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Earlier this week, I went to my first VMware User Group meeting at the New York Times Building near Port Authority. Allow me to briefly describe the building…It’s AWESOME. The exterior architecture, the interior design, and general layout of the building have a very modern and elegant feel. I should point out that after exiting the elevator I did quickly get lost attempting to find the actual meeting, but I located another VMUG member who, with our powers combined, we located the main conference room and slightly more importantly the food.

Enough about my initial foray into the building, it’s time to get to the meat and potatoes about my visit, VMware VCenter Server 5.1. The illustrious VCenter Guru, Justin King (of course his name was Justin), was the main speaker for the meeting and he is considered a widely renowned and respected resource for the VMware community. He came to discuss the changes in VMware VCenter Server 5.1 and primarily discussed VCenter Single Sign On Server (SSO). VCenter is being developed as a framework of common services, one of those being SSO.

SSO creates an authentication domain that users are authenticated through in order to access available resources. This allows the functionality of not having to log in to multiple VCenter and VSphere servers separately with separate credentials, similar to the application Single Sign On application Microsoft uses for its BPOS suite. SSO allows the ability to have multiple Active Directories attached as well as OpenLDAP, allowing you to move across different domains freely. SSO works by providing Secure Token Exchange (SAML 2.0). After logging in through the web client a token is issued, which is then authenticated through whichever Active Directory/OpenLDAP accounts have the proper permissions (it should be noted that you can create a SSO user and give it admin rights which would be similar to having the root user in VSphere). Once approved, the token is issued back to the web client and access is given to all the appropriate VCenters and VSphere servers.

There are some limitations and requirements to SSO, such as it should be the first VMware installation when setting up VCenter. It also requires its own database which preferably should be on it’s own server (you can technically use this database server for the VCenter server database as well). Linked mode would no longer be required for unified views of local VCenter servers however would be required for sharing permissions, roles and licenses. Lastly, SSO should not be configured for use over WAN without some assistance through VMware support and even then it’s not the “best solution.” Since SSO is consistently reaching out to Active Directories and OpenLDAP authentication, if the WAN were to drop, you would be left without a way to access the SSO (unless you have a SSO specific user configured). In addition, you may lose the ability to access the SSO altogether.

There are several different types of “setups” used when building out a VCenter Single Sign On Server. The most basic is actually the most recommended setup as stated by Justin King himself. The reason being is that it’s not made more complex than it has to be and is kept very simple. On one host server (or VM server) you place the following servers: a Single Sign On server, a VCenter server, an Inventory Service server, a Web Client server and a database server. To briefly touch on the Inventory Service (IS) and Web Client (WC) servers, the IS server provides a query service into VPXD for keeping track and tagging specific virtual devices. The WC server is to mainly maintain the Web Client, which is supported on IE, Firefox and Chrome and has a “Work in Progress” mode where your last inputs would be saved until you can come back to the client to finish what was started.

The three other setups include configuring a VCenter Single Sign On server as a “Primary” and setting up another as a “Backup” essentially allowing redundancy but there are limitations. The first and more prominent limitation is that there can only be 1 Primary SSO and only the Primary can manage the SSO. This means that if the Primary SSO goes down, the Backup SSO wont be able to make changes to the SSO setup at all, making it essentially not a “true backup” and instead a active/passive solution. The other setups are also more complex by either involving other protocols, devices, or manually input that all take away from the purpose of the SSO, which is to have a single sign on point.

Before time ran out, Justin shared little bits of information that I am eager to share. The first being that the next update to VMware will be a minor update, expect a 5.2 before the end of the year. This update will most likely see the return of cluster databases. For the near future, Update 1 should be out within the next couple of months, bringing with it a more stable SSO and lots of minor fixes including a Update Manager update. For the next Major release, which is slated for next year, expect the Desktop client to be…NON-EXISTENT! VMware is planning on moving towards a Web-only client, which is definitely big news. In addition, they are working to have a physical VCenter Appliance box to be purchased, which will come all preconfigured and be able to put up “up to 500 hosts/5000 VM’s “. I’m really excited to see how that turns out.

VMware VCenter 5.1 is definitely making some defining moves and on it’s way to becoming a true services framework.  SSO sounds very good, but after some research I found that it is very hard to get up and running properly. In addition, it requires a hefty load of hardware in terms of RAM and processing power to get up and running. Also, the Web Client and Inventory Services are works in progress at best and are more of a after-thought for the time being (but will definitely become prominent services in future revisions of VCenter). Overall, the whole VCenter package just doesn’t seem appealing enough to start deploying just yet but there are moves that are being made in the right direction. I can, however, see it being the go to VMware management services package in the near future!

-Brandon H.

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-Justin Vashisht (3cVguy)

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The post An afternoon at the NYC VMUG with Justin King, @vCenterGuy talking about vCenter SSO appeared first on 3cV – 3Par Storage, C-Class HP Blades, VMware vSphere.

