SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Administration Guide

Transcription

1 SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Administration Guide Version

2 Trademarks, SimpliVity cube logo, SimpliVity The Data Virtualization Company, SimpliVity, OmniCube, OmniStack, Global Federated Architecture, Data Virtualization Platform, SVT, and RapidDR are trademarks or registered trademarks of SimpliVity Corporation in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Patents SimpliVity OmniCube and OmniStack products are covered by various United States and foreign patents and pending patent applications. Patents include: AU ; BR PI ; CA 2,776,231; CN ZL ; DE ; DK ; EP ; ES ; FI ; FR ; GB ; IN 679/CHENP/2012; IT ; JP ; NO ; SE ; US 8,478,799; US 9,367,551; US 2016/ ; EP ; HK ; US 2013/ ; AU ; BR ; CA 2,840,178; CN ; EP ; HK ; IN 368/CHENP/2014; JP ; US 9,436,748; US ; AU ; BR ; CA 2,865,240; CN ; EP ; HK ; IN 6929/CHENP/2014; JP ; US 9,032,183; US 2015/ ; AU ; BR ; CA 2,921,039; CN X; EP ; IN ; JP ; US 9,043,576; US ; AU ; BR ; CA WO2016/115219; CN WO2016/115219; EP ; IN ; JP WO2016/115219; US 2016/ ; US 15/280,347 Copyright Information in this document is subject to change without notification. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of SimpliVity Corporation is strictly forbidden. SimpliVity Corporation 2017 Customer support To contact SimpliVity Customer Support, visit When contacting a representative, you need to know the serial number of your OmniStack server to verify your service subscription. SimpliVity uses OmniWatch to automatically monitor the health of your OmniStack equipment and have it send us notifications of any alerts or errors. April Rev A 2

3 Preface Intended audience This document is intended for users of SimpliVity OmniStack products who want to install, manage, and monitor their hyperconverged IT infrastructure. This information is intended for system administrators experienced in hypervisor technology, virtual machine management, and data center operations. SimpliVity documentation conventions SimpliVity documentation uses the following conventions to assist your reading. General formatting Monospace font represents a command line syntax, file path, system output, or similar code. Italic font represents a user-defined name or variable. Bold font represents a user interface element, such as a button or tab, with which a user interacts. Command Line formatting SimpliVity documentation uses the following format for CLI commands: command --option variable where command is the name of the command and should be typed exactly as shown. --option is a command option and should be typed exactly as shown. variable is an option variable and should be replaced with the required value. Informational Alerts WARNING: Alerts you to the risk of bodily injury, damage to hardware or software, loss of warranty, or loss of data. Caution: Alerts you to the risk of data unavailability or possible issues with regard to security, performance, or configuration. Preface 3

4 Indicates information that is supplemental or that may require additional attention. Tip: Provides helpful information such as best practices. SimpliVity documentation feedback We welcome your feedback, suggestions, and comments to help us continue to improve the quality of our documentation. Send your comments to and include as much detail as possible to help us identify the affected area. Preface 4

5 Reading path SimpliVity provides a comprehensive documentation set for this release of the OmniStack Software. The following reading path lists the documentation for this release. Learn about this OmniStack release. Document Description SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Release Notes Explains new features, fixed issues, and known issues in this release Rev A Read this document first. Note that the information in these Release Notes may supersede information in other OmniStack publications in this documentation set. Install and configure hardware. Document Description SimpliVity OmniCube CN-Series Hardware Installation Quick Start Explains installation and integration steps for OmniCube CN-Series hardware Rev A SimpliVity OmniCube CN-1400, CN-2400, CN-3400, and CN-5400 Series Hardware Installation and Maintenance Guide Explains installation, cabling, and configuration procedures for OmniCube CN-1400, CN-2400, CN-3400, and CN-5400 Series hardware Rev A SimpliVity OmniCube CN-2000, CN-2200, Explains installation, cabling, and configuration CN-3000, and CN-5000 Hardware Installation and procedures for OmniCube CN-2000, CN-2200, Maintenance Guide CN-3000, and CN-5000 hardware Rev A Reading path 5

6 Document Description SimpliVity OmniStack Integrated Solution with Cisco UCS C240 M4SX Hardware Installation Quick Start Explains installation and integration steps for OmniStack Integrated Solution with Cisco UCS C240 M4SX hardware Rev A SimpliVity OmniStack Integrated Solution with Explains installation, cabling, and configuration Cisco UCS C240 M4SX Hardware Installation and procedures for OmniStack Integrated Solution with Maintenance Guide Cisco UCS C240 M4SX hardware Rev A SimpliVity OmniStack Solution with Lenovo x3650 Explains installation and integration steps for M5 Hardware Installation Quick Start OmniStack Solution with Lenovo x3650 M5 hardware Rev A SimpliVity OmniStack Solution with Lenovo x3650 Explains installation, cabling, and configuration M5 Hardware Installation and Maintenance Guide procedures for OmniStack Solution with Lenovo x3650 M5 hardware Rev A Deploy the OmniStack Software on your platform. Document Description SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Quick Start Explains deployment steps for all platforms Rev A SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide Explains how to use Deployment Manager to deploy all platforms Rev A SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Upgrade Guide Explains upgrade procedures for OmniStack Software Rev A Administer your Federations. Document Description SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Administration Guide Explains procedures for administering OmniStack hosts using OmniStack for vsphere Web Client Rev A Reading path 6

7 Document Description SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Help Explains procedures for administering OmniStack hosts using OmniStack for vsphere Web Client Rev A The SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client includes this Help system. SimpliVity OmniStack REST API Getting Started Guide Explains how to use the OmniStack REST API to administer OmniStack hosts Rev A See api.simplivity.com for this guide. SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Command Reference Guide Explains OmniStack command line interface (CLI) commands Rev A Monitor your Federations. Document Description SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Events Reference Guide Explains SimpliVity-specific alarms and events Rev A Reading path 7

8 Contents Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack About OmniStack About OmniStack architecture About network security...14 About integration with vcenter Server About SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client SimpliVity Extension requirements...16 Install SimpliVity Extension on Windows Server...17 Install SimpliVity Extension on vcenter Server Appliance...19 Uninstall SimpliVity Extension from Windows Server Uninstall SimpliVity Extension from vcenter Server Appliance Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation About SimpliVity Federations About Federation security About Federations in vcenter Server Linked Mode About ensuring consistent time in a Federation About monitoring Federation events and alarms...27 About changing the network configuration for a Federation...27 Change the IP address on a standard ESXi host About configuring NIC teaming...28 Configure NIC teaming on vswitch standard port groups Configure NIC teaming on VDS distributed port groups...29 Restart the Arbiter About viewing object details in a Federation...30 View the SimpliVity Home tab...31 View the Topology tab...32 View the Throughput tab...32 View the Backup Consumption tab...33 View the About tab...33 View clusters in a Federation View hosts in a Federation View datastores in a Federation View virtual machines in a Federation...35 View VM templates in a Federation...35 View backup policies in a Federation Chapter 3: Datacenters...37 About SimpliVity datacenters Create a datacenter Contents 8

9 Chapter 4: Clusters...39 About clusters...39 Create a cluster...40 Add a host to a cluster Remove a host from a cluster View cluster summary details Monitor cluster capacity Cluster capacity chart key...44 View cluster performance...45 About viewing objects related to a cluster...47 View OmniStack hosts related to a cluster...47 View datastores related to a cluster View virtual machines related to a cluster About Intelligent Workload Optimizer...48 Intelligent Workload Optimizer requirements Intelligent Workload Optimizer best practices...50 About managing SimpliVity groups and rules...50 About vsphere HA configuration for a cluster with OmniStack hosts...53 Calculating the memory reservation for the Admission Control Policy Enabling vsphere HA on a cluster About cluster time zones About stretched clusters...57 About removing a cluster Chapter 5: Hosts About SimpliVity OmniStack hosts...60 About adding a host...60 View a host in a cluster View host summary details View host hardware details...62 Remove a host from a Federation...63 About removing a host from a Federation...63 Remove host from a Federation Reset the boot drive...65 Start up an OmniStack host Shut down one or more Virtual Controllers Chapter 6: Datastores...68 About SimpliVity datastores Create a datastore View datastore summary details Share SimpliVity datastores with standard ESXi hosts About sharing SimpliVity datastores with standard ESXi hosts Determine the IP address to use for standard ESXi host storage traffic Configure advanced settings on a standard ESXi host Contents 9

10 Edit the host file for standard ESXi hosts...72 Enable or disable SimpliVity datastore sharing About standard ESXi host access to datastores in a Federation Resize a datastore Delete a datastore...74 Chapter 7: Virtual machines About SimpliVity virtual machines...76 Create virtual machines View virtual machine performance...77 View virtual machine summary details View virtual machines associated with a host or datastore...78 Clone virtual machines...79 Move virtual machines Save credentials for VSS...80 Format the NTFS Volumes on Virtual Machines Register virtual machines after an OmniStack power failure...82 Delete virtual machines...82 Chapter 8: Virtual machine templates About SimpliVity virtual machine templates...84 Create virtual machine templates Clone virtual machine templates...85 Move virtual machine templates Delete virtual machine templates...86 Chapter 9: Backups About planning backups...87 About application-consistent backups...88 Guidelines for using Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) About database backup types About database recovery types About database backup strategies...92 About disaster protected backups Options for protecting and recovering data Back up manually...94 About manual backups...94 Back up with a policy...96 About SimpliVity backup policies Search for backups About searching for backups Manage backups About managing backups Restore SimpliVity backups About restoring backups Contents 10

11 Create a new virtual machine or VM template from a backup Replace a virtual machine or VM template with a backup Restore files from a backup About restoring VSS backups Restore an entire virtual machine Revert shadow volumes using diskshadow utility Revert shadow copy volumes using PowerShell script Restore individual files Restore backups when the Hypervisor Management Service is down Restoring a backup to a new virtual machine when the Hypervisor Management System is down Restore a virtual machine from a backup when Hypervisor Management System is down Chapter 10: Troubleshooting Cluster issues Host issues Virtual machine issues Backup issues Miscellaneous issues Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms SimpliVity Alarms About pre-configured alarms About SimpliVity-specific alarms About types of alarms and OmniStack hosts Chapter 12: VAAI-NAS overview About SimpliVity VAAI-NAS plug-in Prerequisites for installing the SimpliVity VAAI-NAS plug-in Install the SimpliVity VAAI-NAS plug-in on an OmniStackhost Install the SimpliVity VAAI-NAS plug-in on a standard ESXi host Configure the SimpliVity VAAI-NAS plug-in Verify VAAI-NAS plug-in installation using vsphere Web Client options Verify VAAI-NAS plug-in installation using CLI commands Uninstall the SimpliVity VAAI NAS plug-in VIB Chapter 13: Deploy vcenter Server on an OmniStack host About deploying vcenter Server on an OmniStack host Install vcenter Server on a virtual machine Configure and deploy the OmniStack host for use with vcenter Server Upload the vcenter Server to the OmniStack host About Linked Mode deployment Linked Mode deployment and VMware software Chapter 14: Support About Phone Home Contents 11

12 About OmniWatch Create a Support Capture file Appendix A: SimpliVity terminology Contents 12

13 Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack This section contains the following topics: About OmniStack About SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client About OmniStack OmniStack, from SimpliVity The Data Virtualization Company, is a converged server and storage solution optimized for the VMware vsphere environment. It provides: High availability Scalability Efficient disaster protection Global unified management Each OmniStack host comes with this installed software: OmniStack SimpliVity vstorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)-network-attached storage (NAS) plug-in To enable key functionality such as high availability, dynamic resource sharing, and efficient data movement, SimpliVity recommends that you deploy at least two OmniStack hosts within a cluster. As capacity and performance needs increase, you can add more OmniStack hosts without disruption to users. This network of hosts is called a SimpliVity Federation. Once you deploy OmniStack hosts, you can manage them and their related virtual objects using SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client. If your cluster includes standard ESXi hosts that use SimpliVity datastores, you can manually install the SimpliVity VAAI-NAS plug-in on those hosts. The plug-in improves performance and frees up memory when cloning virtual machines. You also need to install the plug-in after upgrading the OmniStack software in a deployed OmniStack host if you want to continue using the VAAI-NAS plug-in. See this guide for details on installing the VAAI-NAS plug-in. For more information on deploying hosts, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. For more information on OmniStack servers, see the Hardware Installation and Maintenance Guide for your platform. About OmniStack architecture Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 13

