workflow. All the input needed from this workflow is supplied prior to the calling of the first workflow in the chain of basic workflows that are called.
Accessing XtremIO Workflows
Expand the XtremIO folder to list folders containing specific XtremIO and VMware
functionality. The following section provides information on each of the workflows.
XtremIO CG Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| CG Add Volume | Adds one or more Volumes to a Consistency Group. |
| CG Copy | Creates a copy of the Volume(s) in the selected Consistency Group. |
| CG Create | Allows you to create one Consistency Group and optionally supply a Consistency Group Tag to the created Consistency Group. |
| CG Delete | Deletes the specified Consistency Group. |
| CG List | Lists all known Consistency Groups for a given cluster. |
| CG List Volumes | Lists all Volumes in a Consistency Group. |
| CG Protection | Creates a Protection of the Volume(s) in the selected Consistency Group. |
| CG Refresh | Refreshes a Consistency Group from the selected copy of the Consistency Group. |
| CG Remove Volume | Removes one or more Volumes from a Consistency Group. |
| CG Rename | Renames the specified Consistency Group. |
| CG Restore | Restores a Consistency Group from a selected CG Protection workflow. |
XtremIO Cluster Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| Cluster List | Lists the cluster(s) for a given XMS Server. |
XtremIO IG Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| IG Add Initiator | Adds an Initiator to an Initiator Group. |
| IG Create | Allows you to create one or more Initiator Groups and optionally supply an Initiator Group Tag to the created Initiator Groups. |
| IG Delete | Deletes one or more Initiator Groups. |
| IG List | Lists all Initiator Groups based upon the supplied input criteria. |
| IG List Initiators | Lists all Initiators for the supplied Initiator Group. |
| IG List Volumes | Lists Volumes for a given Initiator Group. |
| IG Remove Initiator | Removes an Initiator from an Initiator Group. |
| IG Rename | Renames a selected Initiator Group. |
| IG Show | Returns Initiator Group attributes as a formatted string for a given Initiator Group, set of specified Initiator Groups or all Initiator Groups, (if none are supplied). |
| Workflow Name | Description |
XtremIO Performance Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| Cluster Report | Lists the cluster information shown below in one of three output formats based upon the supplied input criteria. • Output formats: CSV, HTML, Dictionary (JSON) • Data Reduction Ratio: Cluster’s object field data-reduction-ratio-text • Compression Factor: Clusters object field compression-factor-text • Dedup Ratio: Clusters object field dedup-ratio-text • Physical Capacity: Sum of SSD objects field ssd-size-in-kb * 1024 (in bytes) • Total Space: Clusters object field ud-ssd-space * 1024 (in bytes) • Space Consumed: Clusters object field ud-ssd-space-in-use * 1024 (in bytes) • Remaining Space: Total Space – Space Consumed * 1024 (in bytes) • Thin Provisioning Savings: 1 / Cluster Field (thin-provisioning-ratio) • Overall Efficiency: = 1 / Cluster Field (thin-provisioning-ratio * data-reduction-ratio) • Performance: Contains certain metrics for ascertaining overall cluster performance. |
| Datastore Report | Provides datastore performance information for a specific ESXi host. |
| Host Report | Provides performance information for ESXi Hosts. |
| IG Report | Provides performance information for Initiator Groups |
| Workflow Usage Report | Returns usage count information for XtremIO Workflows that have been successfully invoked. |
XtremIO Protection Scheduler Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| Protection Scheduler Create | Creates a Protection Scheduler, which consists of the schedule name, optional Tag and associated input arguments. |
| Protection Scheduler Delete | Deletes a Protection Scheduler. |
| Protection Scheduler List | List the Protection Schedulers based upon the supplied input criteria. |
| Protection Scheduler Modify | Allows you to modify various attributes of a Protection Scheduler. |
| Protection Scheduler Resume | Resumes a suspended local Protection Scheduler. |
| Protection Scheduler Suspend | Suspends the action of a local Protection Scheduler. |
XtremIO RecoverPoint Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| RP Add | Adds a RecoverPoint Server to the list of available RecoverPoint Servers in the vRealize inventory, for use by the XtremIO RecoverPoint workflows. |
| RP Create CG | Creates and enables a new RecoverPoint Consistency Group from new and existing user and journal volumes. |
| RP Delete CG | Deletes a RecoverPoint Consistency Group but retains the user and journal storage. |
| RP Delete CG Storage | Deletes a RecoverPoint Consistency Group and the associated user and journal storage. |