Now, we are going to run through the rest of the process to finalize the setup of the 7000 and hook it up to your servers.  Here is a high level list of remaining tasks:

• Apply license keys
• Zone the 3Par and servers to
• Create Common Provisioning Groups
• Create Virtual Volumes to present to the ESX hosts

First, we are going to move forward with applying the license keys to the array so we can enable the hard drive slots and activate 3Par’s full suite of features such as Adaptive Optimization, Dynamic Optimization, etc.  You should have received your license keys form the procedure we performed in Part 1.  Now, there is a way to add the license via the GUI but there seems to be a known bug with that process right now so I had to hop into the CLI For this.  You can find the CLI install client on the “System Reporter” CD that came with the system.  If you don’t have the CD you can register your 7000 here and all available software for your system can be downloaded instantly. 

LICENSE

Once you have your CLI client installed open it up and log into your system by first giving the IP address, than your username and password.  You should now be at the “cli%” prompt so go ahead and type in without quotes “setlicense” and hit “y” to agree to the terms. 

Now, go ahead and enter in your license keys by copying and pasting them into the CLI window.  The keys are 32 characters long with a hyphen every 4 characters (60R3-60R3-60R3-60R3-60R3-60R3-60R3-60R3).  To make it easy I took the individual keys I got from the HP site and put them into a blank notepad text file, I made sure there were no spaces between them, select all, and hit copy.  I hit paste on the command prompt window to populate all of the keys and hit enter.  After that, your curser will move down into a blank line, hit enter one more time and you should see the following lines to confirm your features were installed and activated. 

**************************************************************************

The system will be licensed for 40 disks instead of 8 disks.

The following features will be enabled:

-Dynamic Optimization (No expiration date)
-Management Plug-In for VMware vCenter (No expiration date)
-Peer Motion (Expires July 16, 2013)
-Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere (No expiration date)
-System Reporter (No expiration date)
-System Tuner (No expiration date)
-Thin Conversion (No expiration date)
-Thin Persistence (No expiration date)
-Thin Provisioning (10240000G) (No expiration date)
-Virtual Copy (No expiration date)
-SS Provider for Microsoft Windows (No expiration date)

Are these the expected changes? (yes/no) yes License key successfully set.

cli%

**************************************************************************
To confirm that the expected features are activate and loaded hop into the IMC GUI, click on your storage system and on the right pane hit the software tab. (See below picture)

 
FABRIC ZONING 

In 3Par OS 3.1.2 Persistent Ports was introduced into the 3Par ecosystem.  Persistent Ports (also known as NPIV) introduces an added layer of redundancy without the dependency of any software multi-pathing to perform online software updates, HBA firmware upgrades, and controller maintenance.  While any of these actions are in motion while your host paths stay up and running.  Talk about a Tier 1 capable system!

ZONING AND FABRIC RECOMMENDATIONS FROM HP – Single initiator to multiple targets per zone (zoning by HBA *no switch port zoning*).

• Host ports can be cabled on a random basis
• Each node should be connected to both Fabrics (switches)
• Max of 64 initiators per front end port
• Ports of the same pair of nodes with the same ID should be connected to the same fabric (switch)
Example:
• 0:2:3 and 1:2:3 on Fabric 1
• 0:2:4 and 1:2:4 on Fabric 2

[NOTE] – One thing I had to do to get the Fabric to see the 3Par ports was to change the array side ports to the settings pictured above.  Not sure if this is fixed in the latest bath off the assembly line.

COMMON PROVISIONING GROUPS

Now that we have completed our zoning on the Fabric and populated our hosts to the 3Par array we can go ahead and carve out our initial CPG (Common Provisioning Group).  I won’t get into the in’s and out’s of CPG’s here since I am focusing this post on initial setup and installation.  My initial CPG is easy here since I have sixteen 450GB, 10K RPM SAS Small form factor drives.  This will allow me to utilize a maximum amount of spindles as possible and set my availability (HA) levels.  Let’s go ahead and create the CPG.

On the Provisioning section right click on CPG and hit “Create CPG”, hit Next after the Welcome section.

I went ahead and named my CPG and hit “Advanced Options” below to bring up the hidden settings.  This is where the customization are endless and your settings will vary on your availability and performance requirements.  I went ahead an went for most of the defaults, in my device type I select FC since that is the only type of drives I have installed, Raid 5, 4+1 for my Chunklets with a 32KiB step size.  For the availability option always try to use cage level availability.  This level of protection means that if you have enough disk shelves (cages) the Chunklets for a given Raid set will be taken from separate drive cages so if a disk cage were to have a power failure and go completely down your data will still be intact and serviceable to your hosts.  Note that this is one of the main features that makes 3Par a Tier 1 capable system and excellent for Virtualized environments, you just can’t break this thing!  Since CPG’s can automatically grow in size you can also set the size increments and set limits on that CPG growth.  Once you are done customizing your CPG click next to select/filter out any disks from participating in this CPG.  I made sure all 16 were selected and hit next and finish creating the CPG.  This process will now create the underlying “Logical Disk” completely transparently and under the hood in the system.  This is something the administrator never has to worry about. 