14 You create a SimpliVity Federation by connecting two or more OmniStack hosts to a vcenter Server cluster. Each host provides computing, storage and other resources to the Federation. A Federation uses these networks: Storage network For data storage traffic. Federation network For Virtual Controller communication within a Federation cluster. Management network For management access to the Federation. Other networks might also be available based on VMware best practices. After configuring the Federation, you create datastores in it. These datastores are shared by and accessible to all OmniStack hosts in the cluster. You then create virtual machines to read and write data and store the backups in a Federation datastore. The virtual machine data is deduplicated and compressed throughout its life-cycle. To achieve VM high availability, all VM data is written simultaneously to two OmniStack hosts within the local cluster. If an OmniStack host running virtual machines fails, you can restart its virtual machines from a functioning OmniStack host. You can also use the vsphere HA cluster feature to have virtual machine failover occur automatically. Alternatively, if an OmniStack host containing virtual machine data, but not the actual virtual machine fails, the virtual machine continues to operate normally without requiring a restart. Intelligent virtual machine placement optimizes the location of highly available virtual machine data within the Data Virtualization Platform to ensure optimal performance for virtual machine workloads across all OmniStack hosts. Intelligent virtual machine placement occurs automatically when creating or cloning a virtual machine, or when restoring a backup on OmniStack hosts. If you need more capacity or performance, you can add more OmniStack hosts with no disruption to users. You can add them to the same cluster to increase the capacity of the cluster, or you can add the OmniStack hosts to a cluster in a different datacenter. Using clusters in two different datacenters (for example, one local and one remote) enables you to back up virtual machines to a remote location for disaster tolerance. When you create a datastore in a cluster, your access to the datastore is limited to the hosts (OmniStack hosts and standard ESXi hosts) in that cluster. For example, a host can use a SimpliVity datastore within the same cluster. But, the host cannot use a SimpliVity datastore from a different cluster. About network security OmniStack hosts use standard TCP/IP network technologies to communicate with each other. Best practices for secure network communications (such as the use of firewalls and VPNs) should be followed to secure the communication between OmniStack hosts as well as between the OmniStack hosts and vcenter. Communications between the OmniStack hosts should be restricted to the specific IP addresses and TCP/UDP ports used by the systems. When the network connecting the systems is considered untrusted/public (such as a a WAN connection over the Internet to a remote office), the network can be secured by using point to point IPsec VPNs between the sites. Most organizations already have point to point VPNs in place to secure site to site traffic and can utilize this same protection to also secure the OmniStack traffic over the network. Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 14

15 About integration with vcenter Server You use the following SimpliVity software to manage OmniStack hosts in a Federation: SimpliVity Arbiter running on vcenter Server or another Windows computer outside the Federation, but able to communicate with the hosts. The Arbiter agent facilitates communication between the OmniStack hosts in the Federation and enables failover and recovery operations. SimpliVity vsphere Extension installed on the computer with vcenter Server. You deploy OmniStack hosts using Deployment Manager as described in the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. You manage the OmniStack hosts using SimpliVity options in SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client or vsphere options. In most cases, you manage the objects associated with a Federation, including clusters, OmniStack hosts, datastores, and virtual machines the same way that you manage similar objects in vsphere Web Client. However, you can use the SimpliVity command line interface (CLI) and the OmniStack REST API to manage a Federation instead of vsphere Web Client. Any changes you make using the CLI or REST API appear in vsphere Web Client. Some tasks include procedures to use the CLI in this Help. For more information about the CLI commands, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Command Reference Guide. To access the interactive REST API documentation, obtain the IP address of a Virtual Controller in the Federation that you want to manage. Then, in a web browser, navigate to [Virtual Controller IP address]/api/index.html. Caution: Each OmniStack host has a dedicated virtual machine called the Virtual Controller that runs the OmniStack software. Do not use any vsphere options on an Virtual Controller unless a SimpliVity procedure includes them or SimpliVity Customer Support instructs you to use them. For example, although you can move virtual machines to resource pools in a Federation, you should not move a Virtual Controller to one. It needs to remain dedicated to its original OmniStack host. The OmniStack host Virtual Controller now uses TLS-class certificate validation to verify that vcenter has a valid and current certificate before establishing a connection to the vcenter services. If the Virtual Controller is unable to validate the certificate, it denies a connection and generates a log message. About SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client The SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client application (SimpliVity Extension) allows you to manage your SimpliVity virtual inventory objects across the entire SimpliVity Federation using SimpliVity features. For example, you can access links to manage SimpliVity clusters, hosts, backup policies, datastores, and virtual machines. The main features in SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client allow you to: Move virtual machines Restore virtual machines Perform manual backups of virtual machines or virtual machine templates Copy backups Restore files Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 15

16 Once you install SimpliVity Extension, deploy your OmniStack hosts, and set up your virtual environment, you can access the SimpliVity objects through the navigation pane just as you do with standard vsphere inventory objects. To access the SimpliVity objects, click SimpliVity Federation from the Home tab. This opens the objects in the inventory panel and opens the following tabs: SimpliVity Home: Provides links to main tasks and Help Topology: Displays a diagram of the connected clusters in the Federation Throughput: Shows the backup throughput speed between clusters Backup Consumption: Shows how much space the daily and projected backups consume About: Provides details on the software and Support details You can identify SimpliVity tabs and options by looking for the SimpliVity label or logo ( ). To access SimpliVity menu options, click the Actions gear ( ) icon from the top of the tab or panel and select All SimpliVity Actions. Or, right-click an inventory object listed in the appropriate table to access the Actions menu. Some tabs also include SimpliVity subtabs. You may need to scroll to the right of the tab to locate the SimpliVity subtabs or click the down arrows and scroll to the bottom of the drop-down menu to find the SimpliVity option. The SimpliVity procedures describe how to access objects from the Inventory Lists view. If you want to access the Inventory Trees view, you can. However, vsphere Web Client cannot expand the list of virtual machines in the tree view panel if it contains more than 100 for vcenter Server 6.0 or 6.5. For more information, see the VMware Knowledge Base article. SimpliVity Extension requirements Supported software SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client supports the following: Item Description Software VMware vsphere 6.0 or 6.5. VMware vcenter Server 6.0 or 6.5 (with vsphere Web Client) VMware vcenter Server Appliance 6.0 or 6.5 (with vsphere Web Client) SimpliVity Extension supports Enhanced Link Mode with vcenter Server 6.0 or 6.5 or with vcenter Server Appliance 6.0 or 6.5. For details on setting up Enhanced Link Mode, see the VMware vsphere documentation. Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 16

17 Item Description Operating System Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit) VMware vcenter Server Appliance (a preconfigured Linux virtual machine, 64-bit, optimized to run vcenter Server) Browsers Windows: Internet Explorer 8, 9 (64-bit only), and 10/M Mozilla Firefox (latest available) Google Chrome (latest available) Macintosh or Linux: Mozilla Firefox (latest available) Google Chrome (latest available) Configuration requirements For details on hardware requirements and how to use Enhanced Linked Mode with multiple vcenter Servers or vcenter Server Appliance systems, see the VMware vsphere documentation. Hypervisor upgrade requirements If you upgrade the ESXi version of your previously deployed OmniStack hosts after you installed SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client on vsphere, the SimpliVity options may no longer function as expected. For example, some options may not appear in the All SimpliVity Actions drop-down list. To ensure all the options function as expected, log out of vsphere Client and log back in after upgrading the hypervisor on a host. For more details on upgrading your hypervisor, see the VMware documentation. Install SimpliVity Extension on Windows Server Before you begin If you have an earlier version of SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client installed, remove it before you install a later version. overview To manage SimpliVity virtual objects in vsphere Web Client, you must install SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client on the vcenter Server that you plan to access. This application plugs into the existing vsphere Web Client interface. You must also enter administrator credentials during the installation process to successfully register it. If you plan to use Enhanced Linked Mode, you must install the same version of SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client on each server running vcenter Server to access the SimpliVity options. Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 17

18 1. Log on to the Windows computer that has VMware vsphere with vcenter Server using administrator privileges. 2. Download the executable (SimpliVity-Extension-for-vSphere-Client-windows-x.x.x.exe) and doubleclick it to open the Setup wizard as shown. 3. Click Next to open the License Agreement 4. Select I accept the agreement and click Next to open the Installation Directory screen as shown. 5. Specify the directory you want to use for the extension. The default location is C:\Program Files\SimpliVity\SimpliVityExtensionForVSphereClient. Then click Next to open the VMware vcenter Credentials screen. Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 18

19 6. Enter your vsphere administrator credentials in the User Name and Password fields. In the field, enter the address of an administrator responsible for SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client so this person can receive alerts. Then click Next. 7. Click Next when ready to install. 8. Wait while the Setup wizard installs the application. The progression bar shows the progress. When done, click Next to finish the installation. 9. Review the steps to log out of vsphere Web Client (if logged in) to ensure that you can see the SimpliVity Extension options the next time you access vsphere Web Client. If you do not need to log out of vsphere Web Client, select Launch VMware vsphere Web Client. Then click Finish. Install SimpliVity Extension on vcenter Server Appliance Before you begin If you have an earlier version of SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client installed, remove it before you install a later version. overview Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 19

20 To manage SimpliVity virtual objects in vsphere Web Client, you must install SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client on the vcenter Server that you plan to access. This application plugs into the existing vsphere Web Client interface. You must also enter administrator credentials during the installation process to successfully register it. If you plan to use Enhanced Linked Mode, you must install the same version of SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client on each server running vcenter Server to access the SimpliVity options. 1. Open a command line to log on to vcenter Server Appliance using root privileges. For example, run PuTTY to specify the host IP address you need to access. Then log in as root and enter the root password when prompted. 2. If you do not see the bash prompt (#), enter one of the following (depending on your version of vsphere): For vsphere 6.0: shell.set --enable True Then enter: shell For vsphere 6.5: shell 3. Place the SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client application file (for example, SimpliVity-Extension-for-vSphere-Client-linux-x64-x.x.x.run) on the Linux virtual machine. You may want to use shell commands scp, curl, or wget to access the file to run the installer. To access a secure file transfer protocol (sftp), enter: chsh -s /bin/bash root 4. Set the executable bit by entering: chmod +x <SimpliVity-Extension-for-vSphere-Client-linux-x.x.x.run> 5. Enter the following to run the installer:./<simplivity-extension-for-vsphere-client.x.x.x.run> The installer opens with a prompt to read the License Agreement as shown: Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 20

21 6. Press Enter to scroll through the License Agreement and read it. 7. When prompted to accept the agreement, enter y to continue the installation and open the prompt to specify the directory for the SimpliVity Extension. For example: 8. Press to Enter to accept the default path for the installer or specifiy another path and then press Enter. This opens the VMware vcenter Credentials prompt. 9. Enter your vsphere administrator credentials in the User Name and Password fields. In the field, enter the address of an administrator responsible for SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client so this person can receive alerts. 10. Enter y when prompted to continue the installation 11. Wait while the Setup program installs the application. When done, you see a "Finish" message as shown: 12. Review the steps to log out of vsphere Web Client (if logged in) to ensure that you can see the SimpliVity Extension options the next time you access vsphere Web Client. If you do not need to log out of vsphere Web Client, log in with the administrator credentials you used during the installtion process. Uninstall SimpliVity Extension from Windows Server Before you begin Before uninstalling the SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client, make sure you have administrator privileges to access the system. Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 21

22 1. From the Start menu, click Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a program. 2. From the list of installed programs, double-click SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Client. 3. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the extension. 4. Wait while the installer removes the software. When finished, click Next. 5. Click OK to close the information window. Remove the package file from Windows Server overview Uninstalling the SimpliVity Extension does not remove the package files from the computer with vsphere Web Client. The server does not use these files, but you may want to delete them to remove unnecessary files from your computer. 1. Stop VMware vsphere Web Client service (for vsphere 6.0) or VMware Service Lifecycle Manager service (for vsphere 6.5). 2. Browse to the following folder: C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\cfg\vsphere-client\vc-packages\ vsphere-client-serenity\com.simplivityextension.vsphereclient-x.x.x 3. Delete the com.simplivityextension.vsphereclient-x.x.x folder. 4. Restart VMware vsphere Web Client service (for vsphere 6.0) or VMware Service Lifecycle Manager service (for vsphere 6.5). Uninstall SimpliVity Extension from vcenter Server Appliance overview You can remove the SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client from vcenter Server Appliance at any time. 1. Open a command prompt to log in to vcenter Server Appliance using root privileges. For example, run PuTTY to specify the host IP address you need to access. Then log in as root and enter the root password when prompted. 2. If you do not see the bash prompt (#), enter one of the following (depending on your version of vsphere): For vsphere 6.0: shell.set --enable True Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 22

23 Then enter: shell For vsphere 6.5: shell 3. Enter the following command with your appropriate path information. For example: cd /opt/simplivity/simplivityextensionforvsphereclient-x.x.x/./uninstall 4. Press Enter when prompted. You see a message to confirm the uninstall process: 5. Enter y to continue. 6. Wait while the Setup program removes the application. You see an "uninstall status complete" message when done. Remove the package file from vcenter Appliance overview Uninstalling the SimpliVity Extension does not remove the package files from vcenter Server Appliance. The server does not use these files, but you may want to delete them to remove unnecessary files from your computer. 1. Stop vsphere-client services. For details, see this VMware Knowledge Base article: Stopping, starting, or restarting VMware vcenter Server Appliance services. 2. Browse to /etc/vmware/vsphere-client/vc-packages/vsphere-client-serenity/com.simplivity*. 3. Delete the com.simplivityextension.vsphereclient-x.x.x folder. 4. Restart vsphere-client services. Chapter 1: Introduction to OmniStack 23

24 Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation This section contains the following topics: About SimpliVity Federations About Federation security About Federations in vcenter Server Linked Mode About ensuring consistent time in a Federation About monitoring Federation events and alarms About changing the network configuration for a Federation About configuring NIC teaming Restart the Arbiter About viewing object details in a Federation About SimpliVity Federations A SimpliVity Federation uses at least two OmniStack hosts. OmniStack hosts include OmniStack technology that uses deduplication and compression to efficiently store, manage, and share data. Each OmniStack host also has a dedicated virtual machine called the OmniStack Virtual Controller (Virtual Controller). The Virtual Controller runs the OmniStack software. The objects associated with the OmniStack hosts appear in vsphere Web Client under a SimpliVity Federation. The objects include clusters, hosts, backup policies, datastores, and virtual machines. You can manage all the objects through menu options and tabs. For example, you see these tabs when you click SimpliVity Federation: SimpliVity Home: Includes options to create objects, search backups, and a link to open the SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client Help. Topology: Shows cluster connections in a Federation. Throughput: Provides the current backup throughput speeds between clusters. Backup Consumption: Shows how much space the backups consume on a daily basis and the projected rate of consumption for the steady-state of the Federation based on the current policy settings. About: Shows the product name, version, Support contact information, and trademark information. Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 24

