Wednesday, August 28, 2013

NetApp Cluster Mode vSIM – Install, Setup & Configure

NetApp Cluster Mode vSIM – Install, Setup & Configure

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In my previous blog I have shared some tips to pass the NCDA certification, here I would like to share the installation & configuration procedure for installing ONTAP vSIM (simulator). If you are NetApp enthusiast and are looking forward to learn NetApp Storage fundaments and basic storage administration tasks this would be a good start. I have divided the blog into three sections:
  • Download & Install NetApp vSIM: This sections provides details about downloading the simulator
  • Initial Configuration: This section provides details about the initial setup tasks that have to be performed irrespective of 7 Mode or Clustered Data ONTAP.
  • Cluster Setup: This section provides steps about the initial setup of Clustered Data ONTAP.
Download & Install NetApp vSIM
  1. To download NetApp vSIM, logon to http://support.netapp.com/portal/download (use this site to download various NetApp software/firmware & tools) and navigate to Product Evaluations. To download the simulator you have to be NetApp Customer/Partner.


  1. Select Data ONTAP Simulator


  1. You will now see the list of ONTAP simulators that are available for download. Click on Simulator 8.x
  2. Select the specific version of ONTAP. For the purpose of this blog I am using ONTAP 8.2 Cluster Mode. Click on Clustered-ONTAP 8.2 to download the tgz file, ofcourse you have to read and accept the EULA fist.
     
  3. Once the file is downloaded, upload the .tgz file on the VMFS datastore were you want to provision the simulator. You can use WinSCP or Datastore Browser on the ESXi host to achieve this.


  1. Extract the files using the # tar xvf vsim_esx-cm.tgz command from the ESXi Shell using SSH, it will take few minutes for this task to complete. Here you would see multiple DataONTAP-s00*.vmdks because the virtual disk 4 is split into 2 GB files.
     


  1. In the next step use the DataONTAP.vmx file to register the simulator as a virtual machine in the ESXi host. Navigate to the VMFS Datastore and select the vsim_esx-cm folder, right click on the DataONTAP.vmx file and click on Add to inventory. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete this task.
  2. Understand the components of the simulator before we proceed further. We will discuss this in the next section while configuring the simulator. Once the registration is complete you can start with the initial configuration.
Initial Configuration
With this step you can now perform all the Data ONTAP functionalities. This will help you in understanding ONTAP better and the various features and functions that it provides.
  1. Power on the ONTAP simulator virtual machine. If you are using ESXi 5.1 the following error would be displayed while powering on the VM
  2. This error is reported because the vmkernel mulitextent module is no longer loaded by default and to fix this issue use command # vmkload_mod multiextent. For more information refer to VMware KB 2036572.
  1. After powering on the VM, open the virtual machine console and monitor the boot sequence. Try this few times to understand the boot process. To proceed further you have to press Ctrl+C to access the Boot Menu


  1. At the Boot Menu you have to press 4 to initialize all the disks. In this setup all the disk are zeroed and you have to follow the same step when you have disk shelves connected to the controller.
  2. At the following prompts press Y to confirm
  3. The wipeconfig task is initiated and you have to wait patiently for this task t complete.  Note that when you are working on actual NetApp Filers this task may take several minutes depending on the number of drives in the disk shelf and their size.
Cluster Setup
This step is specific to clustered Data ONTAP and in this example we are creating a data ONTAP cluster. After the wpieconfig task is completed the following screen is displayed. Note that you can exit this screen and start the cluster wizard later using cluster setup command.
 
Cluster Setup – Perquisites
  • Networking Details (IP Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway) for Cluster Management
  • Networking Details (IP Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway) for Node Management
  • DNS Information (Domain Name & DNS Server IP)


  1. Type “create” because we are creating a new cluster and say “no” for single node cluster. This will allow you to add another simulator in future when you want to test Storage Failover.
     
  2. Type “yes” to select the defaults for the network ports that would be used for Cluster Network. These ports would be used to exchange the cluster heart beats and won’t be used to send/receive data.
  3. You can also add additional network cards to the simulator using the edit setting option for the VM. Here you notice that by default four network cards are available where two network cards are used only for Cluster Network and the two are used for Data traffic.
     
  4. In the next step provide a cluster name and enter the base license key which is also available at the Simulator download page.
     
  5. You may choose to enter additional license keys or press enter to skip. I chose to skip this step and copy past all the license keys when I connect using Putty.
  6. Enter the cluster “admin” password. 
  7. Enter the networking details for your cluster management interface. This interface will allow you to manage the Storage Cluster and all the Storage nodes.
  8. Enter the DNS information. Ignore the SFO (Storage Failover) message at the moment because there is only single node in this cluster.
  9. Enter the location of the controller.
  10. Enter the networking details for the node management interface. Note that this interface would be used to manage only this specific storage node.
  11. Enable AutoSupport when you are using NetApp Storage Filers for this simulator you may ignore this option.
     
  12. This completes the cluster setup and its now ready to use.
In my next blog I will discuss about some basic administration tasks that are performed on NetApp Unified Storage systems.

1 comment:

  1. Im not able to download Netapp Sim...Pls help me on this........Send me netapp Sim to me..Pls plz its urgent for me to learn netapp.

    ReplyDelete