03 Mar 2014
In a newly deployed Windows Server 2012 HyperV environment with around sixty nodes, running a
couple of hundred Windows Server 2012 virtual machines running various applications. We found t
he EMC VMX storage which underpinned this became massively busy with Write IO at around 3am,
the Write IO was mostly coming from TRIM and Unmap commands, the amount has a dramatic impact
and leads to lots of 153 errors on the server estate, after one to two hours the Write IO subsided.
I wrote a script to audit the estate to identify if there was any pattern to the errors. We found
the errors correlated to the 3am Window also.
(Read more...)
26 Feb 2014
Data ONTAP 8.0.1 and later supports certain VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)
features when the ESX host is running ESX 4.1 or later. These features help offload operations
from the ESX host to the storage system and increase the network throughput. The ESX host
enables the features automatically in the correct environment. You can determine the extent
to which your system is using the VAAI features by checking the statistics contained in the
VAAI counters.
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26 Feb 2014
The function of my NAS within homelab is to provide shared storage for my ESXi hosts, as I’m studying for VCAP it
would be great to use both iSCSI and NFS. By default NFS is disabled on the DS213J, first step is to enable it.
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26 Feb 2014
To configure a Synology disk station to present LUNs as iSCSI for ESXi hosts is straight forwards.
As unlike NFS, iSCSI support is enabled by default.
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26 Feb 2014
If you find an occasion where some drivers you need are missing from the VMware provided ISO for installing
ESXi you can use Image Builder to create your own custom ISO file.
(Read more...)