25 When you view the topology of your Federation, you see a visual of how you set up the network configuration of your vcenter Servers. For example, you can use one of the following configurations in a SimpliVity Federation: Full mesh Remote Office/Remote Branch (ROBO) A full mesh topology allows every OmniStack host in every cluster in the network to communicate with each other. This configuration can help if the OmniStack hosts in one cluster fail because you can direct traffic to other OmniStack hosts in other clusters in the network. A ROBO topology allows one main cluster (for example, a cluster with OmniStack hosts at the company headquarters) to communicate with other clusters (for example, datacenters with other OmniStack hosts) through a separate wide area network (WAN) or a local area network (LAN) connection. All the clusters can communicate with the main, centralized cluster, but they cannot communicate with each other through the separate networks. This configuration is also known as "hub and spoke" because the OmniStack hosts in the main cluster ("hub") can communicate with all the OmniStack hosts in the extended clusters ("spokes"). But, the clusters on the spokes can only communicate with the cluster at the hub. If you use a ROBO configuration, a cluster on a spoke can only connect to the main cluster on the hub. Therefore, when you perform certain actions, such as moving a virtual machine, restoring a virtual machine or file from a backup, or copying a backup to another cluster, you can only access the virtual objects (clusters, datastores, virtual machines, backup policies, backups) available in the source cluster or in the cluster of the main hub. For more information on using OmniStack hosts in a ROBO environment, see the SimpliVity Unified Protected Remote Office Solution. About Federation security Federation security is based on the access control system for the vcenter Server where the Federation resides. See the vsphere Datacenter Administration Guide for detailed information about vcenter Server security. For example, you set up users, groups, and roles (sets of privileges) to control access to resources in vcenter Server. These access controls apply to the Federation objects, in addition to all other objects in vcenter Server. A user is an individual authorized to log in to a host or vcenter Server. The combination of user name and password authenticates a user for access and the assigned privileges authorize the user to perform specific tasks. The privileges and roles assigned on a standard ESXi host are separate from the privileges and roles assigned in vcenter Server. You cannot use the SimpliVity Extension to manage the Federation if you connect to a standard ESXi host. Authorized users for vcenter Server can be users included in the Windows domain list referenced by vcenter Server or local Windows users on vcenter Server. The permissions defined for these users apply whenever a user connects to vcenter Server. Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 25

26 To manually create, remove, or modify vcenter Server users, use the tools that manage your Windows domain or Active Directory environment. Changes that you make to the Windows domain or Active Directory are reflected in vcenter Server. See the vcenter Server and Host Management document for more information. The Federation requires specific VMware accounts and privileges as described in the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. About Federations in vcenter Server Linked Mode SimpliVity Federations support VMware vcenter Servers in Linked Mode and enable access to SimpliVity and VMware virtual objects across all OmniStack hosts. A Linked Mode environment can contain only a single Federation. This feature enables you to: Create a remote virtual machine backup in a different vcenter Server. Restore a virtual machine from a backup stored on an OmniStack host in a different vcenter Server instead of the vcenter Server of the virtual machine host. Move virtual machines between clusters contained by an OmniStack host in a different vcenter Server, but in the same SimpliVity Federation. With vcenter Server in Linked Mode, VMware allows you to assign identical names to clusters that are contained by different vcenters. Because SimpliVity operations often require that you specify a cluster as a destination, there is a risk that you might specify the wrong cluster when performing operations such as creating manual backups, creating backup policy rules, or moving virtual machines. Caution: To avoid selecting a cluster in the wrong datacenter when you perform certain tasks, do not use identical names for datacenters when you use vcenter Linked Mode. Make the datacenter names unique and meaningful. To manage your Federation in Linked Mode, you need appropriate single sign-on accounts with appropriate credentials for all vcenter Servers in linked mode. For example, you need to install vcenter Single Sign-On (SSO) using multi-site mode. This mode requires Active Directory (AD) for server authentication. In this environment, you must include the AD domain in the login credentials. For example, if the AD server name is MyLab51 and the administrative account is Fedadmin, indicate the following when: Logging into vcenter, you specify the AD domain as part of the user name: MyLab51\Fedadminpassword Fedadmin@MyLab51 Using OVF Tool, specify credentials using this format: vi://mylab51%5cfedadmin:password Logging into the Virtual Controller using SSH to access the svtcli account, specify the domain: MyLab51\Fedadminpassword Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 26

27 Using the svt-session-start CLI command, use only: To deploy OmniStack hosts in a vcenter Server in Linked Mode, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. About ensuring consistent time in a Federation To ensure consistent time in a Federation, configure NTP on each OmniStack host and make sure it matches the NTP configuration the vcenter Server uses. If the NTP configuration used by vcenter Server changes, you must update the NTP configuration for each OmniStack host. It is important to maintain consistent time in a Federation so that communication between OmniStack hosts is properly synchronized. If NTP time drifts by several seconds, OmniStack storage capacity might be misreported. If you decide to use an internal NTP server, go to the VMware knowledge base site and search for "Synchronizing ESXi/ESX time with a Microsoft Domain Controller ( )." In particular, you must set the following: In /etc/ntp.conf, set maxdist 30 In /etc/likewise/lsassd.conf make sure that sync-system-time = no About monitoring Federation events and alarms Events and alarms help you monitor normal operations and also identify problems before they disrupt service. Federation events and alarms are logged in vcenter Server and appear in the Recent Tasks and Alarms portlet windows as they do for vsphere events and alarms. You can also locate warning messages in the Alarms portlet or browse to the virtual object, click it, and click the Summary tab. Warnings appear with yellow exclamation point icons. You can also click Acknowledge or Reset to Green to clear some warnings. You can use vsphere alarms to monitor SimpliVity Federation and OmniStack events and alarms, but it does not support Management Information Base (MIB). To automatically send messages to specific administrators about events and issues that might help them diagnose and correct issues. Ensure that support@simplivity.com is not in the list of recipients you add to vcenter alarms. About changing the network configuration for a Federation Changing IP addresses is most likely to arise during a cluster reorganization or upgrade. This will be a carefully scheduled operation, probably involving Federation down time. Typical reasons for changing OmniStack host IP addresses are: Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 27

28 Network changes that affect the entire cluster, including subnet netmask changes. Moving one OmniStack host from a Federation to a different network. Moving the VMware cluster to a different network. Contact SimpliVity Customer Support if you need to change IP addresses in OmniStack IP address pools and subnet masks used by all OmniStack hosts in a Federation, including: vcenter Server IP address and subnet netmask. OmniStack Host IP address and subnet netmask. OmniStack Federation, Storage, or Management IP addresses and subnet netmasks. You might also need to change the IP address of standard ESXi hosts that access your Federation. Change the IP address on a standard ESXi host If you change the IP address on a standard ESXi host, you must update your Federation to recognize the new IP address. Before you begin Ensure you know the shared datastore name(s) and the standard ESXi host name. overview This operation causes shared datastores to be unavailable for a short time. 1. If you do not need to add a new VMkernel NIC, skip to step 2 on page 28. Complete this step if you need to add a new VMkernel NIC with the new IP address: a) Add the VMkernel NIC with the new IP address for the standard ESXi host. b) Create NFS exports for the new VMkernel NIC using the svt-datastore-share command for each shared SimpliVity datastore. c) Delete the original VMkernel NIC with the old IP address (optional). d) Run svt-datastore-share for each shared SimpliVity datastore to confirm that the old IP address is no longer valid and remove stale NFS exports for that NIC. 2. If you do not need to add a new VMkernel NIC, do these substeps to modify the vswitch: a) Change the IP address for the NIC. b) Run svt-datastore-share for each shared SimpliVity datastore to ensure that the system recognizes the new IP address and removes the old IP address. This removes stale NFS exports and creates new NFS exports that use the new IP. 3. Verify that the standard ESXi host can access the share by checking that the host mounted the datastore. About configuring NIC teaming Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 28

29 After you deploy OmniStack hosts to a cluster, you can configure NIC teaming to do the following: Increase network capacity for the virtual switch hosting the team Provide passive failover if the hardware fails or it loses power To use NIC teaming, you must uplink two or more adapters to a virtual switch. For more details on configuring NIC teaming for a standard vswitch or a vsphere Distributed Switch (VDS), see the following topics. You can also find details on the VMware Knowledge Base site ( and do a search on "NIC teaming in ESXi and ESX." Configure NIC teaming on vswitch standard port groups 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Hosts to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the host and click Settings. 4. Click the Networking subtab. 5. Click the name of the switch from the Switch column. Then click the pencil icon to open the Edit Settings dialog box. 6. Click Teaming and failover. 7. Select the following settings (if not selected already): 8. Option Description Load balancing Route based on the originating virtual port Network failover detection Link status only Notify switches Yes Failback Yes Verify that the vmnics are listed under Active adapters. For direct-connect 10GbE configurations only, one 10GbE vmnic must be an Active adapter, while the other 10GbE vmnic is a Standby adapter. 9. Click OK. 10. Click the pencil icon to check the settings for all the port groups in the vswitch. 11. Click OK. 12. Repeat this procedure for the second vswitch. Configure NIC teaming on VDS distributed port groups Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 29

30 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click Networking. 2. In the inventory panel, expand the dvswitch to display the distributed port groups. 3. Right-click a distributed port group and select Edit Settings. 4. Click Teaming and failover. 5. Select the following settings (if not selected already): Option Description Load balancing Route based on the originating virtual port Network failover detection Link status only Notify switches Yes Failback Yes 6. Click OK. 7. Repeat these steps for each distributed port group. Restart the Arbiter overview The Arbiter resolves synchronization and other issues that could occur between OmniStack hosts within a cluster. The Arbiter must be installed and running on the computer with vcenter Server or another computer that the OmniStack hosts can access. The Arbiter runs as a Windows service. If the Arbiter stops running, an alarm appears in the Federation and you must restart the Arbiter in Windows services. Never restart the Arbiter for any reason other than resolving problems. Your Federation cannot communicate properly when the Arbiter is not running. 1. Click the Windows Start button and run services.msc. 2. Select the Extended tab in the Services window and look for the Arbiter. 3. Double-click the Arbiter entry to open its properties dialog. 4. Click Start and then OK to close the properties dialog. 5. Close the Services window. About viewing object details in a Federation You can access SimpliVity tabs to view details on the topology, throughput, backup consumption, and SimpliVity objects in a Federation. When you access the Objects tab for an inventory object, you see a Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 30

31 list of details in a table. You can customize the table data a number of different ways. For example, you can add or remove columns and filter, find, or copy items. To list information in ascending or descending order, click the far right corner of a column header and toggle the list up or down by clicking the arrow icon. To hide, show, size, and lock columns or hide and show the toolbar, right-click a column header and select the appropriate option. To filter items, click the Filter down arrow, click Select Columns, select or clear an item, and click OK. To find an item, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Find binoculars ( ) icon in the left corner. Enter the appropriate information and click Enter. To refine your search, click the down arrow and choose Highlight All to search all the columns or choose Select Columns and select the columns you want to search. To copy an item, select one or more items from the table. (To select more than one item, hold down the Ctrl key as you click rows. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the down arrow of the Copy ( ) icon on the right. Select Copy to Clipboard Selected Items Only. If you want to select all the items, you do not need to select rows. Just select Copy All. To move columns, click a column header and hold down the cursor to select the whole column. Then drag it to the location you want in the chart. To move portlets (small panels of information in a tab), click the header of a portlet and hold down the cursor to select the whole portlet. Then drag it to the location you want in the tab. You cannot filter or find items in the Size or Creation Time columns. View the SimpliVity Home tab overview The SimpliVity Home tab provides an overview on the SimpliVity software and virtual objects. It also contains a link to open the SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client Help. To open the SimpliVity Home tab: From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. You can also access SimpliVity objects through the inventory panel by clicking Home > vcenter Inventory Lists and expanding the SimpliVity section. At the bottom of the Home tab, you see links to perform key tasks. For example, you see links to create a backup policy and datastore. You can also click SimpliVity Extension Help (or any question mark in a SimpliVity dialog box) for details on the procedures. To get started creating a SimpliVity federation: Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 31

32 1. Create a cluster for the SimpliVity OmniStack hosts. 2. Deploy OmniStack hosts to one or more clusters in a datacenter. If any earlier versions of OmniStack hosts reside in a datacenter, you must remove them and redeploy them to the appropriate cluster. (OmniStack hosts must reside in one or more clusters per datacenter.) 3. Create backup policies. 4. Create a datastore. 5. Create virtual machines. View the Topology tab When you open the Topology tab, you can see all the clusters in your Federation, including those in a Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) configuration. You can then click on cluster names to navigate to that cluster. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Topology to open the Topology tab. This displays all clusters in the Federation. Each cluster lists the following details: Cluster name. Number of virtual machines and virtual machine templates. Number of hosts. 3. Do any of the following, depending on how you need to navigate the screen: To navigate to a cluster, click the name of the cluster. To zoom in, slide the zoom bar to the right. To zoom out, slide it to the left. To find a cluster, select it from the Find a cluster drop-down list. View the Throughput tab overview The Throughput tab shows the current backup throughput speeds between clusters. The view only shows backup throughput entries when the bytes sent from the source cluster to the destination cluster exceed zero (0). You can adjust the refresh rate. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click the Throughput tab. It opens with a table that lists backups between clusters in the Federation that have a throughput greater than zero. The table maintains throughput for completed backups until you navigate to a different view. Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 32

33 If the throughput does not change or drops to zero during a refresh cycle, the "Last Updated" and "Backup Throughput" columns remain unchanged. These columns only update when there are new throughput values greater than zero to report. The table includes the following information: Source Cluster: The cluster originating the backup. Destination Cluster: The destination cluster. Backup Throughput: The speed of the current process. Last Updated: The time of the backup throughput value collection. 3. Disable or enable automatic updates by clicking Auto Refresh On. You can also adjust the refresh time interval by selecting a time interval of 5, 15, 30, or 60 seconds in the Refresh Interval dropdown list. Auto-Refresh turns off automatically after 30 minutes. Double-click a cluster name in the table to navigate to the Getting Started tab (or the last tab you accessed). View the Backup Consumption tab A SimpliVity Federation can create and store a maximum number of backups. overview The Backup Consumption tab shows the percentage of daily backups created and stored and how much room you have left to add more. The predicted steady-state shows the estimated percentage of backups the current policies can create and store in the Federation and how much room you have left before reaching the limit. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click the Backup Consumption tab. If you notice that the daily or predicted steady-state consumption values come close to the capacity threshold (yellow or red zone), adjust your backup policies. For example, edit a policy for a datastore, virtual machine, or virtual machine template and change the frequency and retention time to reduce the number of backups. View the About tab overview You can access information on the SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client version and access links to Support through the About tab. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. This opens to the Manage tab. Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 33

34 2. Click the About tab to see details on the product name, version, build, SimpliVity Support address and Web site, and trademark and patent information. View clusters in a Federation overview You can view all the clusters in a Federation and view details about them from one tab. For example, you can see the cluster name, amount of free space, used space, total capacity, time zone, OmniStack version (appears Mixed during an upgrade or if hosts use different versions), datacenter, vcenter Server IP address, Arbiter IP address, Arbiter status (Connected or Not Connected), and upgrade status. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. You can also access SimpliVity objects through the inventory panel by clicking vcenter Home and clicking on an item listed under the SimpliVity section at the bottom of the panel. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. To access SimpliVity cluster options, right-click a cluster and select All SimpliVity Actions. View hosts in a Federation overview You can access all the OmniStack hosts in a Federation and review details about them from one tab. For example, you can see the host name (IP address), Virtual Controller Name, Virtual Controller state (alive, suspected, faulty, managed, or removed), cluster name, datacenter name, OmniStack version (appears Mixed during an upgrade), and Management, Storage, and Federation network IP addresses, Virtual Controller shutdown status, and upgrade status. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. You can also access SimpliVity objects through the inventory panel by clicking vcenter Home and clicking on an item listed under the SimpliVity section at the bottom of the panel. 2. Click Hosts to open the Objects tab. To access OmniStack host options, right-click a host and select All SimpliVity Actions. View datastores in a Federation overview Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 34

35 You can view all the datastores in a Federation and review details about them from one tab. For example, you can see the datastore name, creation time, assigned backup policy, size, vcenter Server IP address, cluster, and datacenter. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. You can also access SimpliVity objects through the inventory panel by clicking vcenter Home and clicking on an item listed under the SimpliVity section at the bottom of the panel. 2. Click Datastores to open the Objects tab. To access SimpliVity datastore options, right-click a datastore and select All SimpliVity Actions. View virtual machines in a Federation overview You can view all the virtual machines in a Federation and review details about them from one tab. For example, you can see the virtual machine name, amount of memory available, amount of memory used, assigned policy, storage HA status, datastore name, vcenter Server IP address, cluster name, datacenter name, and application-aware status. Application-aware status refers to the ability to use the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) method to create application-consistent backups. For example, this column may show: unknown, unknown fault, capable, valid or invalid credentials because you must use a supported operating system, application, and save the credentials to the virtual machine using an application-consistent policy to use VSS. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. To access SimpliVity virtual machine options, rightclick a virtual machine and select All SimpliVity Actions. View VM templates in a Federation overview You can view all the virtual machine templates in a Federation and review details about them from one tab. For example, you can see the virtual machine template name, amount of memory available, amount of memory used, assigned policy, storage HA status, datastore name, vcenter Server IP address, cluster name, and datacenter name. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click VM Templates to open the Objects tab. To access SimpliVity virtual machine template options, right-click a virtual machine template and select All SimpliVity Actions. Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 35

36 View backup policies in a Federation overview SimpliVity lists Backup Policies as an object in the vsphere Web Client Inventory panel. (You do not see a Backup Policies object listed under the vcenter Home Inventory Trees or Inventory Lists.) You can view all the backup policies in a Federation and review details about them from one tab. For example, you can see the backup policy name and number of rules in a policy. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. You can also access SimpliVity objects through the inventory panel by clicking vcenter Home and clicking on an item listed under the SimpliVity section at the bottom of the panel. 2. Click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab. To access SimpliVity backup policy options, rightclick a backup policy and select All SimpliVity Actions. Chapter 2: SimpliVity Federation 36

37 Chapter 3: Datacenters This section contains the following topics: About SimpliVity datacenters Create a datacenter About SimpliVity datacenters A datacenter functions as a container for inventory objects (such as OmniStack hosts and virtual machines). SimpliVity Extension does not include a Datacenter object. But, you can still create a datacenter using vsphere options and use it to contain clusters with OmniStack hosts. Once you add OmniStack hosts to a cluster, you can see the cluster listed under the SimpliVity Federation section in the inventory panel (and through the vsphere Cluster option). You can access SimpliVity options through the SimpliVity objects (Backup Policies, Clusters, Hosts, Virtual Machines, VM Templates, and Datastores). A Federation can contain multiple datacenters with multiple clusters. OmniStack hosts must reside in one or more clusters per datacenter. They cannot reside outside a cluster. Object have limited interaction with each other across different clusters in different datacenters. For example, you can use: vsphere vmotion to move powered-on virtual machines to OmniStack hosts in the same cluster to OmniStack hosts across long distances (such as a cluster in a datacenter in another continent) with minimal impact to performance. vsphere Storage vmotion to change the datastore for a virtual machine with it powered on. If you change the datastore, the virtual machine uses the policy assigned to that datastore. SimpliVity Move Virtual Machine to change the datastore for a virtual machine with it powered off. You can use long-distance vmotion to move powered-on virtual machines from a cluster of OmniStack hosts within one datacenter to a cluster of OmniStack hosts in another datacenter. You can choose a datacenter located within the same vcenter Server or another one (if using Linked Mode). Once you move the virtual machines, they use the datastore and policy used by the new cluster. You must meet the appropriate requirements to use long-distance vmotion (for example, an Enterprise Plus license for the vcenter Server). For more details, see the VMware documentation. If you need to move OmniStack hosts from a datacenter to a cluster in the datacenter, you must redeploy it as described in the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. Chapter 3: Datacenters 37

38 Create a datacenter overview You use vsphere Web Client options to create a datacenter. You must also have sufficient permissions to create a datacenter object. For more information on vsphere Web Client features and privileges, see the VMware vsphere documentation. Before you deploy your OmniStack hosts, create a cluster in a datacenter. (OmniStack hosts must reside in one or more clusters per datacenter.) You can then create and manage virtual machines, backup policies, backups, and datastores in the datacenter. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click vcenter Inventory Lists or Global Inventory Lists (depending on your version of vsphere). 2. Under Resources, click vcenter Servers. 3. Right-click the vcenter server where you want the datacenter and click New Datacenter. 4. In the Datacenter name field, enter a unique name for the datacenter. Do not use symbols or special characters in the name (for example, *, \, /, :, ",?). Unique names makes it easier to select the correct datacenter when performing specific tasks, such as selecting datacenters for backup policies or when managing multiple vcenter Servers in Linked Mode. You cannot see all the datacenters in a SimpliVity Federation unless they have unique names. For example, a SimpliVity Federation may show the number "4" for four datacenters. But, when you click Datacenters, you only see three datacenters listed because two datacenters have the same name. To rename a datacenter, right-click the datacenter with the duplicate name and click Rename from the vsphere list. You see all the datacenters in a SimpliVity Federation once they all have unique names. 5. Click OK. The Datacenter object reflects the new number of datacenters in the inventory. The datacenter appears under the vsphere section of the inventory panel. It is not considered a SimpliVity object. You must create a cluster and deploy your OmniStack hosts to it to access SimpliVity options. For more information on deploying hosts to a cluster, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. Chapter 3: Datacenters 38

39 Chapter 4: Clusters This section contains the following topics: About clusters Create a cluster Add a host to a cluster Remove a host from a cluster View cluster summary details Monitor cluster capacity View cluster performance About viewing objects related to a cluster About Intelligent Workload Optimizer About vsphere HA configuration for a cluster with OmniStack hosts About cluster time zones About stretched clusters About removing a cluster About clusters Clusters allow you to share resources between hosts and associated virtual machines. OmniStack hosts must reside in one or more clusters per datacenter. The cluster can contain one to eight OmniStack hosts and unlimited standard ESXi hosts that may or may not share a SimpliVity datastore. However, you need at least two OmniStack hosts to create a SimpliVity Federation, share data, and ensure High Availability (HA) for continuous operation. OmniStack hosts cannot reside outside the cluster or in other clusters in the same datacenter--even if the datacenter has multiple clusters. Do not move OmniStack hosts to other clusters within the same datacenter or SimpliVity options do not function as expected. For example, the virtual machines lose HA compliance and the datastore is no longer accessible to the virtual machines that used to reside on the host you moved. From the cluster, you can access SimpliVity options and all the vsphere cluster options. For example, if you use vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) with OmniStack hosts in a cluster, you should also use SimpliVity Intelligent Workload Optimizer (IWO). Chapter 4: Clusters 39

40 IWO works with vsphere DRS to move virtual machines closer to their data source (host with the source virtual machine). This improves load balancing efficiency, reduces the number of hops to read and write data, and lowers latency. Once a cluster includes OmniStack hosts, it functions differently than a standard vcenter cluster. A standard cluster functions as a distributed computing system that has processing power and memory. A cluster with OmniStack hosts requires a shared storage system. This means that all the hosts in the cluster need to share the same SimpliVity datastore to duplicate the data in the datastore across the attached hosts. For example, a cluster that uses Intelligent Workload Optimizer can include three to eight OmniStack hosts and unlimited standard ESXi hosts. But, the standard ESXi hosts must share a SimpliVity datastore with an OmniStack host in the cluster for IWO to include them in the load balancing process. Best practices: Leave Intelligent Workload Optimizer enabled whenever you use vsphere DRS. Leave vsphere Distributed Power Management (DPM) off. DPM is an optional feature of vsphere DRS that optimizes power. However, if you use it, it could shut down the Virtual Controllers to save power. (Each OmniStack host has a Virtual Controller. It is a dedicated virtual machine that runs the OmniStack software.) An OmniStack host cannot function without the Virtual Controller. You can use vsphere HA to protect against host, virtual machine, or application failures. You can also use VMware Enhanced vmotion Compatibility (EMS) or Swapfile Location. Create a cluster After you create a datacenter through vsphere options, you can create a cluster. Clusters can share resources between hosts and associated virtual machines. Before you begin You must also have privileges to create and modify a cluster (Host.Inventory.Create Cluster and Host.Inventory.Modify Cluster). For more information on vsphere privileges, see the VMware vsphere documentation. The datacenter must contain all the OmniStack hosts in one or more clusters (up to eight per cluster). OmniStack hosts cannot reside outside the cluster for SimpliVity options to function as expected. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click vcenter Inventory Lists or Global Inventory Lists (depending on your version of vsphere). 2. Under Resources, click Datacenters. If you need to create a datacenter, right-click the vcenter server where you want the datacenter and click New Datacenter. Then enter a unique name. 3. Right-click the datacenter where you want the cluster and click New Cluster. Chapter 4: Clusters 40

41 4. Enter a meaningful and unique name for the cluster to easily identify it. Then follow the prompts to select the vsphere cluster features you want to use. For example, you can turn on DRS and vsphere High Availability (HA). But, if you do not have any OmniStack hosts deployed to the cluster yet, do not turn on vsphere HA. You can turn on vsphere HA once you have more than one OmniStack host deployed (or moved) to the cluster. If you use vsphere DRS, leave the default of Fully Automated at the Automation Level field. This allows DRS to automatically place virtual machines on hosts when they power on and automatically migrates virtual machines to different hosts to optimize resources. But, if you review the virtual machine Automation Level status through the DRS VM Overrides option, the Virtual Controller appears disabled. This is deliberate because the Virtual Controller cannot move off an OmniStack host. 5. Deploy OmniStack hosts to the cluster using SimpliVity Deployment Manager or move them from a datacenter to the cluster. For more information on deploying hosts, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. Add a host to a cluster If you need to add OmniStack hosts to a cluster, you must deploy them directly to the cluster. If you need to move 3.6.x hosts from a cluster to another cluster in the same or a different datacenter, you must remove them from the Federation and redeploy them. For details on deploying hosts, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. (To move previously deployed hosts with 3.5.x versions of OmniStack or earlier, you can use vsphere Move options to move an OmniStack host or a standard ESXi host to a cluster within a datacenter before you start using OmniStack 3.6.x. For more information on using the vsphere Move To option, see the VMware documentation.) Remove a host from a cluster You can remove an OmniStack host from a cluster at any time. Before you begin You must also have privileges to remove a host from a cluster (Host.Inventory.Remove Host from Cluster, Host.Inventory.Move Host, or Host.Inventory.Maintain). For more information on vsphere features and privileges, see the VMware documentation. If the cluster uses vsphere DRS with Intelligent Workload Optimizer and the host removal process leaves the cluster with less than three OmniStack hosts, Intelligent Workload Optimizer removes any existing SimpliVity (svt) groups and rules from DRS and stops creating new SimpliVity groups and rules. If you want to move an OmniStack host from a cluster to cluster in another datacenter, you must remove it and redeploy it as described in the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click Host and Clusters. 2. Right click the host you want to remove from the cluster and click Maintenance Mode > Enter Maintenance Mode. Chapter 4: Clusters 41