VIRTUAL VOLUMES

Now, to get our hosts to actually see some storage we have to create a Virtual Volume and present it up to our VMware servers.  In the Provisioning section right click on Virtual Volumes and click “Create Virtual Volume”.

At this point we will configure a simple Virtual Volume.  Most of the the options here are self explanatory.  Configure the VV name, check “export volume after creation” to assign the volume to your servers, and select whether or not the VV should be provisioned in either Thin or Thick format.  Set the size of the virtual volume and select the CPG that this Virtual Volume should be pulled from.  The “Copy CPG” option allows you to select the CPG that should store this VV’s snapshots (Virtual Copy).  Hit next and finish to have the system create the Virtual Volume.

Since we selected “Export volume after creation” the Export Virtual Volume wizard will come up after the VV creation. 

On the left select the LUN you want to export and on the right highlight the servers that should see this Virtual Volume.  Hit next and finish to assign the Virtual Volume to the selected servers. 

On those VMware hosts navigate to the Storage Adapters section and hit “rescan all” – once that is complete you should see the exported Virtual Volumes that your ESX host can now access so you can create your VMFS datastore.  Notice that “Supported” is shown under the Hardware Acceleration section which tells you that VAAI is currently active and working.  Also, 3Par recommends utilizing the “Round Robin” load balancing policy under the “Manage Paths” option in ESX(i).

In Part 3 of this series we will go over some of the additional software features of the 7000 including the installation and configuration of the VMware vCenter management plug-in and Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere.  

-Justin Vashisht (3cVguy)

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The post 3Par StoreServ 7000 – Step by step Installation and Configuration (Part 2) appeared first on 3cV – 3Par Storage, C-Class HP Blades, VMware vSphere.

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The post Videos: New Product Releases from HP GPC 2013 appeared first on 3cV – 3Par Storage, C-Class HP Blades, VMware vSphere.

David Scott – former 3Par CEO, now head of HP Storage speaking about the new HP Storage initiatives.

So, lets do a short take of some of the announcements that really interested me this morning:

BLADESYSTEM

HP seems to be very committed to the current 3000/7000 chassis architecture.  I have had nothing but great experience in the reliability and stability of every BladeSystem we have deployed.  Today HP has announced that they have taken the current system, locked the Electrical Engineering in the room and squeezed out some record setting performance never seen before in a Blade chassis.  Here are some of the improvements:

• New HP “PLATINUM” series c3000 and c7000 chassis. 
• Same familiar look and feel, ability to use existing hardware.
• 40gb downlinks to the blade servers., this is huge for virtualized shops! (First in Industry)
• 40% more overall available bandwidth
• Location intelligence and awareness in the data center with advanced power discovery features. (First in Industry)
• Virtual Connect 4.0 firmware – end to end network integration with real time monitoring.
• Industries first virtualized 3D graphics performance for blade servers.
• Up to 4x user density at 60% lower cost.

STORAGE

David Scott, former CEO of 3Par and now head of Storage at HP introduced a few new initiatives as well.  I think the StoreVirtual 4530 and 4730 are going to be huge in the SMB space.  It is great to have a complete purpose built, unified system that I can get running in my virtual infrastructure in less than a day.  HP has already put together the right components and software so I don’t have to experiment on my clients.  David also mentioned that fact that these systems are built form the ground up for resilience.  This translates into zero downtime software upgrades and seamless scalability. 

• HP StoreSystem  – This combines the StoreServ and StoreOnce products into one converged solution.  Now, your storage and backup infrastructure will become as one.  This takes management and performance to new heights.  To me, this is something that should interest Cloud Providers and Enterprise level customers.
• HP StoreVirtual 4530 and 4730 – based on Lefthand OS version 10.5. 
• Built for midrange – based on Gen8 optimized servers. 64GB RAM, SmartArray with an astounding 2GB FBWC!
• 4x10gb iSCSI connectivity
• 4530 supports 12 LFF drives, 4730 support 25 SFF drives.

BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE (BYOD)

This one caught me off guard as I had no idea HP was going to enter the BYOD market.  I still have to do more research on this system.  Having implemented solutions from Airwatch and Good Messaging I need to see the feature set HP is bringing to the table. 