| RP List | Produces a list of available RecoverPoint Servers that are present in the vRealize inventory. |
| RP List CGs | Produces a list of RecoverPoint Consistency Groups. |
| RP Modify CG | Allows modification of the RecoverPoint Consistency Group recovery point objective, compression and number of snapshots settings. |
| RP Remove | Removes a RecoverPoint server from the list of available RecoverPoint Servers in the vRealize inventory. |
XtremIO Snapshot Set Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description | ||
| SnapshotSet Copy | Creates a copy of the Volumes in the selected Snapshot Set. | ||
| SnapshotSet Delete | Deletes a Snapshot Set. | ||
| SnapshotSet List | Returns a list of Snapshot Sets by name and/or Tag. | ||
| SnapshotSet Map | Maps a Snapshot Set to an Initiator Group. | ||
| SnapshotSet Protection | Creates a Protection of the Volumes from the selected Snapshot Set. |
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| SnapshotSet Refresh | Refreshes a Snapshot Set from the selected copy. | ||
| SnapshotSet Rename | Renames a Snapshot Set. | ||
| SnapshotSet Unmap | Unmaps a Snapshot Set. | ||
| Workflow Name | Description |
XtremIO Storage Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| Datastore Delete Storage | This workflow either: • Shutdowns and deletes all VMs associated with the datastore. • Disconnects all the secondary datastore VMDKs from the VMs utilizing that datastore. The workflow then unmounts the datastore as necessary from all ESXi hosts and deletes it. It then unmaps the XtremIO Volume associated with the datastore and deletes it. If the Volume to be deleted is also in an XtremIO Consistency Group, the Consistency Group is also deleted, if the group is empty (as a result of the Volume deletion). If the datastore selected for deletion is used for primary storage (i.e. VMDKs that are surfacing operating system disks, for example, c:\ for windows) then select Yes to the question “Delete VMs associated with the datastore” prior to running the workflow. Note: Best practice for datastore usage is to use separate datastores for primary and secondary VM storage. |
| Datastore Expose Storage | Allows you to create or use an existing XtremIO Volume to provision a VMFS Datastore. If an existing XtremIO Volume is used, which is a copy or protection of an existing datastore, then the existing XtremIO Volume needs to be assigned a new signature prior to utilizing it. You can select to expose the storage to a single ESXi host or all ESXi hosts in a given cluster. If selecting existing Volume(s), either select them individually or select a Consistency Group that contains the Volumes to use for the datastores. |
| VM Clone Storage | Makes a copy of the specified production datastores and connects those datastores copies to a set of specified test/development VMs. If the datastore to be cloned contains a hard disk representing the operating system disk, the VMDK is ignored when reconnecting the VMDKs to the test/development VMs. The datastores to be copied can either be selected individually or from a specified XtremIO Consistency Group. The workflow then makes a copy of the selected Volumes. It then clones the VM to VMDKs relationships of the production datastores to the copied datastores for the selected test/development VMs. The VMs involved follow a specific naming convention for the production and test/development VMs. For example, if the production VM is called “Finance” then the secondary VM name must start with “Finance” followed by a suffix/delimiter such as “Finance_001”. The production and test/development VMs must also be stored in separate folders. The workflow skips over the production VMs that do not have a matching VM in the test/development folder. |
| VM Delete Storage | Deletes the datastores containing the application data and underlying XtremIO storage Volumes associated to these datastores. The VMs for which the datastores are deleted can be selected by choosing either a vCenter folder that the VMs reside in or by individually selecting the VMs. The VM itself can also be deleted by selecting Yes to the question “Delete VMs and remove all storage (No will only remove VMs secondary storage)”. If No is selected to the above question, the workflow unmounts the secondary datastore containing the application data from all hosts that are using the datastore prior to its deletion. The workflow then proceeds to unmap the XtremIO Volume associated with the datastore and then deletes it. If the Volume to be deleted is also in an XtremIO Consistency Group, the Consistency Group is also deleted, if the group is empty (as a result of the Volume deletion). |
| VM Expose Storage | Allows you to create or use an existing XtremIO Volume to provision a VMFS datastore and then provision either a VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk) or RDM (Raw Disk Mappings) to a virtual machine. This is accomplished by calling the workflows Datastore Expose Storage and VM Add Storage from this workflow. |