42 If the cluster uses vsphere DRS, it may reject the Maintenance Mode request if it violates a mandatory (must run on hosts in group) DRS rule. For more information on DRS, see the VMware documentation. 3. Click OK to confirm Maintenance mode. 4. Do one of the following: Power off all running virtual machines, except the Virtual Controller. The Virtual Controller runs the OmniStack software and appears with "VC" in the name. To shut down the virtual machines, right-click a virtual machine and select Power > Power Off. Migrate all running virtual machines. To migrate a virtual machine, you need to right-click the virtual machine and select Migrate. Then follow the prompts to change the host or datastore. Drag and drop the virtual machines to another host in the cluster if you use vsphere vmotion. The host you move them to must share at least one datastore. If a standard ESXi host shares the datastore of an OmniStack host you want to remove, change the /etc/host file so it references another OmniStack host in the cluster. 5. Right-click the host you want to remove and click All SimpliVity Actions > Shut Down Virtual Controller. Click Yes to confirm the shutdown process. Once you start the shutdown, two additional options become active: Cancel Virtual Controller Shutdown and Force Virtual Controller Shutdown. Use these options if the virtual machines are taking too long to reach storage HA compliance and you want to stop the shut down or force it to continue. 6. Right-click the host you want to remove and click Remove from Inventory. 7. Click Yes when prompted to confirm the removal. View cluster summary details overview You can view the summary information of a cluster and access the SimpliVity portlet details. For example, the SimpliVity portlet shows the total cluster capacity, capacity used, unused (free), deduplication and compression ratios, space saved from deduplication and compression, number of virtual machines in the cluster, and status of Arbiter (connected or not connected). 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. This lists all clusters in the Federation. 3. Double-click the name of the cluster that you want to view. 4. Click the Summary tab. Chapter 4: Clusters 42

43 You see a summary of the total number of processors and vmotion migrations. The right-side of the tab lists the free and used space and capacity for CPU, memory, and storage. You also see the vsphere Cluster Resources, Cluster Consumers, Tags, and Related Objects portlets above the SimpliVity portlet. (If you use vsphere 6.5, you also see Custom Attributes and Update Manager Compliance portlets.) For details the vsphere portlets, see the VMWare vsphere documentation. To see a graphical representation of the logical and physical capacity of the cluster, click Monitor Capacity. This opens the Monitor tab where you can click the SimpliVity Capacity subtab to view the capacity image. Monitor cluster capacity overview You can monitor the storage space information for a cluster to determine the space use, capacity, and storage efficiency. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. This lists all clusters in the Federation. 3. Right-click the cluster you want to view and click All SimpliVity Actions > View Capacity. You can also double-click the name of the cluster you want to view. Click the Monitor tab (if necessary). Click the SimpliVity Capacity subtab. You see the tab open with an image that shows the logical capacity on left and the physical capacity on the right. The bottom of the image shows the total cluster physical capacity. For example, you may see an image similar to the one shown. Chapter 4: Clusters 43

44 Cluster capacity chart key Use this reference as a guide to the SimpliVity Capacity chart. Capacity panel label Description Logical Capacity Perceived storage space of a cluster before deduplication and compression occurs. Physical Capacity Actual bits of data stored on physical drives (HDD or SSD) in a SimpliVity cluster. Chapter 4: Clusters 44

45 Capacity panel label Description Logical Capacity ring and color legend Shows the following capacity information inside the ring: Virtual Machine Data: Amount of logical space consumed by virtual machines appears in dark green ( ). Local Backups: Amount of logical space consumed by the virtual machine backup hosted on the datastores in this cluster appears in pink ( ). Remote Backups: Amount of logical space consumed by virtual machine backups hosted for remote clusters appears in orange ( ). The legend provides both the size (MB, GB or TB) and the size expressed as a percentage of the total amount of logical data stored. Data Stored Logical data stored appears in blue ( ). It shows the total value of logical space consumed by virtual machines, virtual machine clones, and by local and remote backups. Deduplication and Compression Data deduplication and compression ratios. Used Capacity Used storage space appears in turquoise ( ) inside the ring. It represents the data deduplication and compression ratios. SimpliVity Efficiency Storage efficiency ratio, calculated from the deduplication and compression ratios. Savings Physical space saved as a result of storage efficiency. Total Cluster Physical Capacity Shows the following in MB, GB, or TB: Used total physical capacity shown in turquoise ( ). Free (available) physical space shown in green ( ). Total physical capacity for the cluster. View cluster performance Chapter 4: Clusters 45

46 overview You can monitor the performance for a cluster to determine the current or past throughput, input/output operations per second (IOPS), and latency read and write values. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters. 3. Right-click the cluster you want to view and click All SimpliVity Actions > View Performance. You can also double-click the name of the cluster you want to view. Click the Monitor tab (if necessary). Click the SimpliVity Performance subtab. You see the SimpliVity Performance tab open with an image that shows three charts with the read and write values for the throughput, IOPS, and latency. The Throughput chart shows the total amount of disk I/O usage for clusters, hosts, and virtual machines in the datacenter in megabytes per second (MB/s). The IOPS chart shows the number of input (read)/output (write) operations per second. And the Latency chart shows the average time it takes to reply to a storage request in milliseconds (ms). For example, you see a screen similar to this: 4. Leave the Auto Refresh On button set to automatically refresh the performance information at the set time interval. Click to toggle to Auto Refresh Off to stop refreshing the tab information. 5. At Refresh Interval, select the time you want to refresh the performance information in intervals of 5, 15, 30 or 60 seconds. You can also manually refresh the data by clicking the Refresh spinner icon ( icon. Chapter 4: Clusters 46

47 6. Select the date range of performance you want to review from the preset links at the top right of the panel. For example, you can leave the default of 1 day (1d). Or, click 1 minute (1m), 1 hour (1h), 1 week (1w), 1 month (1m), or 1 year (1y). If no data was collected for the selected time range, the charts appear empty. 7. Slide the scroll bar above the charts to the left or right to see a precise moment of performance on the charts in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years. 8. Move your cursor over any of the three graphs to bring up a tracking point (thin vertical line across all three charts) at the time you want to review. To see the current Read and Write data again, slide the time range bar all the way to the right. 9. To see the virtual machines with the most reads and writes in a cluster at a given time, click Open Top Contributors. A panel slides open to the left of the charts ready to populate the list with details on the virtual machines. 10. Click a data point on the Throughput, IOPS, or Latency chart to see the chart populate with a list of the top virtual machine contributors at the time and date set for the chart you clicked. The Top Contributor list defaults to showing the top 10 virtual machines. It includes details on the name and read, write, and total read and write values for each virtual machine. 11. From the Top Contributors field, you can toggle the value up or down to see 1-50 top contributors. To change the order from descending to ascending, click the column label. And, you can click the tab on the right to expand or contract the chart width. 12. To automatically navigate to the virtual machine tabs to get more details or perform actions on a virtual machine, click a virtual machine name in the list. 13. Click Close Top Contributors when done. About viewing objects related to a cluster If you need to review information on the number of hosts, datastores, or virtual machines in a cluster, you can click the Clusters ( ) icon from the SimpliVity Federation section of the inventory list to locate the cluster and find the related objects. For example, you can select a view that shows you details on the OmniStack hosts. View OmniStack hosts related to a cluster overview You can view all the SimpliVity OmniStack hosts in a cluster. For example, you can see details on the host name, Virtual Controller name and state (alive or down), OmniStack version, network IP addresses, and upgrade status (success, in progress, or failed). You may want to review this information before you make changes to a host or remove it from a cluster. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. It lists all the clusters in the Federation. Chapter 4: Clusters 47

48 3. Double-click the row with the cluster you need to access. The application defaults to the Getting Started tab or the last tab you accessed. 4. Click the Related Objects tab. 5. Scroll to the right of the subtabs and click SimpliVity Hosts. (Or, click the down arrows and select SimpliVity Hosts from the drop-down list.) You see a list of hosts in the cluster you selected. View datastores related to a cluster overview You can view all the SimpliVity datastores in a cluster. For example, you can see details on the datastore name, creation time, assigned backup policy, size, and vcenter Server IP address. You may want to review this information before you make changes to the datastore or remove it from a cluster. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. It lists all the clusters in the Federation. 3. Double-click the row with the cluster you need to access. 4. Click the Related Objects tab. 5. Scroll to the right of the subtabs and click SimpliVity Datastores. Or, click the down arrows and select SimpliVity Datastores from the drop-down menu. You see a list of datastores in the cluster. View virtual machines related to a cluster overview You can view a virtual machine inventory to see a list of all virtual machines in a cluster. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the cluster you want to view. 4. Click Related Objects. 5. Scroll to the right to click the SimpliVity Virtual Machines subtab. About Intelligent Workload Optimizer SimpliVity Intelligent Workload Optimizer (IWO) works with the vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) cluster feature. Chapter 4: Clusters 48

49 It makes load balancing of your CPU and memory resources more efficient and lowers latency by doing the following: Collects the storage usage information of the virtual machines on each host in the cluster that uses a SimpliVity datastore. Automatically creates cluster virtual machine groups, cluster host groups, and affinity rules in DRS that bring the virtual machines closer to the host with the source virtual machine. When you first deploy an OmniStack host, the IWO setting defaults to enabled. But, if you deploy an OmniStack host to a cluster that contains other OmniStack hosts, IWO defaults to the setting used by the cluster. For example, if you changed the setting from enabled to disabled, the OmniStack host joining the cluster takes on the disabled IWO setting. A cluster must contain three OmniStack hosts to start creating cluster groups and affinity rules in DRS. A one or two-host cluster automatically accesses data efficiently and does not need affinity rules. You can include up to eight OmniStack hosts in cluster. You can also include standard ESXi hosts as long as they share a SimpliVity datastore with another OmniStack host in the cluster. DRS makes a best effort to optimize according to IWO settings, but in some high load environments DRS will ignore IWO. This can result in VMs being run on a node other than their primary or secondary storage nodes. If you plan to use vsphere DRS for a cluster of OmniStack hosts, leave SimpliVity Intelligent Workload Optimizer set to the default of enabled to ensure that virtual machines can access data efficiently. You can check the IWO setting through the Intelligent Workload Optimizer commands as described in the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Command Reference Guide. You must have an Enterprise or Enterprise Plus license to use vsphere DRS. For more details on licenses, see the VMware documentation. Intelligent Workload Optimizer requirements Intelligent Workload Optimizer (IWO) works with vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) to ensure efficient load balancing for the hosts. IWO requires the following conditions to start creating cluster groups and affinity rules in DRS: SimpliVity Intelligent Workload Optimizer feature is enabled (default). Datacenter contains all the OmniStack hosts in one or more clusters. No OmniStack hosts reside outside a cluster. (Standard ESXi hosts can reside in the same cluster, outside the cluster, or in other clusters.) vsphere DRS is turned on for the cluster with the OmniStack hosts. Cluster must contain a minimum of three and a maximum of eight OmniStack hosts. If the cluster contains hosts with different CPU generations, enable Enhanced vmotion Compatibility (EVC) to ensure CPU compatibility for vmotion. For more details, see the VMware Knowledge Base and search for the "Enhanced vmotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support" article. Clusters with the OmniStack hosts can also contain standard ESXi hosts, but they must use a SimpliVity datastore by sharing it with another OmniStack host in the cluster. As long as the cluster Chapter 4: Clusters 49

50 has a minimum of three OmniStack hosts, IWO includes the standard ESXi hosts that use a SimpliVity datastore in the DRS groups and rules. When moving a host to a different cluster you must fully remove the host from the federation, then redeploy it to the new cluster. If you simply move the host to a new cluster, IWO is disabled in both the old and the new cluster. Intelligent Workload Optimizer best practices Before you move all your OmniStack hosts into a cluster to use Intelligent Workload Optimizer (IWO) with vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), review the following best practices: Do not enable vsphere Distributed Power Management (DPM) to ensure that it cannot shut down the OmniStack Virtual Controller on a host after load balancing occurs. Separate workloads (for example, server-based and VDI workloads) into separate datacenters. Cluster can contain up to 800 virtual machines; each host can run a workload of up to 100 virtual machines (approximately) Minimum memory requirements depend on your vcenter Server configuration. (See the VMware vsphere documentation for details on hardware requirements.) About managing SimpliVity groups and rules If a cluster uses Intelligent Workload Optimizer (IWO) with vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), IWO automatically creates SimpliVity virtual machine groups, host groups, and affinity rules in DRS. The number of groups and rules it creates depends on the number of hosts and virtual machines in the cluster. For example, a cluster with three OmniStack hosts creates up to three SimpliVity host groups, corresponding virtual machine groups, and rules for those groups. System events trigger when IWO creates SimpliVity groups and rules. For example, if you create a virtual machine, IWO adds it to the appropriate virtual machine group to improve the load balancing efficiency. And, if you delete a virtual machine, IWO updates the groups or rules by removing it. You access the SimpliVity groups and rules created by IWO as you would any group or rule in DRS (by right-clicking the vsphere cluster icon and clicking the Settings option). All the groups and rules created by IWO start with "svt." A SimpliVity VM group name starts with svtv and a SimpliVity host group starts with svth. Both are followed by the Global Unique Identifier (GUID) of the OmniStack hosts or the standard ESXi host that shares a SimpliVity datastore. For example, the SimpliVity virtual machine and host groups look like this in DRS: Chapter 4: Clusters 50