HP’s solutions allows IT to onboard, provision and monitor users, devices and traffic on the network whether the user is an employee, contractor or guest and the device is connected wired or wirelessly. BYOD identity based access offers a comprehensive solution which includes single policy enforcement and converged network management across wired and wireless environments. Unified BYOD monitoring further enables you to optimize resource allocation and comply with regulatory requirements.  This is obviously huge for the financial firms.

NETWORKING

There were several announcements but ignored all of them since I was fixated on the HP 830 Unified/WLAN Switch   This switch eliminates the need to purchase up to 50 percent of traditional network access devices, including separate switches and controllers, while supporting up to 1,000 wireless devices.  This is one of those “why didn’t I think of this” products.  Converging wireless capabilities into my access layer switches is a no brainer.  Less management, less devices to worry about, less software programs, and less time since I’m don’t have to deploy separate product sets.

There were many more products announced.  Follow my fellow bloggers @vmugonline, @ninabuik,, @johnobeto, and @jakeludington for additonal coverage.  Will provide more updates from Vegas as they come down the wire.

-Justin Vashisht (3cvguy)

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The post HP 2013 Global Partner Conference – New product announcements! appeared first on 3cV – 3Par Storage, C-Class HP Blades, VMware vSphere.

Even though the SERVER and STORAGE interfaces are configured with the same security level of 100 the default behavior of an ASA is to block communication between them.  We can enable communication between these two interfaces with the same security level with the following command:

ASA-CLI (config) # same –security-traffic permit inter-interface

Here is where many people get stuck.  After this command is added many people become baffled that they still cannot ping and pass traffic through.  This is because a “static or dynamic” translation rule is still required.  I added the following two commands to allow all IP traffic to pass bi-directionally.

ASA-CLI (config) # static (server,storage) 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0

ASA-CLI (config) # static (storage,server) 192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0

At this point you should be good to go.

-Justin Vashisht (3cVguy)

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The post Cisco ASA – Permitting traffic between two interfaces with the same security level appeared first on 3cV – 3Par Storage, C-Class HP Blades, VMware vSphere.

Last month HP announced the long awaited “baby” 3Par into their storage portfolio, the StoreServ 7000 series.  As predicted, 3Par’s entry into the SMB storage market has created a lot of excitement for the IT departments that wanted 3Par technology but didn’t have the budget for the existing models.  Since the majority of my clients are in the alternative investment space (Hedge Funds, etc.) they typically ask for the latest and greatest technology to stay on the cutting edge.  Naturally, being one of the first to implement a new technology product will most likely net you some of the bugs that present themselves in the first versions of products.  Since the Storeserv 7000 series uses that same underlying technology and operating system as the other mature 3Par products, I had no reservations recommending it to my client.  One nice thing about this 3Par is the ability for the customer to perform their own installation.  Previously, only authorized 3Par technicians were required for the initial install, setup, and configuring.

However, as you will see later in this article I did run into an issue with the initial setup in the new Smartstart Setup Wizards due to a bad setup script from HP, so I had to perform the “birth process” from the command line via serial port.  I actually prefer doing these type of procedures from the command line, since you learn a lot more about the technology that is usually hidden under the covers.  The rest of this post will be dedicated to walking you through the entire setup process from installing the drives, zoning the fiber to the blade servers, and creating a virtual volume to use in VMware.  Note that most of the installations steps can also be applied to the bigger P10000 systems as well since all 3Par’s share the common operating environment.

Ok, let’s get started – my client purchased a StoreServ 7200 with no extra disk shelves.  A simple 2U unit with 7TB of space was more than enough for them for now.  We removed everything from the boxes and were blown away with how awesome this array looks in person. The following are some pictures form when we first put the array together.

HP/3Par Licensing documents and software

3Par 7200 freshly out of the box

Front right

StoreServ 7200 SFF 2.5inch 450GB 10k hard drives
ready to be installed

Rear shot of the array

3Par controllers

Controllers removed from array

Controller backplane.

7200 with 16 hard drives installed

Rear shot of the 7200 – Two 8GB fiber ports on each
controller.

Close up of the power supply units

As you can see form the pictures the StoreServ 7200 comes out of the box pretty much ready to go in terms of physical assembly with the hard drives being only pieces that need to be installed.  We opted to go for the 2.5 inch small form factor SAS hard drives to maintain the 2U form factor.  Included in the box were SAS cables for future disk shelf expansion, power cables, labels, software, and licensing.  After taking a good look at the array, the design seems to be well thought out by HP Engineers – there is even a nifty rod that doubles as a pull handle\locking mechanism for the controller nodes.  It’s amazing HP was able to pack this amount of power and features into a 2U box.  On the rear of the chassis we have the two standard 110 volt power supplies that back each other up in case one experiences a heart attack.  In the middle you have your two controller nodes that house the special 3Par ASICs, processing power via a 1.8GHz chip, and your cache repository.  The base configuration we ordered came with the following I/O ports on each controller: Two 8Gb fiber ports, one RJ45 for remote copy, another RJ45 for Management, and finally three manufacturer diagnostic ports. 

