Using PowerShell to prevent thinly provisioned NetApp LUNs from going offline – Part I
Posted: November 28, 2014 Filed under: NetApp, PowerShell / PowerCLI, Storage | Tags: autogrow, autosize, fractional reserve, lun, lun offline, luns, NetApp, netapp best practices, netapp powershell, netapp powershell toolkit, netapp toolkit, no space, nospc, powershell toolkit, snap autodelete, snapshot autodelete, vol best practices, volume, volume best practices 1 CommentHappy Day-after Thanksgiving dear readers! I hope everyone is as satisfyingly full on food, friends, and family as I am. As an early gift to myself, I’m writing a PowerShell script that utilizes NetApp’s PowerShell Toolkit. The script will help me quickly determine current volume and LUN settings so I can see what LUNs are at risk of going offline due to out of space conditions. In scripting tradition, I couldn’t find anything online that did exactly what I wanted so I rolled my own!
Here’s what the output looks like. The column names are abbreviated because I expect to have several more columns. The abbreviations are, Volume Thin Provisioning, Fractional Reserve, Snapshots, Volume AutoGrow, Snapshot AutoDelete.
NetApp Initiator Group Best Practices for VMFS LUNs
Posted: November 3, 2014 Filed under: NetApp, Storage | Tags: igroup, initiator, initiator group, luns, NetApp Leave a commentI’m often asked by my clients the best way to configure NetApp igroups when connecting to VMware VMFS LUNs, especially after I deploy a new system for them and I’m training them on their use. I appreciate the question because it means someone’s actually thinking through why something is configured the way it is rather than just throwing something together.
The Problem
So this is what I see a lot of out in the field. Single igroups are created with multiple initiators from multiple hosts. This can be a problem, though, as I’ll show you. Functionally, this configuration will work – each host will be able to see each LUN, all things being equal. The problem arises when you want to either 1. remove a host from the igroup or 2. stop presenting a LUN to only a subset of hosts.
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Upgrading NetApp Data ONTAP with HFS
Posted: November 18, 2013 Filed under: NetApp, Storage | Tags: 7-mode, data ontap, dataontap, hfs, NetApp, ontap, upgrade 7-mode, upgrade 7mode, upgrade data ontap, upgrade dataontap, upgrade netapp, upgrade ontap Leave a commentI wanted to take a quick moment to document the awesomeness that is a quick and easy upgrade of Data ONTAP 7-mode with HFS. HFS is a lightweight web server that’s run as an executable and lets you quickly and easily transfer your Data ONTAP images from a Windows machine to the FreeBSD-based NetApp operating system. I can’t take credit for finding this gem of the storage admin. That goes to Mike Mills (@MikeasaService) who found this while we were implementing NetApp systems in a war zone. Thanks, Mike! Of course, if you’re a Mac-man (or gal, but that doesn’t really roll of the tongue as nicely) or a Linux dude, you can easily mount the /etc/software directory using NFS in which case you don’t need a web server. But I digress…on to the steps!
Download Data ONTAP image – from the NetApp Support site (support.netapp.com) and follow the prompts and be sure to download the correct version, in this case, 7-mode
What’s the (SnapMirror) syntax, Kenneth?
Posted: February 19, 2013 Filed under: NetApp, Storage | Tags: /etc/snapmirror.conf, destination filer does not match hostname ignoring line, filer, ignoring line, invalid destination, NetApp, snap mirror, snapmirror, snapmirror.conf 1 CommentI had the opportunity to configure SnapMirror for a client today and it gave me a bit of a headache. I did what I thought was my due diligence: reading the relevant vendor documentation for SnapMirorr for each version of Data ONTAP, 7.3.2 and 8.0.3P3. What I failed to do was read a few lines further than I actually did – I missed a simple piece of syntax that turned a 30 minute WebEx into a 2 hour ordeal. I learned a good lesson about SnapMirror during this engagement, though, and I’d like to share it.
The SnapMirror of these three volumes were actually for a data migration because the source filer is being decommissioned. The general steps required in the engagement today were as follows:
<> Run a cable between what will be the dedicated replication links on each filer
<> Configure each interface with IP settings
<> Ensure SnapMirror is licensed and enabled on each filer
<> Configure /etc/hosts and /etc/snapmirror.allow files on source filer
<> Configure /etc/hosts and /etc/snapmirror.conf files on destination filer
<> Initialize the baseline replicaction
My NCDA preparation experience
Posted: August 14, 2012 Filed under: Certifications, NetApp, Storage | Tags: data ontap, ncda, ncda resources, ncda study, NetApp, netapp certified, netapp certified data ontap, ns0-154 4 CommentsEdit: To jump to the good stuff, check out Neil Anderson’s free eBook, How to Build a NetApp ONTAP 9 Lab for Free!
I’d like to share quick note about my experience in studying for and taking the NetApp Certified Data Management Administrator exam for Data ONTAP 8.0 7-Mode, NS0-154. Perhaps someone out there will find the links and study methods here useful .
I’ve never held a pure Storage Administrator position, but I did recently complete a year-long contract implementing NetApp FAS3240 and FAS3270 filers as part of an Enterprise Virtualization Project for the US Army in Southwest Asia. I was actually hired as a Network Engineer to install, configure and migrate to Cisco Nexus 5020s and 2224 Fabric Extenders, but coming from a Systems background, I was able to perform the role of Implementation Engineer for the VMware, NetApp, and Nexus environments. It was a very satisfying role overall and one in which I gained a lot of varied experience.
Where am I? It’s dark and I’ve lost my network settings! How innocuous editing of NetApp config file can lead to lost IPs
Posted: February 24, 2012 Filed under: NetApp, Storage | Tags: /etc/rc, configure /etc/rc, configure netapp, configure netapp /etc/rc, edit /etc/rc, edit rc file, etc, etc rc, fas3270, filer lost ip settings, hosts file, ifconfig, ifgrp, interface group, keyboard layout, NetApp, netapp fas configuration, netapp lost ip address, rc, rc file, windows notepad 3 CommentsSo I was performing an initial configuration of a FAS3270 the other day when I changed the interface group information via PuTTY. Specifically, I deleted and recreated the interface groups manually instead of running setup. After I did this and following a reboot of the filer, the IP addresses for both interface groups were missing. Performing an ‘ifconfig -a’ before the reboot, I saw the IP addresses assigned correctly: