Ask the Expert: Installation and Configuration of ViPR for Isilon, VMAX and VNX Discovery

This discussion is now open for questions. We look forward to a lively and informative event.

Best regards,

Mark

Hi there ..

If customer wants to change their system to be  ViPR Management from VMAX system,( Still use VMAX as storage ) Does VMAX need to change anything ? I guess need to use some kind of Migration utility(eg ViPRmig) , if there is any tips /aware points,Plesase let me know. Also would like to get some good Document you can recommend.

Does ingesting work for volumes that are already in masking view and presented to hosts, or only for unmasked volumes ?

Also is there a way to bulk add hosts or discover them without having login credentials ?

Please help me understand the idea behind  Host migration utility - so if I have existing VMAX/VMX, and hosts that already have storage provisioned, I have to provision other volumes using ViPR and then use a host based migration to move the data to the new volumes ?

Hi Burhan,

As Aditya responded earlier, in ViPR 1.1 only volumes that are not attached to hosts can be brought under ViPR management using the "Ingest Unmanaged Volumes" service in the service catalog.

If you want to be able to also ingest volumes that are already attached to a host, you can use the Host Migration Utility (HMU) to do so. The HMU is run on the host side and coordinates PPME and ViPR to non-disruptively move the data from the previous volume to a fully ViPR managed volume.

The HMU is also useful in case you have hosts attached to storage arrays that are not supported by ViPR.

Let us know if you need further clarification.

Regards

Thanks guys !

Also let me check below are for VMAX and VNX ?

ViPR will only ingest volumes that are of two types;

    Volumes created from a pool, discovered as part of the physical array, part of a Virtual Storage Pool, and not part of a Storage Group.--> refer to VNX ?
    Volumes created from a pool, discovered as part of the physical array, part of a Virtual Storage Pool, part of a Storage Group, and NOT IN MASKING VIEW.--> refer to VMAX ?

thanks

Aya

Hi there again ....

Additional question please ....

Regarding ``Ingest ``, It looks like only Linux and Windows are supported by the look of Admin Guide Page 78 .

Also Pre require installation of  PowerPath ?

thanks

aya

ViPR is not in the data path so we don't impact the performance.  You still get the high speed native array performance.  Does that help?

i am curious why these migration requirements is VIPR is not supposed to be in the data path ?

Andrew,

my question is not in terms of performance but in terms of bringing existing infrastructure under VIPR "umbrella". I don't want to perform host based migration just to bring volumes under VIPR control. I want VIPR to discover storage already presented to my hosts.

Today the host based migration is how ViPR can bring hosts into the mix that are already zoned and masked to hosts previous to ViPR.  I'm sure PM can comment on when this functionality will be in the ViPR vAPP so you don't need to utilize host based solutions.

let's go into your NAS offering instead. Can you elaborate on ViPR as the orchestration toolset for NAS, using Isilon for file or object based storage with ViPR. Since you mentioned you're not in data path, what are the scalability scenarios customers should watch for as ViPR is deployed?

SH,

    You have a lot of questions and I'm not sure I understand them all.  For ViPR controller we are not in the data path.  For Object/Data nodes we are in the data path.  On the provisioning side we have services/orchestration that can provide file provisioning just like block.  This download is for the provisioning use case.  I suggest downloading some of the ViPR documentation to read up on some of the recommendations and capabilities of the product.  ViPR has been designed to scale for the enterprise environment.  There are some videos on this site as well as YouTube.  Please let me know what else we can answer for you. 

Andrew

I would like to know if there is a way to batch import hosts. We have about +1000 servers that we potentially need to add to this configuration and I am for sure not going to do that by hand.

Second question is about license, is license based on managed storage or resources?

thanks

Hi,

You could use ViPR CLI to create a script that imports hosts automatically.

ViPR Controller is licensed by managed storage capacity.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Regards