51 SimpliVity rules start with svtr. The groups use the same GUID of the hosts listed in the rule as shown in this example of SimpliVity rules in DRS: IWO creates Virtual Machines to Hosts affinity rules that use a "Should run on hosts in group" specification. These rules influence DRS so it can migrate virtual machines to the defined hosts. For example, if you need to review or edit a rule, you can see the field to set the specification between the VM Group and Host Group fields as shown: Chapter 4: Clusters 51

52 If the cluster exceeds a vsphere-defined CPU or memory limit, DRS ignores the "Should run on hosts in group" rules list and uses a different load balancing calculation to prevent an overload. If using a different load balancing calculation does not prevent the overload, DRS can start to shut down virtual machines. To avoid an overload, do not exceed the maximum of 800 virtual machines that run a workload of 100 per OmniStack host in a cluster. If you remove an OmniStack host or a standard ESXi host that shares a SimpliVity datastore from a cluster with four to eight OmniStack hosts, vsphere DRS automatically removes the groups and rules that included that host. If that occurs, OmniStack recognizes that a copy of the virtual machines no longer exists and makes a second copy of the data on an available host in the cluster. IWO then updates the groups and rules in DRS. You can override or remove SimpliVity rules in DRS. But, you cannot rename SimpliVity groups and rules. If you edit the name of a SimpliVity group or rule, IWO recreates the group or rule with the original name. For details on overriding rules, see "Override SimpliVity rules in DRS." To remove SimpliVity groups and rules from DRS, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Command Reference Guide. Override SimpliVity rules in DRS Intelligent Workload Optimizer (IWO) creates SimpliVity groups and rules in DRS that use a "should run on" specification for the rules it creates. overview Chapter 4: Clusters 52

53 If you want the standard vsphere DRS rules to override the SimpliVity rules, you can do the following in DRS: Add the new rule you want to use for a cluster Set the specification for the rule to Must run on hosts in group. For example, you may want the virtual machines to move to different hosts than what the SimpliVity rules dictate. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click vcenter Inventory Lists or Global Inventory Lists (depending on your version of vsphere). 2. Under Resources, click Clusters to open the Objects tab. Click the cluster you need to modify and click Actions > Settings to open the Manage tab to the Settings subtab. (For vsphere 6.5, rightclick the cluster and click Settings to open the Configure tab.) 3. To check if DRS is turned on, click vsphere DRS under Services. 4. If you need to create new virtual machine or host groups, click VM/Host Groups under Configuration, click Add under VM/Host Groups, and enter the appropriate field information to add a new virtual machine or host group (or both). Then click OK. 5. Under Configuration, click VM/Host Rules. 6. Click Add under VM/Host Rules to create another DRS rule. 7. In the Name field, enter a name for the rule. Then select Enable Rule. 8. Select Virtual Machines to Hosts from the Type drop-down menu. 9. Select the virtual machine group from the VM Group drop-down list. 10. Select Must run on hosts in group from the drop-down list of the next field. If the "must" rules overload an OmniStack host, DRS could power down virtual machines including the OmniStack Virtual Controller. Do not create groups that consist of more than 100 virtual machines per host to prevent an overload. 11. Select the host group from the Host Group drop-down list. 12. Click OK. About vsphere HA configuration for a cluster with OmniStack hosts You use vsphere HA (High Availability) to ensure that CPU and memory resources on all systems in a cluster are reserved to support an HA environment. If one or more OmniStack hosts in a cluster becomes unavailable, their virtual machines fail over to the available systems in the cluster. You need to reserve a percentage of CPU and memory resources on all systems to support virtual machine failover during an HA event. In the following example, an OmniStack host, with a red X, in a cluster of four systems has become unavailable. Virtual machines have failed over from the unavailable system to the available systems Chapter 4: Clusters 53

54 in the cluster. vsphere guarantees that there is enough memory reserved on each of the available systems to serve the failed over virtual machines through the Admission Control Policy. All systems in the cluster have the same memory configuration. Calculating the memory reservation for the Admission Control Policy overview When enabling vsphere HA (High Availability) on a cluster in vsphere Web Client, you configure the Admission Control Policy, which specifies the percentage of CPU and memory to reserve on all systems in the cluster to support HA. You can accept the default CPU percentage, but you need to calculate the memory percentage to include specific SimpliVity requirements. 1. Use the vsphere Web Client to collect the following memory information for the cluster where you want to enable vsphere HA: Total memory capacity of the cluster: In the example screen, you click Hosts and Clusters in the vsphere Web Client inventory list, expand the datacenter, click the cluster icon, then select the Summary tab. The total memory capacity appears under Memory. In the example, the total memory capacity for the Netherlands_Cluster is GB ( MB). Chapter 4: Clusters 54

55 Memory reservation for the Virtual Controller. In the example screen, Netherlands_Cluster contains four OmniStack hosts. To access this information in vsphere Web Client, click Hosts and Clusters, expand the datacenter, click the cluster, and then click the Related Objects tab. To see the Virtual Controllers, click the Virtual Machines subtab. The reserved memory for the Virtual Controller in the example screen is 58,628 MB. 2. Use the following formula to calculate the percentage of cluster memory to reserve for the Admission Control Policy: For example: a. Multiply the memory reserved for the Virtual Controller by the total number of systems in the cluster to get the total cluster memory reserved for all Virtual Controllers. For example, 58,628 MB x 4 = MB. b. Subtract the total cluster memory reserved for all Virtual Controllers from the total memory capacity for the cluster to get the total available memory for the cluster. For example, MB MB = MB. Since the Virtual Controller does not fail over during an HA event, you need to subtract the memory reserved for all Virtual Controllers to determine the total available memory for the cluster. c. Divide the total available memory for the cluster by the total memory capacity for the cluster. For example, MB / MB = 0.8 Chapter 4: Clusters 55

56 d. Divide 1 by the number of systems in the cluster. 1 is the maximum number of OmniStack hosts that the cluster can tolerate becoming unavailable. For example, 1 / 4 =.25 e. Multiply the value from C by the value from D. For example, 0.8 x.25 =.2 f. Multiply the value from E by 100 to convert to a percentage. For example,.2 x 100 = 20% The Admission Control Policy requires whole percentage values only. For the value in F, always round up, never round down, to the next whole number. For example, 18.8% would round up to 19%. You now have the percentage of reserved memory to specify for the Admission Control Policy when enabling vsphere HA on a cluster. Enabling vsphere HA on a cluster Before you begin You have determined the memory reservation percentage to specify for the Admission Control Policy.. overview You enable vsphere HA (High Availability) on a cluster to allow virtual machine (VM) failover during an HA event, such as a system in the cluster becoming unavailable. 1. In the inventory list in vsphere Web Client, right-click the cluster icon that contains the OmniStack hosts. 2. Click Settings to open the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 3. Under Services, click vsphere HA or vsphere Availablity (depending on your version of vsphere). If on, you see vsphere HA is Turned ON. 4. If you need to turn it on, click Edit to open the Edit Cluster Settings dialog box. Then select Turn on vsphere HA and click OK. 5. Click Admission Control to open the failover capacity options. 6. Select Define failover capacity by reserving a percentage of cluster resources or Define failover capacity by Cluster resource percentage (depending on your version of vsphere) in the Admission Control panel. 7. Enter the memory percentage value that you calculated. (For details on calculating memory, see "Calculating the Memory Reservation for the Admission Control Policy" topic.) Do not change the default value for CPU. 8. Click OK to save the values and return to the Manage (or Configure) tab. If the cluster has not previously used vsphere HA, the vsphere HA agent installs automatically on each OmniStack host. Chapter 4: Clusters 56

57 About cluster time zones The default Cluster Time Zone value is set to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the basis for the 24hour time zone system. You can set the time zone of a cluster to your local time through the SimpliVity svt-timezone-set CLI command. A Federation applies the cluster time to a backup policy. If you do not set the cluster time zone to your local time, you can expect the following behavior for policy backups: Daily backups occur at midnight UTC. Start and stop times specified in backup policy rules take effect at UTC. For example, consider a cluster located in San Francisco (UTC/GMT -8 hours for Pacific Standard Time [PST] or -7 hours during Pacific Daylight Time [PDT]) in the summer). Assume that this cluster contains a policy with a rule that backs up a virtual machine hourly between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. If you do not set the time zone to (America/Los_Angeles), the policy takes hourly backups from 9 a.m. (0900) to 6 p.m. (1800) UTC, which is equivalent to 1 a.m. to 10 a.m. PST (or 2 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT). When you set the cluster time zone, it applies the same time setting across all OmniStack hosts included in that Federation cluster. For more information on the svt-timezone-set command, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Command Reference Guide. About stretched clusters Stretched Clusters allow the creation of availability zones for more protection than standard SimpliVity High Availability. Currently, all stretched cluster and availability zone management is done through the svt-zone command line commands in the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Command Reference Guide. There is no support in the SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client. About Stretched Clusters Prior to the Stretched Cluster functionality, a datacenter with two or more OmniStack hosts would use the SimpliVity Storage High Availability solution. This means that when a Virtual Controller goes down (for upgrade, service, or error), another one in the same datacenter takes over data services and allows all hosts to continue servicing virtual machines. Stretched clusters provide even more protection, where service continues even with multiple OmniStack host failures across a rack, lab, or even an entire site. This is provided through the use of Availability Zones, which are physically co-located collections of hosts that you define as being likely to fail together due to external forces. By configuring an equal number of hosts within two availability zones, and leveraging a third site arbiter, you will not lose access to data following the loss of a zone. Virtual machines running in a failed zone are restarted in the other zone, so applications will go down temporarily. Chapter 4: Clusters 57

58 About Availability Zones In the following figure, you can see stretched cluster Cluster1 within the datacenter Datacenter1. There are two availability zones, Zone1 and Zone2, configured within stretched cluster Cluster1. As depicted, Host1 and Host2 are assigned to availability zone Zone1, and Host3 and Host4 are assigned to availability zone Zone2. Virtual machines (vm1, vm2, vm3, and vm4) are deployed as depicted. In this configuration, the service continues to be provided even if one of the availability zones fails, because the OmniStack hosts in the remaining availability zone will provide failover. This is demonstrated in the figure below. As you can see, OmniStack hosts in Zone1 fail due to a disastrous event. As a result, VMware HA will restart vm1 and vm2 on the surviving OmniStack hosts of availability zone Zone2. Configuration Modes There are two configuration modes that are used with availability zones: Chapter 4: Clusters 58

59 Planned Certain commands are used to change one host-zone assignment at a time; however, the realization of these changes needs to happen at the same time. Planned zone assignments have no impact on the running system. Effective When planned configuration for zoning is realized, it becomes effective and does affect the running system. About removing a cluster If there are no healthy SimpliVity OmniStack hosts in a cluster, you can remove all the unhealthy hosts from that cluster at once by using the svt-federation-removecli command with the datacenter and cluster options as described in the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Command Reference Guide. If you remove all the hosts in the cluster, you can then remove the empty cluster using the vsphere Delete option. Otherwise, you can remove individual OmniStack hosts from a Federation as described in Remove host from a Federation on page 63 or by using the svt-federation-remove CLI command without the cluster option. The process of removing a cluster does not check for active virtual machines and datastores. Any data associated with active virtual machines is permanently deleted. If your policies include rules that specify the cluster you want to delete, you may see an "unknown failure domain" message in your log files. To avoid this, edit the appropriate rules in your policies and change the cluster from the one you want to delete to another cluster or delete the rule (if no longer needed). When you remove an OmniStack host from a Federation, you cannot join it back into the same Federation unless: The OmniStack host is in a healthy state and at an appropriate compatibility level to rejoin the Federation. In this case, you can delete the Virtual Controller from disk, make sure that the network settings are appropriate, and deploy the OmniStack host. The host was restored to factory defaults and re-deployed as a new OmniStack host in the Federation. For information on deploying an OmniStack host, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. For information on restoring an OmniStack host to the factory defaults, contact SimpliVity Customer Support. Chapter 4: Clusters 59