At this point this first thing I wanted to do is make sure that we registered the product and and make sure that we obtained all pertinent license keys.  As seen in the first picture the blue envelopes contain a printed paper from HP with an Entitlement Order Number (EON) number.  You will notice that some of the EON’s can be the same for different licenses which is normal due to the bundling.  When you have written down all of your EON’s you will need to register them on HP’s licensing portal.  The site will instantly send you all of the associated license keys.  The keys will be entered into the 3Par toward the end of the “birth process”.

Next, we have to initiate the “birth process” of the 7000.  First, we are going to setup and configure the 7000’s Service processor  HP now supports the Service Processor in a virtualized environment and makes it super easy by providing a pre-made OVF package.  The OVF resides on one of the DVD’s that come in the box.  Fire up your vSphere client and connect to one of your ESXi hosts.  Once you are connected navigate to File > Deploy OVF template.  On the source page, click browse to import the OVF from its location on the DVD, click next.  On the OVF Template Details page, verify the OVF template, then click next.  On the name and location page, enter a name for the virtual storage processor then click next.  On the disk format page, select Thin Provision, then click next.  Now click finish and check the box on the bottom to power on the VM once the deployment is complete.

Now, here is where I ran into the first of my two major issues with the array setup, which I attributed to poor HP quality control.   So, when I booted up the vSP the Linux OS ran through the standard file system check during boot it stopped and informed me that the file system wasn’t consistent and needed to repaired – oh great!!! <SEE TOP OF POST FOR UPDATE – THIS ISSUE WAS DUE TO MY ESX HOST’S TIME BEING WRONG>

Since I was probably one of the first HP resellers in the world to set up a 7000 I realized that finding someone at HP to actually acknowledge this issue and help me would be a daunting task.  At the end, it actually worked out well.  After about two hours of navigating through different storage support groups I finally found a very knowledgeable and helpful engineer in Colorado who saw this issue in HP’s internal training classes.  Even though the error gives you some guidance on the switches that you should use with the fsck command he advised to use some different ones.  He had me enter in the following command (without the quotes) to repair the file system:  “fsck –yvf /dev/sda*” I hit enter and let it run, after it ran through I typed in reboot as depicted below.

Now that the Service Processor’s file system is repaired it should now be in an operational state.  We need to connect to the SP via a web browser to start the birth process.  The SP received an IP address via DHCP which you can discover by going to the “summary” tab for the VM under the vSphere client.  Now, in your browser type the web address as follows: https://IP/sp/SpSetupWizard.html  This should get you to the Service processor setup wizard as seen in the below picture.

Click next on on the welcome screen.

I got stuck on the next screen since the documentation provided didn’t tell me how to obtain my Service processor ID.  HP ended up forwarding me a document which explained how they changed the process and that the 3Par serial number should be entered.  The article ended up getting posted on the HP site here.  As it states the S/N should be prefixed with SP000.  So, if you serial number is 1601234 the Service Processor ID will be SP0001601234.

Next, fill out the hostname and IP address information, along with the DNS support info, and advanced settings if applicable.  Hit next when complete.

The next screen pertains to the “phone home” feature of the SP.  This will allow the array to send HP information on the status of the array.  This is a nice feature since Hp will know if the array had a bad drive and automatically get the ball rolling to let you know about it and get you a replacement.  If you don’t have a proxy server for internet access you can leave these settings blank.

Simple stuff here – I recommend using an NTP server. 

Set a new password for user names “setupusr” and “3Parcust”

Make sure all information is correct and click next.

Now, the “birth process” will start.

Once the Service Processor has been setup and configured you will return to the main menu.  The next step is to run the “Storage System Setup Wizard” to initialize the actual array which is part of the process that carves out all the chunklets.

Here is where I ran into some serious issues.  No matter how many times I tired and enter in the serial number the process would always kick back with the same error shown in red.  I went through all of my wiring to make sure the SP was on the same subnet and able to communicate to the array.  As I previously stated I was finally able to make contact with a 3Par engineer that was notified of this problem.  He stated that their is a known problem with the wizard driven setup process and a file containing some metadata for proper detection of the array was accidently left out.  I’m starting to wonder if it was the same guy that compiled the OVF .

This is where things got interesting.  The only thing we could do at this point is manually setup the array from the command line via serial port.  I originally recorded the entire process but since I don’t posses enough patience to get into video editing I will continue to use screenshots.  At the end of the entire process I actually ended up enjoying seeing the entire process in the command prompt since I saw everything that was going on under the covers.  I imagine that by the time most people read this HP would have fixed all these issues and the wizard should work flawlessly.  Anyway, the following are the steps taken to manually bring the array alive via command prompt.