| Workflow Name | Description |
XtremIO Tag Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| Tag Apply | Applies a Tag to an object. |
| Tag Create | Creates a Tag for a given tag type. |
| Tag Delete | Deletes a list of supplied Tags. |
| Tag List | Lists Tags for a given Tag type. |
| Tag Remove | Removes a Tag from an object. |
| Tag Rename | Renames a Tag. |
XtremIO VMware Storage Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description | ||
| Datastore Copy | Makes a copy of your underlying XtremIO Volume that the datastore is based on. |
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| Datastore Create | Creates a VMFS datastore on a Fibre Channel, iSCSI or local SCSI disk. |
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| Datastore Delete | Deletes the selected datastore. This workflow either: • Shutdowns and deletes all VMs associated with the datastore. • Disconnects all the datastore VMDKs from all the VMs utilizing that datastore. The workflow then unmounts the datastore as necessary from all ESXi hosts and deletes it. It then unmaps the XtremIO Volume associated with the datastore and deletes it. If the datastore selected for deletion is used wholly or partly for primary storage (i.e. VMDKs that are surfacing operating system disks, for example, c:\ for windows) then select Yes to the question “Delete VMs associated with the datastore” prior to running the workflow. Note: Best practice for datastore usage is to use separate datastores for primary and secondary VM storage. |
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| Datastore Expand | Used to expand a datastore. | ||
| Datastore List | Returns the datastores known to the vCenter Server instance selected. |
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| Datastore Mount | Mounts the given datastore onto the selected host, or all hosts associated with the datastore if a host is not specified. Note: If you select to mount the datastore on all hosts and the datastore fails to mount on at least one of the hosts, the info log file of the workflow reports the hosts that the datastore could not be mounted on. For convenience this workflow allows you to select from pre-existing datastores that have already been mounted to ESXi hosts or datastores that have been copied (but not yet previously mounted).Such datastores are resignatured as part of the mounting process. |
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| Datastore Protection | Makes a protection (a read only copy) of your underlying XtremIO Volume that the datastore is based on. |
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| Datastore Reclaim Storage | Used to reclaim unused space in a datastore, and also, to delete the unused VMDK files. |
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| Datastore Refresh | Refreshes a copy of the underlying XtremIO Volume that the datastore is based on. Once the datastore to refresh has been selected, a list of copies or protections, from which to refresh, are displayed. These are based on whether “Copy” or “Protection” was selected in the answer to “Restore Snapshot Type”. The list displayed chronologically, with the most recent copy listed first. If a copy to refresh is not selected, the most recent copy is automatically refreshed. There is an option to provide a name for the Snapshot Set and suffix that will be created. |
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| Datastore Restore | Restores the underlying XtremIO Volume that the datastore is based on, from a copy that was created earlier. Once the datastore to refresh has been selected, a list of copies or protections, from which to refresh, are displayed. These are based on whether “Copy” or “Protection” was selected in the answer to “Restore Snapshot Type”. The list displayed chronologically, with the most recent copy listed first. If a copy to refresh is not selected, the most recent copy is automatically refreshed. |
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| Datastore Show | Returns information about the supplied datastore: • AvailableDisksByHost: List of hosts and available disks that can be used in creating a datastore. • Capacity: Datastore’s total capacity in bytes. • Expandable: True if datastore is expandable. • ExpansionSpace: Space in bytes that is left for expansion of datastore. • Extendable: True if datastore can be extended. • FreeSpace: Datastore’s free capacity in bytes. • Hosts: List of hosts known to the datastore. • Name: Name of the datastore. • RDMs: List of RDMs known to the datastore. • UnusedVMDKs: List of VMDks that are not in use by a VM. • VMs: List of VMs known to the datastore. • VMDKs: List of VMDKs residing in the datastore and in use by a VM. |