60 Chapter 5: Hosts This section contains the following topics: About SimpliVity OmniStack hosts About adding a host View a host in a cluster View host summary details View host hardware details Remove a host from a Federation Start up an OmniStack host Shut down one or more Virtual Controllers About SimpliVity OmniStack hosts An OmniStack host has a dedicated virtual machine called the OmniStack Virtual Controller. The Virtual Controller runs the OmniStack software. A SimpliVity Federation uses at least two OmniStack hosts to ensure high availability. In vsphere Web Client, OmniStack hosts appear as ESXi hosts. But, unlike traditional ESXi hosts, each host has OmniStack technology that uses deduplication and compression to efficiently store, manage, and share data. The objects associated with the OmniStack hosts appear in vsphere Web Client under a SimpliVity Federation. The objects include clusters, hosts, backup policies, datastores, and virtual machines. Adding an OmniStack host to a SimpliVity Federation increases the resources available to virtual machines and does not disrupt virtual machine availability or service levels. You can also remove an OmniStack host from the Federation at any time. But, this can decrease the resources available to virtual machines. For example, if you remove an OmniStack host from a Federation and leave only one OmniStack host, you reduce the data protection and resource redundancy especially when you cannot create remote backups. If an OmniStack host fails or you need to temporarily swap it out for hardware upgrades, you can replace it with another OmniStack host. For details on deploying hosts, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. About adding a host Chapter 5: Hosts 60

61 You add an OmniStack host to a Federation by deploying it through Deployment Manager as described in the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. You can add or replace OmniStack hosts without causing: Downtime for local or remote sites Disruption to local or remote backups Modifications to backup policies for local or remote sites Changes to IP addresses in remote sites If any of the OmniStack hosts in the Federation are not available (offline) when you add a new host, the creation of mount points and NFS exports gets delayed until the resources hosted by the unavailable host fail over. In a Federation with many SimpliVity datastores, this delay may last for many seconds or even minutes. When adding (or deploying) OmniStack hosts to a cluster: A system must be new (newly received from SimpliVity or its partners) or restored (restored to factory default settings) before you can add it to a Federation. Configured systems (such as those with backup policies or configured mail servers) cannot join the Federation. To avoid resource conflicts, choose the least busy work time to add an OmniStack host. Verify that the network is functioning correctly by selecting the cluster from the list of datacenters under datacenter Objects tab, clicking the Related Objects tab, and clicking the SimpliVity Hosts subtab to review the state of the objects. View a host in a cluster overview You can view OmniStack hosts in a cluster and access tabs to view SimpliVity details on it. For example, you can see the host name (IP address), Virtual Controller name and state (alive, suspected, faulty, managed, or removed), cluster where it resides, datacenter name, OmniStack version (appears Mixed during an upgrade), Management, Storage and Federation network IP addresses, Federation IP address, Virtual Controller shutdown status, and upgrade status. You can also access tabs to view summary information, monitor the data capacity, manage alarms and search backups, and access SimpliVity virtual machines. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the row with the cluster that contains the hosts you want to view. 4. Click the Related Objects or More Objects tab (depending on your version of vsphere). Then scroll to the right to click the SimpliVity Hosts subtab. Chapter 5: Hosts 61

62 To view SimpliVity virtual machines for a host, select the host and click the SimpliVity Virtual Machines subtab. Or, click the double down arrows and scroll down to SimpliVity Virtual Machines. View host summary details overview You can view the summary information about a host and access the SimpliVity portlet details. For example, you can see details about the host model, serial number, OmniStack software version, and hardware status. The status can appear as: healthy, warning (operation errors or failover), unknown (host not found, critical error, or failover), or error (stopped functioning). 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Hosts to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the row with the host you want to view. 4. Click the Summary tab. You see a summary of the host hardware, configuration, fault tolerance, tags, related objects, licensing, and the SimpliVity portlet. For details on the Hardware, Configuration, Fault Tolerance, and Tags portlets, see the VMWare vsphere documentation. 5. Optional: To see more details on the hardware, click Hardware Information. View host hardware details overview You can view details on the hardware inventory for an OmniStack host. For example, you can see details about the host components (OmniStack Accelerator and storage adapter), vendor, model, serial number, OmniStack software version, and hardware status. The status can appear as one of the following: Healthy Initializing Rebuilding (after replacing a solid-state drive [SSD] or hard disk drive [HDD]) Warning (operation errors or failover) Chapter 5: Hosts 62

63 Degraded (functioning at reduced level) Enabled (on) or Disabled (off) Missing Offline Failed Unconfigured Unknown (host not found, critical error, or failover) For a solid-state drive (SSD), you also see details on the life remaining in the Status column. Depending on the model of the drive, you may see a status that shows the percentage of life left or a label of Healthy, Warning, or Critical. For example, if the drive shows 90% or a "Healthy" life status, it has a lot of use left. But if the life value falls below 10% or shows as "Warn," you see a message in the Alarms portlet to order a new drive to replace it. If the life value falls below 5% or shows as "Critical," you see a message to replace it now and you can no longer write to it. For details on replacing a drive, see the Hardware Installation and Maintenance Guide for your platform. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Hosts to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the host you want to view and select All SimpliVity Actions > View Hardware. You can also double-click the row with the host you want to view, click the Monitor tab, and then click the SimpliVity Hardware subtab to access the hardware details. Remove a host from a Federation About removing a host from a Federation You may want to permanently remove an OmniStack host from a SimpliVity Federation if you do not need it. Or, you may want to remove it to redeploy it within the same Federation or a different one. If you need to remove a host from a Federation, you cannot see it in the Federation again unless you redeploy it. However, the host still exists in vcenter Server. To redeploy an OmniStack host to the same Federation or a different one, you need to reset the boot drive on the host you removed. You can then use OmniStack Deployment Manager to redeploy it to the appropriate Federation. Remove host from a Federation You can remove an OmniStack host from a Federation at any time. Depending on the circumstances, you may want to remove it permanently or redeploy it within the same Federation or a different one. Before you begin Before you begin: Chapter 5: Hosts 63

64 Verify that standard ESXi hosts are not sharing the datastore used by the OmniStack host that you want to remove. If you want to keep sharing the datastore, you must change the /etc/hosts file for every standard ESXi host so that it references a different OmniStack host in the same Federation datacenter. For more information on changing the /etc/hosts file, see the VMware vsphere Help. Verify that all OmniStack hosts in the Federation are in a healthy state and all virtual machines are storage HA compliant (synchronized). Move the virtual machines from the host you want to remove to an available OmniStack host. When you remove an OmniStack host from the Federation, it still exists in vcenter Server. For example, if you click Hosts and Clusters from the vsphere Web Client Home tab, you see the host listed under a cluster object. However, if you use vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and SimpliVity Intelligent Workload Optimizer, the removed host no longer appears in any SimpliVity (svt) groups or rules in DRS. overview You can redeploy an OmniStack host back into the same Federation as long as a cluster in the Federation contains at least one other OmniStack host. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Hosts to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the row with the OmniStack host you want to remove and click All SimpliVity Actions > Remove from Federation. T. 4. Optional: Select Force removal (may cause data loss) to force the removal process if the host is unresponsive. If virtual machines remain on the host, this option forces them to fail over to available OmniStack hosts in the Federation. However, it could result in data loss if the virtual machines moving to another host are not in storage HA (High Availability) compliance. 5. Click Yes. 6. Click Yes again to confirm that you want to remove the OmniStack host from the Federation. 7. If you deployed the OmniStack host with IP addresses allocated in OmniStack IP address pools, deallocate the IP addresses assigned to the host using the svt-ippool-deallocate command. This returns the IP addresses to the OmniStack IP address pools and ensures that the IP addresses are available for future deployments. Ensure that you deallocate IP addresses on the correct host. Deallocating IP addresses in use by another OmniStack host may cause the Federation to stop working properly and virtual machine data may be unavailable. To view the IP addresses assigned to an OmniStack host, use the svtip-assignments-show command. Chapter 5: Hosts 64

65 8. Remove the IP addresses assigned to the OmniStack host using the svt-ippool-remove command. For more information, see the OmniStack Command Reference. 9. If you want to redeploy the OmniStack host (for CN-series platform), follow the steps to reset the boot before you redeploy it. For details on what to do before deploying Cisco UCS or Lenovo platforms, see the Hardware Installation and Maintenance Guide for your platform. Reset the boot drive Before you begin Perform these tasks before you reset the boot drive on an OmniStack host: 1. Connect an Ethernet cable from the Windows computer to the Ethernet management port on the rear of the OmniStack host. 2. Configure the remote Web-based management interface for your platform. 3. Connect to the remote Web-based management interface and launch the Virtual Console. This displays the SimpliVity Installer screen. For more information, see the Hardware Installation and Maintenance Guide for your platform. overview Once you remove an OmniStack host from a Federation, you can reset the boot drive. Resetting the boot drive allows you to redeploy the host within the same Federation or a different one. This procedure resets the boot drive on a removed OmniStack host to redeploy it. For details on deploying Cisco UCS or Lenovo platforms, see the Hardware Installation and Maintenance Guide for your platform and the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. 1. In the SimpliVity Installer screen, select BIOS Boot Manager from the Next Boot menu. 2. Click OK in the Next Boot message. 3. In the Power menu, select Reset System (warm boot). 4. Click OK in the Power Control message. 5. Enter your BIOS password, if prompted. 6. In the Boot Manager Main Menu, select BIOS Boot Menu. 7. Select * Hard drive C: to open the device selection menu. 8. Select SD Card: Internal Dual SD and press Enter. If SD Card: Internal Dual SD does not appear in the BIOS Boot Menu screen, contact Customer Support. Chapter 5: Hosts 65

66 9. In the GNU GRUB screen, use the arrow key to select Deploy and press Enter. The OmniStack host reboots and receives a new IP address. Once you reset the boot drive on the host you removed, you can redeploy it using Deployment Manager. For more information on deploying an OmniStack host, see the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. Start up an OmniStack host overview If you previously shut down an OmniStack host, make sure that the host is in the same physical state and that no cables were disconnected or devices removed. 1. Log in to vcenter Server through vsphere Web Client. 2. If you previously shut down the computer with vcenter Server, verify that the Arbiter service started. If you need to start it, for example on Windows Server, use Windows services (services.msc) to access Arbiter through the Extended tab to start it. 3. Do one of the following to power on the OmniStack host: Use your remote management IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) system to access the Power option. Manually press the Power button of the physical hardware in the datacenter. 4. Wait for the Virtual Controller to power on. (The Virtual Controller should automatically power on before any guest virtual machines.) 5. Wait for all the virtual machines to power on (if set to power on automatically). Otherwise, power on the virtual machines manually. 6. Verify the Federation status through the cluster in vsphere Web Client. For example, click SimpliVity Federation from the Home tab, click Clusters, double-click a cluster, click the Related Objects or More Objects tab (depending on your version of vsphere), and then click the SimpliVity Hosts subtab. You can see the state of the Virtual Controller for each OmniStack host in the cluster (for example, Alive). Do not proceed until all OmniStack hosts are responding and there are no unacknowledged alarms or errors. If you temporarily changed any tasks to facilitate the shutdown, reconfigure these tasks for normal operation. Shut down one or more Virtual Controllers To safely shut down OmniStack hosts, you need to first ensure the virtual machines are in HA compliance, shut down all the guest virtual machines on the hosts (or move them off the host), and shut down the Virtual Controller on each host using SimpliVity options. Before you begin Chapter 5: Hosts 66

67 Before you shut down a SimpliVity Virtual Controller on an OmniStack host: Verify there are no pending tasks. Ensure that the virtual machines are in HA compliance. 1. Power off all the guest virtual machines on the host you want to shut down using the vsphere Shut Down Guest and Power Off options. But, do not shut down the Virtual Controller. If you want to move the virtual machines, use the SimpliVity Move Virtual Machines option after shutting them down. If you do not want to shut down the virtual machines to move them, use vsphere vmotion or vsphere Storage vmotion options as described in the VMware documentation. 2. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 3. Click Hosts to open the Objects tab. 4. Right-click the row with the OmniStack host you want to shut down and click All SimpliVity Actions > Shut Down Virtual Controller. 5. Click Yes to confirm the shut down of the Virtual Controller on the host. 6. Optional: If the virtual machines are taking too long to reach storage HA compliance and you want to stop the shutdown or force it to continue, you select one of the following options from the All SimpliVity Actions menu: Option Description Cancel Virtual Controller Shut Down Cancels the shut down at any point before the completion of the task (before HA compliance). Force Virtual Controller Shut Down Forces the Virtual Controller to shut down at any time during the task before it achieves HA compliance. You can make data unavailable by forcing a Virtual Controller to shut down. 7. Optional: If you want to continue to shut down more hosts in the Federation, repeat steps 1-3. Then right-click the row with the next OmniStack host you want to shut down and click All SimpliVity Actions > Force Virtual Controller Shut Down. Click Yes when prompted to confirm the forced shutdown to avoid the HA compliance check and continue the shutdown. Chapter 5: Hosts 67

68 Chapter 6: Datastores This section contains the following topics: About SimpliVity datastores Create a datastore View datastore summary details Share SimpliVity datastores with standard ESXi hosts About standard ESXi host access to datastores in a Federation Resize a datastore Delete a datastore About SimpliVity datastores SimpliVity datastores provide resources to virtual machines that SimpliVity OmniStack hosts and standard ESXi hosts can access. A SimpliVity datastore has the following attributes: Name Default backup policy for new virtual machines created in the datastore Size Some vsphere Web Client options can prevent the SimpliVity datastore from functioning properly. For example, do not perform the following tasks: Move OmniStack hosts between datacenters using the drag and drop method. Unmount a SimpliVity datastore. Copy files to (or create files in) the root directory of a SimpliVity datastore. You must create a folder or use an existing folder. You can use other vsphere Web Client options to complete certain tasks (such as Power On and Reboot) if the SimpliVity documentation directs you to use them. An OmniStack host contains a small local datastore initially named datastore-<serial number of OmniStack> that contains the Virtual Controller. Do not use this datastore for virtual machines or attempt to modify it or you could cause the OmniStack host to fail or not function correctly. Create a datastore Chapter 6: Datastores 68