First, we will need to hook up the array to a laptop via a USB-to-Serial converter. Also, the system comes with two connectors that have a serial interface on one end and a RJ45 on the other end.  Make sure to utilize the gray connector (PN 180-0055) which you should connect a CAT 5 cable into, the other end should connect into the MGMT port on the first controller.  Use a program like “Putty” to connect to the array, make sure to use 9600 as the baud rate.

Once you are connected you should should get a prompt to enter in a username and password.  I used “console” as the username and the password for your system can be obtained by contacting HP or you can reach out to me directly as it appears to be confidential info.

You will now be presented with the 3Par Console Menu.  To start the process I selected number 6 and hit enter.  The console will not ask you to enter in “yes” to confirm that you are OK with the system to shut down and reboot. 

3Par booting up…  Looks like an Intel 6 core 1.8Ghz chip is in each controller in the 7200.

Now that everything is fresh and clean we are going to select number 1 to run the “Out of the Box Procedure” then type in “Yes” to continue with the procedure.

I can confirm that we indeed do have two nodes in our 7200 by hitting “c”

I typed in 1 to select New York.  I then hit enter to confirm that the time reported was correct.

Typed in a name for my 7000 and confirmed. 

Confirmed all OS versions looked good.

Verified that the OS was seeing all 16 drives.  The OS then ran a check to make sure all drives and drive cages had the latest firmware.  This setup also made sure that all connections looked good. 

The system then prompted me to run a stress test on the entire array by running a heave amount of I/O through all the disks. I deferred this for later due to a time crunch but recommend that you run this immediately to weed out any potential array issues that can be lurking. The test takes about two hours and 15 minutes.  You will notice than an error message popped up stating that my array has less cages than nodes.  Since I currently didn’t have any connected add-on drives cages (or shelves as some would call it) I am considered to only have one drive cage.  The system has two controller nodes so obviously we have more nodes than cages.  For protection and performance reasons you should always have multiple drive cages.  My client was small enough to not require this.  This error will eventually clear itself after a few prompts. 

I put in an available static IP with corresponding netmask, gateway, and temporary DNS.  The DNS should point to a local DNS server, such as an AD integrated box.  I made sure to not disable any encrypted ports.  Once completed I hit “y” to confirm everything looked good.

The setup process is now running – as you can see the chunklets are now being created. 

Now, the system wants us  to dictate on how we want the spare chunklets aggregated.  I selected “D” for default which puts us at 13%. 

Looking at the shot above we can see that more license keys need to be applied since I have more than 8 disks and other features that were ordered.  We will add this later.

I selected “No” for the CIM API’s.

Storage Array setup is now complete.

I then ran option 10 which will go through all the components in the array to make sure all components are healthy and ready to go.

Now, we have to mate the Service processor up to the storage array.  We can start this process by browsing to the SP to access the Service Processor Onsite Customer Care (SPOCC) via a web browser.  Simply type in the IP address of the SP that we configured earlier using https://.

Once you are in SPOCC, on the left click SPMaint.

Click on “Add New INserv”.  Once there add the array’s IP we created in the command line setup.  Use account 3Paradm and the password you setup earlier.  We now have the array and SP mated up.

In part two of this article we will go through the remaining tasks to setup the array.  This will include configuring the zoning between the array and the HP blade servers.  For this task we will be configuring this on our Brocade fiber blade switches.  I will also take you through applying the license keys via the command line, setting up your hosts in the InForm management console and carving out a LUN to our VMware hosts.  This will require us to setup our CPG’s and VV’s which we will export to our hosts.

As I said earlier, I wasn’t concerned much on some of the hurdles I faced, since most of it adhered to components that are not mission critical to the underlying operation of the array.  The Smartstart wizards are a nice approach to make an advanced array approachable to a normal system admin.  I’m sure HP will fix these issues in the next week or so.

Thanks for reading, see you in Part 2.

-Justin Vashisht (3cVguy)

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Today, most circuits are simple Layer 2 Ethernet handoffs from the ISP’s that the customer typically terminates into a firewall.  Since we are operating completely at the Layer 2 level things can start to get pretty hairy if spanning tree configurations are not exact.  A messy scenario that has seen the light of day at some regional ISP’s is when the equipment on the customer’s side is accidently elected as the root bridge.  This can cause gigabytes worth of the ISP’s traffic to redirect and flow through one customer’s link causing a cobweb of headaches for many people.  Naturally, this is a “perfect storm” scenario, but it is something that still happens.

