This past week I was resetting the cloud lab that I maintain at VMware. We have several storage systems on the back end to test out with our cloud reference architecture that I’m building. One of the arrays we have is a NetApp FAS-3170. Since we were using NetApp on the back end I decided to download one of the two plug-ins available from NetApp for use in VMware vCenter Server. They have an array mapping utility as well as the RCU (Rapid Clone Utility) plug-in. Both can be downloaded using your NetApp NOW account.
The plug-in I used was the one that maps out all of the storage and allows you to do some rudimentary configuration of the system. It will show you all of the controllers in use by the storage connected to your ESX hosts and the settings for those mapped LUNs.
There are some published best practices on setting up NetApp arrays for use with VMware vSphere. What I really like about this utility is it will scan the hosts and tell you which ones aren’t following those best practices and then allow you to fix all of that with a simple button. Of course it still requires the hosts to be restarted before the changes take effect but you don’t have to go drilling down through menus to try and figure out where the settings are and set them. This is particularly useful when you have several hosts.
Anyhow, I just thought I’d point out these rather useful utilities. If you haven’t installed them then go and get them now. They are both free and will help you out immensely. For those using other arrays such as EMC there are a bunch of plug-ins for those setups as well. Enjoy!