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| Datastore Show Storage | Returns the XtremIO Volumes, Consistency Groups and Snapshot Sets that make up the datastore. If the workflow runs successfully but none of the output variables are populated, check the info log for messages such as this one: [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS] [I] Unable to find one or more corresponding Volumes to naa-names — possibly unregistered, unreachable XMSServers, or non-XtremIO Volumes. In addition to ensuring that all of the XMS Servers have been added to the vRO inventory via the XMS Add workflow, it is strongly recommended to also run the Host Conformance workflow. This ensures that all your XtremIO Volumes that are visible to ESXi hosts have their corresponding XMS Server known to vRealize. |
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| Datastore Unmount | Unmounts the given datastore from the specified host or all hosts associated with the datastore, if a host is not specified. |
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| Workflow Name | Description |
| Host Add SSH Connection | Adds the connection information for a given ESXi Host into the vRealize inventory. When running the workflow Host Modify Settings you must select the SSH Connection to use in order for the workflow to connect to the ESXi Host and run properly. Note: When supplying a value for the field “The host name of the SSH Host”, ensure this is a fully qualified domain name or IP address that allows the workflow to connect to the ESXi host via TCP/IP. |
| Host Conformance | Checks either a single ESXi host or all ESXi hosts in a vCenter instance, to ensure that all the XtremIO Volumes that are mapped to ESXi hosts have for this vRealize instance all of the necessary XMS Servers connected to it. Once the report is run, it provides a list of Volumes that are conformant (have an associated XMS Server instance present for those Volumes) and those Volumes that are not conformant (do not have an associated XMS Server present for those Volumes). For those Volumes that are found to be not conformant the XMS Add workflow should be run so that XtremIO vRealize workflows can work properly with these Volume(s). |
| Host Delete Storage | Allows you to delete a list of selected Volumes mounted to a host. The Volumes can be specified by individual name, Consistency Group or Snapshot Set. You can supply a value for all three fields or just a subset of them. As long as one Volume name, Consistency Group name or Snapshot Set name is supplied, the workflow can be run. The selected Volumes are unmapped and deleted and the corresponding Consistency Group Deleted (if all the Volumes have been removed. |
| Host Expose Storage | Exposes new or existing XtremIO Volumes to a standalone host or VMware ESXi host. Select either a list of Volumes or a Consistency Group representing a list of Volumes, to be exposed to the host. If new Volumes are being created you also have the option of creating a new Consistency Group to put the Volumes into. |
| Host List | Lists the hosts for a given vCenter. |
| Host Modify Settings | Modifies the settings for a given ESXi server. This workflow requires that an SSH Host Instance be setup for the ESXi host to be checked, prior to running this workflow. In order to setup this SSH Host Instance run the workflow Host Add SSH Connection. |
| Host Remove SSH Connection | Removes an SSH Host configuration entry from the vRealize inventory. |
| Host Rescan | Rescans one or all hosts of a given vCenter. |
| Host Show | This workflow returns the following. • WWNs for the given vCenter Host. • Available disks for the given vCenter Host that can be used to create new datastores. The output variable availableDisks can be used as input to the Datastore Create workflow input parameter diskName. • In use disks for the given vCenter Host. |
| Workflow Name | Description |
| vCenter Add | Adds a vCenter instance to the vRealize inventory. |
| vCenter Cluster Delete Storage | Deletes all unused XtremIO storage Volumes for each ESXi host in a vCenter Cluster. This workflow exits with an error when an XMS Server cannot be located for any of the unused XtremIO storage Volumes that are to be removed. |
| vCenter Cluster Expose Storage |
Exposes new or existing XtremIO Volumes to the ESXi hosts in a VMware Cluster. |
| vCenter List | Lists the vCenter instances known to the vRealize inventory. |
| vCenter List Clusters | Returns a list of vCenter Cluster objects for the supplied vCenter. |
| vCenter Remove | Removes a vCenter instance from the vRealize inventory. |
| vCenter Show | Returns a list of vCenter Hosts for a given Cluster object. For each host a list of available disks is also returned. |
| VM Add VMDK | Provisions to a VM, either a: • New VMDK • New RDM • List of existing, unused, VMDKs If the storage type selected is VMDK then a datastore must be selected for the VMDK. If the storage type selected is RDM then a datastore does not need to be selected in order to create the RDM. |