This weekend when I was setting up the Layer 2 Ethernet Handoff at my client site I immediately saw Sidera’s protection mechanisms kick into gear.  After plugging the circuit into my perimeter Cisco 2960 WAN switch I noticed the port bouncing into error disabled mode.  My port connecting to the ISP was configured in Portfast mode, which means that I am manually guaranteeing that whatever is plugged into that particular port cannot generate a physical loop.  Ports configured in Portfast mode are typically servicing desktops, servers, etc – notice that these are devices that don’t generate any BPDU traffic like routers and switches do.  A desktop typically has one NIC and therefore cannot generate a physical loop.  PortFast skips the initial spanning tree checks for that port, which avoids the timeout of end stations at boot up.  After noticing the error disabled port notification I investigated the logs further and saw in the details that BPDU’s were being received on the port.  Right away I knew that my port was receiving BPDU’s from the ISP switch.  Thankfully there is a quick and easy fix to this.  On my port connecting to the ISP I enabled the following command on the interface: “spanning-tree bpdufilter enable”.  This command prevents the port from sending or receiving BPDUs.  So, my ISP’s switch is now happy to not receive any BPPDU’s messages from my end and my switch interface is now ignoring BPDU’s messages being sent to me since I never want to participate in a foreign switches’ Spanning Tree topology.  At this point I reset the port and noticed that everything started operating as normal. 

-Justin Vashisht (3cVguy)

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October 26th, 2012 is the day that I started to take Sandy serious.  Just about all weather radar reports on TV started showing an incredible storm forming in the south Atlantic with a projected path of hitting NY and NJ sometime after Halloween.  As the trusted IT advisors for our clients our firm had the responsibility of preparing their IT infrastructure’s and DR plans as if we were 100% sure that this Hurricane would directly hit us.  For many years my clients in lower Manhattan would bring up the potential flood scenario, some took action and prepared while some deferred it to worry about another time.  At this time we started sending notices to our clients to prepare all the tools necessary to make sure all respective DR/BCP plans were understood and ready for execution. 

Just like Irene, Sandy came and went but this time leaving a trail of damage that the Northeast never expected or in any way prepared for.  This time the media was very cautious in overblowing this storm but was firm that all should be prepared, which I think saved many lives.  Many of the firms we consult for prepared to push the big red button but did not eventually have to.  Several clients proactively executed the DR plan while a few sat dead in the water due to a total lack of investment in DR. 

A particular client of mine took on major damage since their office is located in the last building on the tip of lower Manhattan.  Their building’s basement and lobby was flooded with millions of gallons of seawater and had to vacate their office.  In fact, they have still not moved back in yet due to the lack of stable dependent infrastructure services from the outside.  A Financial Services firm always looks at risks in all areas of the operation so they decided to continue operations at a temporary office space to ensure that no critical trading functions are disrupted while the building infrastructure is performing repairs.  The firm was prepared to utilize backup services for IT via their Singapore office but encountered some struggles.  A combined factor of latency and bandwidth limitations which come by default when moving packets of data across the world hindered operations for them in a major way.  Also, limited CPU horsepower prevented critical jobs from completing within normal thresholds.  This prompted us to physically pluck all technology from 20th floor of their Manhattan office down the stairs and into a car for setup and delivery to a co-location facility in upstate New York.

Now that I have had some time to analyze and digest the procedures and outcomes from many different clients I wanted to share some of the most important lessons that were reinforced and some that were newly learned.

