vSphere clone vs. NetApp rapid clone
In a typical NetApp & vSphere environment there are two well-known options to create a clone of a Virtual Machine. The first one is the vSphere default and the second is the NetApp rapid clone. The vSphere default clone is a simple copy operation from filesystem point of view, so if you browse the datastore you’ll see the same files in the source and target VM’s directory, except for the log files. The NetApp rapid cloning utility is doing the things in an other way, we’ll see how. But first of all, let’s talk about the configuration.
- NetApp FAS2040, 500GB NFS datastore (standard 1Gbit onboard port)
- vSphere 4.1 with NetApp Virtual Storage Console 2.0.1
- Windows 2008R2 VM, contains a ~7GB VMDK
NetApp VMware VAAI performance test, part II: iSCSI
Few days ago I posted some performance test results with VMware vStorage API for Array Integration. I went through the test again, but insted of Fibre Channel I have iSCSI today.
I have the same piece of HW except for the connection:
- Cisco UCS B200 blade system with two X5550 sockets and 48GB of RAM
- NetApp FAS2040 with 12×300 FC 15krpm disks. For this test I’ve created an aggregate of 9 disks.
In the last test I had 4Gb Fibre Channel connection and now I have simple 1Gb iSCSI. I repeated the same steps, the only difference is the size of the VMDK I’ve added to the Virtual Machine: Read more…
NetApp VMware VAAI performance test
I usually do my Data ONTAP tests with the simulator as I don’t have NetApp hardware in my lab. Last week we got a NetApp FAS2040 system for two weeks and I decided to make some VAAI tests.
About the configuration:
- Cisco UCS B200 blade system with two X5550 sockets and 48GB of RAM
- NetApp FAS2040 with 12×300 FC 15krpm disks. For this test I’ve created an aggregate of 9 disks.
- Cisco Nexus 5010 with 4Gb FC connection to the NetApp box
I went throught the same steps with VAAI enabled and disabled configurations. At the beginning I had a Windows VM with 40GB hard disk.
- add a new Hard Disk to the VM, 100GB, thick, cluster supported (zeroed)
- clone the VM (with the added disk) within the same LUN
- clone the VM to another LUN
- Storage VMotion the VM Read more…
VSC and SMVI, remote replication (part III)
In the first two posts of this series (here and here) we saw the Virtual Storage Console and the SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure and how they integrate together. In this part I try to show what happens to the snapshots if the volume is replicated to a remote site. For remote replication NetApp has a very efficient tool, called SnapMirror. SnapMirror works pretty well with Flexible Volumes, Thin Provisioning, and of course with deduplication. SnapMirror today has compression support, and these things together helps to reduce bandwidth utilization.
SnapMirror is quite easy, a lot of blog and howto posts are available and of course the official documentation. I don’t take care of the SnapMirror setup in this post, I assume it’s OK. At this point I have a source volume (srmvol) and a destination volume (srmvolsm) which are in sync. Deduplication and compression are enabled.
VSC and SMVI, single file restore (part II)
In the previous part I started to present how NetApp Virtual Storage Console and SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure integration works. I’ve created a backup then checked it on the controller and finally made a restore. In that example the restore handled the whole volume, so the other VMs running there were also affected (restored). In this post I’ll show how can be the restore handled more efficiently and how the single file restore works.
For today’s example I created a backup called ‘smvi-singlefile-2′ of the same virtual machine, then removed the kernel of the operating system. With the single file restore I can mount the backup today and copy out whatever I need. Let’s see how to do it:
VSC and SMVI integration, part I
I’ve already shown a couple of features of the NetApp Virtual Storage Console (VSC). With this post I start to present the backup and restore related stuff. For backup and recovery the VSC 2.0.1 integrates (and the installer actually installs) the SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure. With SMVI the NetApp created snapshots can be handled more efficiently.
I like using NetApp technology instead of the standard snapshots in vSphere, because
- I can have a lot of snapshots without performance issues
- I can mount the snapshot and have single file restore
- I can integrate with SnapMirror, and restore on the remote site
ONTAP 8.0.1 Sim and VAAI support
The new version of the Data ONTAP Simulator 8 has been out for a few days. I was waiting for it because 8.0.1 has finally VAAI (VMware vStorage API for Array Integration) support and we can test it in a lab environment. The Simulator 8 is a little bit different from the older ones, it comes as a configured VMware Workstation (or Fusion) VM. As I have ESXi lab only, I had to convert it to Virtual Infrastructure VM, with VM Converter. After the Converter Standalone Client finished, I powered on the Simulator and now it’s much more like the real Filers.
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