| VM Delete | Deletes a VM and release resources, such as the primary storage allocated to the VM. Note: This workflow should be used to remove the primary storage, “Hard disk 1” associated with a VM. Primary storage cannot be removed until the VM is shutdown and deleted. Secondary VMDK and RDM storage are preserved. Use the VM Delete Storage workflow to delete all of the following: • VM • The datastore associated with the VM • The underlying XtremIO storage making up that VM |
| VM List | Lists the VMs for a given vCenter or for a given vCenter host. |
| VM Remove VMDK | Removes and deletes an RDM or VMDK from a VM. Note: This workflow cannot be used to remove the primary storage, “Hard disk 1” (the VM’s primary storage drive), as this requires the VM to be shut down and deleted prior to reclaiming the storage for “Hard disk 1”. |
| VM Show | Lists the VMDKs, RDMs and RDM Physical LUN names for each RDM for a given VM. |
| Workflow Name | Description |
XtremIO Volume Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description | ||
| Volume Copy | Allows you to create one or more copies supplying a list of source Volumes, or a list of Volume Tags. |
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| Volume Create | Allows you to create one or more Volumes and optionally supply a Volume Tag to the created Volumes. For each Volume created, if at the cluster level, the parameter show-clusters-thresholds shows that vaai-tp-alerts is set to a value of between 1-100, then the add-volume vaai-tp-alerts parameter is set to enabled. |
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| Volume Delete | Deletes the list of selected Volumes or Volumes associated with a particular Volume Tag. |
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| Volume Expand | Expands a Volume to the new size supplied. | ||
| Volume List | Lists Volumes by name, size and Tag for a given cluster. | ||
| Volume Map | Allows you to map Volumes by Name or by Tag for the supplied Initiator Group. |
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| Volume Modify | Allows particular Volume parameters to be changed. The current Volume parameter that can be changed is vaai-tp-alerts (VAAI Thin Provisioning alert). The selected Volumes can be either be set to participate or disabled from participation in thin provisioning threshold alerts. At the cluster level the thin provisioning alert level must set to a value of between 1 – 100 in order for a Volume to generate an alert. The syntax is as follows: vaai-tp-alerts=[enabled / disabled] |
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| Volume Protection | Allows you to create one or more Protections supplying a list of source Volumes, or a list of Volume Tags. |
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| Volume Refresh | Refreshes a Volume from the selected copy. | ||
| Volume Rename | Renames the selected Volume. | ||
| Volume Restore | Restores a Volume from the selected Protection. | ||
| Volume Show | Returns Volume parameters as a formatted string for a given Volume, set of specified Volumes or all Volumes (if none are specified). The values for naa-name, logical-space-in-use and vaai-tp-alerts are returned for the specified Volumes. • The naa-name parameter represents the NAA Identifier that is assigned to a Volume only after it has been mapped to an Initiator Group. • The logical-space-in-use parameter is the Volume logical space in use (VSG). • The vaai-tp-alerts parameter controls whether a Volume participates in thin provisioning alerts. The value is either enabled or disabled. At the cluster level, the thin provisioning alert level must set to a value between 1 – 100, in order for a Volume to generate an alert, regardless of whether an individual Volume has vaai-tp-alerts enabled. |
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| Volume Unmap | Unmaps Volumes in one of the following ways: • Unmaps a user supplied list of Volumes. • Unmaps all Volumes associated with a particular Initiator Group. • Unmaps a selected list of Volumes associated with a particular Initiator Group. • Unmaps all Volume associated with a particular Tag. |
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| Workflow Name | Description |
XtremIO XMS Management Folder
| Workflow Name | Description |
| XMS Add | Adds an XMS server to the vRealize Inventory. |
| XMS List | Lists the known XMS servers in the vRealize Inventory. |
| XMS Remove | Removes an XMS server from the vRealize Inventory. |
| XMS Show | Returns XMS attributes as a formatted string for a given XMS server. The xms-ip, server-name and cluster-names attributes are always returned for a given XMS Server. The sw-version is also returned by default but can be removed from the list of returned attributes, if that information is not required. |