• HAVING A FORMAL DR/BCP PLAN – Sounds like a no brainer right?  Wrong!  A majority of firms either have no plan whatsoever or something that is partially completed.  This can be a daunting task and something that shouldn’t be learned on the fly.  I recommend to hiring an outside firm that has seen many of the hurdles and mistakes others have made.
• MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE BUILDING MANAGER – For my downtown client, many years of relationship building with them gave us heavy leverage even when the building was flooded and closed.  When we approached the building team to climb up 20 flights of stairs to retrieve 10 servers we hit a stonewall at first.  If we got injured a lot of people could have been in some serious trouble but we then engaged the building manager with success.  This was the main reason we were able to get them running in a co-location so fast.  Relationships are key to getting things done when there is possible red tape.
• COMMUNICATION  -  If have seen IT managers get into serious hot water when they don’t communicate effectively to the Executives.  I feel communication to the higher ups and end users is over 50% of the battle.  If something doesn’t go right but you communicate it and et everyone know how you plan to prevent the same misstep going forward you will have a happier audience.
• TESTING YOUR DR/BCP PLAN – Having a plan is great but without constant testing and refinement how can you be sure that things will work when it comes time to execute?  At minimum I like to see my clients test their plans at least two times a year.  These tests will provide the ability to work out any kinks and stay consistent as the business grows and changes.
• DR vs. BCP – Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning are two different animals, especially firms with large operations.  To provide some some contrast, DR is the ability to recover a failed or degraded IT service to a Healthy state. (Example – Performing an Exchange email datacenter switchover) to another data center.  Whereas BCP is focused more on logistical functions.  (Example – A strategic plan on where/how to relocate humans in the event that employees are not able to enter the office due to a power outage/fire/flood etc).
• TEMPORARY WORKPLACE – Once again, in the case of my client who was not able to enter the office due to the flooding in downtown Manhattan they needed to find a temporary office to put 40+ people for several months.  If this is done during an emergency most spaces will have already become unavailable.  There are many data center/co-location environments that offer pre-arranged hotel space for a monthly fee.  Many firms can operate just fine with employees working remotely from home.  A Financial Services firm is more likely to have this due to the requirement of constant collaboration amongst employees and groups.  You need to figure out which subset of users can work remotely and which users need to be together.
• DATACENTER PLACEMENT – Another seemingly easy one but often overlooked.  I was just meeting with a new client with about 600 employees that had production in Manhattan and DR in New Jersey.  Sandy took down both datacenters sine they were so close together and completely shut down the firm’s business.  On the flip side, we once again look at my downtown client who’s DR site was on the other side of the world in Singapore.  The distance was too great so make sure to take bandwidth and latency into account.  I usually recommend a regional backup facility, usually within 60 miles for minimal latency and near zero RPO capabilities.  I usually like to see the DR facility placed on an opposite coast.  (Example: New York, primary, New Jersey, backup and Arizona for the DR facility.)
• ISP REDUNDANCY TO THE NTH DEGREE – Just because you have two different ISP vendors doesn’t mean you are resilient.  In Manhattan Verizon owns most of the copper Infrastructure which means a large single point of failure exists.  Due to monopoly reasons Verizon has been forced to offer their copper to resellers.  So, if a client of mine has T1 lines from both Verizon and Verizon Reseller X odds are both runs are being physically routed through the same conduits in the building, the same circuit boards in the basement, the same path in the street, and the same central office.  Always stagger your lines using different mediums such as Fiber or WiMax.  Ask the building to show you their point of presence (POP) diagram which will show you the different entry points for the carriers.  This is great information to know when writing up a scenario involving physical construction outside of the building which can potentially sever all connections to the building.  Of course multiple POP’s can help avoid any outage.  I also like to utilize 4G line of sight connectivity whenever possible form a vendor like Towerstream.  This technology has matured greatly and offers speeds in excess of 20mb/sec.  Since the infrastructure sites on the roof of the building it is completely autonomous and not affected by any issues that can occur on the ground level.  They usually have a dedicated UPS on the roof for it as well!  If your building doesn’t offer this sometimes banding together with other firms in the building and presenting the idea to the building manager will get them to allow the infrastructure install on the roof.

Planning and actually being involved in a DR scenario are two different things.  No matter how experienced an IT Professional may be, you will always learn something new when going through something of this magnitude.  Documentation, checklists, communication, and proactive testing are the ingredients to a successful DR/BCP experience. 

-Justin Vashisht (3cVguy)

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The post Hurricane Sandy – New lessons learned & old lessons reinforced on IT Professionals. appeared first on 3cV – 3Par Storage, C-Class HP Blades, VMware vSphere.

HP has officially removed the covers off the new P7000 3Par storage array.  This is the first 3Par array that HP had direct influence on as the P10000 was already in the works before the HP acquisition. Designed from the ground up for the SMB space the StoreServ 7000 series comes in two models, the 7200&7400. HP states that the 7000 series starts off at an easy to swallow price of only $20K without sacrificing any of the enterprise class features of the parent models.  The 7000 models will rely on the Gen4 ASIC, which is the latest version of the hardware chip.  The primary difference between the two models is the 7400’s hyper-redundant 4 controllers with cache persistence, look for that at a starting price of only $40K.  Another exciting feature on both systems is the support of 2.5 inch SAS SFF hard drives.  That means a 2U 7200 system can provide 21TB of RAW space (via 900GB SAS drives).  Amazing!

Price range for the 7200 is well under 100K with the 7400 falling right around the six figure mark depending on software options, drives and controller count.  No doubt new and existing NetApp/EMC SMB customers will start paying attention to the new 3Par lineup!

I will be posting technical details of each system as they come down the wire.

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HP DISCOVER – STORAGE ANNOUNCEMENT PAGE

I expect tomorrow to be one of the biggest days for 3Par since the HP acquisition.  In the past, 3Par arrays have been out of reach to the small and medium sized business due to cost, power, and space requirements.  Since that acquisition our firm has been hounding HP to make the 3Par array more accessible to the mid-market by providing an SMB friendly version of the array (as rumored on the linked article). Doing this while maintaining the all of the enterprise class features that made 3Par famous would be the biggest challenge. 

Other speculation on the internet suggest some kind of 3Par InForm OS VSA but this wouldn’t make much business sense since the Lefthand P4000 VSA if very popular and already has significant investment from HP.  Hopefully an updated GUI of the InForm OS and some kind of update on a simulator get’s announced as well.

All the rumors will be put to rest tomorrow at 8AM.  I will be providing all updates tomorrow as they are announced.

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