NetApp and VMware vSphere Storage Best Practices

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A prerequisite to making this change is the creation of a datastore to store the swap files. Because the VMware swap file storage requirements are dynamic, NetApp suggests creating either a large thinprovisioned LUN or a FlexVol volume with the Auto Grow feature enabled. Thin-provisioned LUNs and Auto Grow FlexVol volumes provide a large management benefit when storing swap files. This design removes the need to micromanage the swap space or to reduce the utilization rate of the storage. Consider the alternative of storing VMware swap files on traditional storage arrays. If you undersize the swap space, the VMs fail to start; conversely, if you oversize the swap space, you have provisioned but unused storage. Note: VMware has documented that the following options must not reside in the VMX file in order to use a centralized vswap datastore: sched.swap.dir or sched.swap.derivedName To configure a central datastore to store the virtual swap files follow these steps (and refer to Figure 50). 1 Open vCenter Server. 2 Select an ESX Server. 3 In the right pane, select the Configuration tab. 4 In the Software box, select Virtual Machine Swapfile Location. 5 In the right pane, select edit. 6 The Virtual Machine Swapfile Location wizard will open 7 Select the datastore which will be the global location 8 Repeat steps 2 through 7 for each ESX Server in the cluster. 9 This process configures the ESX Server and does not affect existing VMs. See the next table for configuring existing VMs. 76
Figure 50) Configuring a global location for virtual swap files. 77
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NETAPP TECHNICAL REPORT NetApp and
Page 3 and 4:
9 ETHERNET STORAGE NETWORKING BEST
Page 5 and 6:
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY NetApp® techno
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2.2 STORAGE OVERVIEW: NAS DATASTORE
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2.4 DATASTORE COMPARISON TABLES Dif
Page 11 and 12:
3 NETAPP FAS CONFIGURATION AND SETU
Page 13 and 14:
LUNS LUNs are units of storage prov
Page 15 and 16:
Figure 5) Identifying WWPN and IQN
Page 17 and 18:
Figure 7) Assigning an igroup to a
Page 19 and 20:
The default block size of a virtual
Page 21 and 22:
CREATE MULTIPLE ISCSI VMKERNELS 1 O
Page 23 and 24:
Figure 13) Verifying iSCSI to VMker
Page 25 and 26: Figure 15) Configuring iSCSI dynami
Page 27 and 28: Alternatively iSCSI restrictions ca
Page 29 and 30: 5.2 ENABLING ALUA NetApp and VMware
Page 31 and 32: Figure 20) Listing the active PSP t
Page 33 and 34: MANUALLY SETTING THE PSP FOR A LUN
Page 35 and 36: 6 NFS STORAGE RECOMMENDATIONS 6.1 I
Page 37 and 38: It is common for customers who run
Page 39 and 40: 6.5 CONNECTING NFS DATASTORES TO cr
Page 41 and 42: Figure 27) VMware Add Storage Wizar
Page 43 and 44: 7 THE NETAPP ESX HOST UTILITIES Net
Page 45 and 46: 8 FC AND FCOE STORAGE NETWORKING BE
Page 47 and 48: Figure 29) Configuring flow control
Page 49 and 50: 10 CONFIGURING ETHERNET STORAGE NET
Page 51 and 52: Figure 31) ESX vSwitch1 normal mode
Page 53 and 54: In vSwitch1, two VMkernel ports hav
Page 55 and 56: THE SINGLE-MODE DESIGN The single-m
Page 57 and 58: 10.5 VMKERNEL CONFIGURATION WITH MU
Page 59 and 60: 10.6 A STORAGE ARCHITECTURE WITH MU
Page 61 and 62: 11 INCREASING STORAGE UTILIZATION V
Page 63 and 64: Figure 43) Storage consumption afte
Page 65 and 66: Traditional provisioning preallocat
Page 67 and 68: Snapshot Auto Delete is a policy-ba
Page 69 and 70: 12.3 ENSURING OPTIMAL STORAGE PERFO
Page 71 and 72: 12.6 CORRECTIVE ACTIONS FOR VMS WIT
Page 73 and 74: CREATING A PROPERLY ALIGNED VMDK FO
Page 75: It should be noted that this design
Page 79 and 80: RECOMMENDED LAYOUT OPTION 2: LOCATE
Page 81 and 82: 1 Open FilerView (http://filer/na_a
Page 83 and 84: Figure 54) Increasing the size of a
Page 85 and 86: Figure 55) Deleting a VMDK from a V
Page 87 and 88: 15 DISK-BASED SNAPSHOT BACKUPS FOR
Page 89 and 90: 16 TECHNICAL REPORT SUMMARY VMware
Page 91 and 92: lw== ESX SYSTEM SSH CONFIGURATION T
Page 93 and 94: APPENDIX C: DOCUMENT REFERENCES VMW
Page 95 and 96: MISCELLANEOUS REFERENCES Total Cost
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NetApp and VMware vSphere Storage Best Practices

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