69 Before you begin Create a backup policy if you do not have any for the datastore. The new policy acts as the default backup policy for the datastore. When the datastore has more backup policies, you can select another one (if necessary). When you first create a datastore, OmniStack automatically creates an empty backup policy called Fixed Default Backup Policy. You cannot change it. It is not the default policy if you created at least one other backup policy in the Federation before creating the datastore. You can create more backup policies at any time and change the policy that the datastore uses. overview You need to create at least one datastore for each cluster to hold virtual machine files. You can access tabs to view SimpliVity details on any datastore in a Federation. For example, you can access tabs to view summary information, monitor the data capacity, manage alarms and search backups, and access SimpliVity virtual machines. Caution: An OmniStack host contains a small local datastore initially named "datastore-<serial number of OmniStack host>" that contains the Virtual Controller. Do not use this datastore for virtual machines or attempt to modify it or the OmniStack host could fail to function correctly. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. From the SimpliVity Home tab, click Create Datastore from the Basic Tasks section. This opens the Create Datastore dialog box. You can also click Datastores to open the Objects tab and click the Create Datastore icon ( ). 3. Select the cluster where you want the datastore to reside from the Cluster drop-down list. The list includes names of the datacenter and vcenter Server where the cluster resides. 4. Enter a unique name for the datastore in the New Datastore Name field (up to 42 characters). Unique names makes it easier to select the correct datastore when performing specific tasks or when managing multiple vcenter Servers in Linked Mode. Do not use the following special characters in the datastore name: /, \, [, ], %. 5. In the Backup Policy field, select the backup policy for the datastore from the drop-down list. The application assigns that policy to new virtual machines created in the datastore. Click Create to create a new backup policy and add one or more rules. 6. In the Size field, specify the datastore size (1 GB to 1,024 TB) and select the unit of measurement (GB or TB). Chapter 6: Datastores 69

70 7. Click OK. You see the new datastore appear in the Objects tab list. View datastore summary details overview You can access SimpliVity datastores in a Federation and review summary information about an individual datastore from the Summary tab. For example, you can see details on the default backup policy, stored capacity, and free capacity. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Datastores. This opens a list of datastores in the Federation. 3. Double-click the name of the datastore you want to view. 4. Click the Summary tab. The Summary tab has Details, Tags, and a SimpliVity portlet. (If you use vsphere 6.5, you also see Related Objects and Custom Attributes portlets.) 5. Optional: To change the policy used by the datastore, click Change Policy. Share SimpliVity datastores with standard ESXi hosts About sharing SimpliVity datastores with standard ESXi hosts You can share SimpliVity datastores with standard ESXi hosts. This section describes the required configuration NET and NFS settings for standard ESXi hosts. When you allow your standard ESXi host access to a SimpliVity datastore, you can: Use vsphere vmotion to migrate virtual machines that run on a standard ESXi host to another host in the Federation with no disruption to users. Use vsphere Storage vmotion to migrate virtual machines to a Federation datastore with no disruption to users. For details on using vsphere vmotion and vsphere Storage vmotion to migrate virtual machines off a standard ESXi host, see the VMware vsphere documentation. Task order To allow a standard ESXi host access to a SimpliVity datastore, you must complete the following tasks in this order: 1. Determine the IP address for the storage traffic. 2. Configure advanced settings on the standard ESXi host. 3. Modify the /etc/hosts file on the standard ESXi host. 4. Enable SimpliVity datastore sharing. Chapter 6: Datastores 70

71 See the following sections for details on each task. Determine the IP address to use for standard ESXi host storage traffic overview You need to specify the data transfer IP address that you want to use for the standard ESXi host storage traffic. To do this, you must know the network IP address of the OmniStack host you plan to use to share the datastore. For example, the OmniStack host provides two potential paths: Storage Network IP address (recommended for failover) Management Network IP address Your network also impacts the IP address you use. For example: If you use the switched method for the 10 GbE storage network, use the Storage Network IP address of the OmniStack host. SimpliVity recommends you use this network because it provides higher bandwidth and failover capability. If you use the direct-connect method for the 10GbE storage network, specify the Management Network IP address of the OmniStack host. However, this network has no failover capability. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Hosts in the navigation menu to view all the hosts in the SimpliVity Federation. You can view the management and storage network IP addresses in the table under the Mgmt IP and Storage IP columns. The standard ESXi host can reside in the same cluster as the OmniStack host and datastore you plan to use or in another cluster within the same datacenter. 3. Write down the management or storage network IP address of the OmniStack host that you plan to use to share the datastore. You need to enter this address when you edit the host file for the standard ESXi host (located in /etc/hosts) as described in the "Edit the host file for standard ESXi hosts" topic. 4. Configure the NET and NFS settings as described in "Configure advanced settings on a standard ESXi host." Next steps For more information on defining the IP addresses for a Federation, see the network information in the Hardware Installation and Maintenance Guide for your platform or the SimpliVity OmniStack for vsphere Host Deployment Guide. Configure advanced settings on a standard ESXi host overview Chapter 6: Datastores 71

72 To enable standard ESXi host access to a Federation datastore, you must configure some advanced settings. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click vcenter Inventory Lists or Global Inventory Lists (depending on your version of vsphere). 2. Under Resources, click Hosts. 3. Right-click the standard ESXi host you want include and select Settings. 4. Under System, click Advanced System Settings. 5. From the Advanced System Settings table, change the following settings to the values shown (one at a time). To change the value, select the item from the Name column, click the pencil icon ( Edit (depending on your version of vsphere), change the value, and click OK: ) or Net.TcpipHeapMax = 1536 Net.TcpipHeapSize = 32 NFS.MaxVolumes = 256 SunRPC.MaxConnPerIP = 128 NFS.MaxQueueDepth = 128 These changes apply to ESXi 6.0 or 6.5 hosts. 6. Restart the standard ESXi host to apply the changes. Edit the host file for standard ESXi hosts overview After you determine the IP address for storage traffic and configure the advanced settings, you can edit the host file. 1. Edit the /etc/hosts file to include a line similar to the following: nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn omni.cube.io where nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn is the storage or management IP address you previously documented. If you misconfigure the host file, you see the following error when you attempt to enable datastore access:...error [26]: Platform integration exception. Check that you entered the IP address correctly if you see this error. 2. Do not restart the standard ESXi host. Continue to the Enabling or Disabling SimpliVity Datastore Sharing" procedure to enable (or disable) sharing. Chapter 6: Datastores 72

73 Enable or disable SimpliVity datastore sharing overview After you determine the IP address for storage traffic, configure the NET and NFS settings, and edit the host file, you can enable datastore sharing for the appropriate standard ESXi host through the SimpliVity datastore object. You can also disable datastore sharing. However, you cannot disable sharing for standard ESXi hosts with virtual machines. 1. Browse to SimpliVity Federation > Datastores. 2. Right-click the datastore you want to share and click All SimpliVity Actions > Manage Standard ESXi Hosts to open the Manage Standard ESXi Hosts dialog box. 3. Do one of the following: To allow the hosts to share data with a SimpliVity datastore, select the checkbox next to the appropriate host in the Shared column. To prevent hosts from sharing data with a SimpliVity datastore, clear the checkbox next to the appropriate hosts. (If you see a virtual machine count for the host, you cannot disable datastore sharing.) 4. Click OK. About standard ESXi host access to datastores in a Federation A standard ESXi host can exist in your vcenter Server environment in addition to OmniStack hosts. (A standard ESXi host is any host that is not a SimpliVity OmniStack host.) If your vcenter contains such ESXi hosts, you can enable them to access the Federation datastores. This allows you to use VMware vsphere vmotion and Storage vmotion to migrate virtual machines running on a standard ESXi host to another host in the Federation with no disruption to users (as long as the virtual machine guest operating system is supported by SimpliVity). If your cluster includes standard ESXi hosts that use SimpliVity datastores, you can manually install the SimpliVity vstorage API for Array Integration (VAAI)-Network Attached Storage (NAS) plug-in on those hosts. The plug-in improves performance and frees up memory when cloning virtual machines. Resize a datastore overview Chapter 6: Datastores 73

74 You may want to change the storage capacity of your Federation datastore to accommodate the amount of data you need to store. When you resize a Federation datastore, the virtual machines can remain running. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Datastores to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the datastore you want to resize and click All SimpliVity Actions > Online Resize. The Resize Datastore dialog box opens listing the datastore name, amount of space used, and the current capacity. 4. In the New Capacity field, enter a value larger or smaller than the current value (1 GB to 1024 TB). Then select the unit of measurement (GB or TB). You cannot set the datastore size to a value that is less than the logical space needed for the existing virtual machines. For example, if the Used field shows a size of 150 GB, you cannot set the New Capacity to 100 GB. 5. Click OK. Delete a datastore overview When you delete a Federation datastore, migrate or remove the virtual machines before you delete the datastore they use. You can also use the SimpliVity Move Virtual Machine option to move a virtual machine to another cluster or datastore. You do not have to delete the virtual machine backups before you migrate or remove the virtual machine. If the Management network for a host is disconnected, you cannot delete the datastore. After you reconnect the network or it comes back up on its own, you can successfully delete the datastore. For more details on checking the Management network status, click Hosts from the vsphere Web Client inventory panel, double-click the host you want to check, click the Manage tab, and then the Networking subtab. If you use the vsphere High Availability (HA) cluster option with datastore heart-beating, vsphere can put a heartbeat file on any datastore. The heartbeat monitors hosts and virtual machines when the management network fails. If you attempt to delete a cluster datastore with the heartbeat file, SimpliVity cannot delete it and you see a vsphere Web Client "platform integration exception" error. You must select another datastore through the vsphere HA Datastore Heartbeating setting or disable vsphere HA to delete the datastore. For more information on using vsphere HA, see the VMware documentation. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. Chapter 6: Datastores 74

75 2. Click Datastores to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the datastore you want to delete and click All SimpliVity Actions > Delete Datastore. 4. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the datastore and remove all associated data. It might take several seconds to update the datastore and storage space information, but the storage space is available immediately. Chapter 6: Datastores 75

76 Chapter 7: Virtual machines This section contains the following topics: About SimpliVity virtual machines Create virtual machines View virtual machine performance View virtual machine summary details View virtual machines associated with a host or datastore Clone virtual machines Move virtual machines Save credentials for VSS Format the NTFS Volumes on Virtual Machines Register virtual machines after an OmniStack power failure Delete virtual machines About SimpliVity virtual machines When virtual machines run on an OmniStack host and use a SimpliVity datastore, you can use SimpliVity options to clone or move virtual machines from one SimpliVity cluster or datastore and set the backup policy for them. You use vsphere Web Client options to create SimpliVity virtual machines. Some known VMware limitations are: After cloning or moving a virtual machine or restoring a SimpliVity virtual machine backup between different datastores, the cloned, moved, or restored virtual machine appears to be attached to both datastores. (You can observe the two datastores for a virtual machine through the Related Objects portlet in the virtual machine Summary tab.) When you power on the cloned, moved, or restored virtual machine, the duplicate datastore issue resolves itself. You can create a virtual machine with a fixed MAC address. However, if you perform a clone, move, or restore backup operation on a virtual machine with a fixed MAC address, the cloned, moved, or restored virtual machine has a duplicate MAC address. For more information, see "Changing the MAC address of a hosted virtual machine" in the VMware Knowledge Base. For details on vsphere Web Client options, see the VMware vsphere documentation. Chapter 7: Virtual machines 76

77 Create virtual machines In a SimpliVity Federation, you must specify a datastore to contain virtual machines. You create a virtual machine through the New Virtual Machine wizard in vsphere Web Client. For example, you can right-click the OmniStack host in the Federation and select New Virtual Machine from the list of Web Client options. Once created, you can use SimpliVity options to backup, clone, or move a virtual machine in a Federation. (For details on vsphere Web Client options, see the vsphere Web Client documentation.) Before you begin To ensure that you can create a virtual machine in a Federation, verify that you: Have appropriate privileges to create a typical or custom virtual machine as described in the vsphere Virtual Machine Administration guide. For example, you must have the Datastore. Allocate space privilege on the destination datastore. Know what datastore you want to specify for the virtual machine. Have a naming strategy in place to identify the virtual machines in the application easily. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Hosts to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the OmniStack host where you want to add the virtual machine and select New Virtual Machine or New Virtual Machine > New Virtual Machine (depending on your version of vsphere). 4. Select the creation type. Then click Edit settings to open the first prompts in the wizard to enter a name and location. Click Next. 5. Follow the prompts to select the remaining items and click Next. For example, you may need to enter the guest operating system or virtual machine version, depending on the type of configuration you choose. Avoid placing the virtual machine in the datastore that contains the Virtual Controller because it can cause the datastore hosting the Virtual Controller to run out of space. This can impact the availability of all the datastores in a Federation. 6. Click Finish when you complete the creation process. 7. Watch for the virtual machine creation messages in the Recent Tasks panel. 8. Check that the datastore default backup policy is adequate for the virtual machine. If you need to use a different policy, right-click the virtual machine, select All SimpliVity Actions > Set Backup Policy, and select another policy from the Backup Policy drop-down list. View virtual machine performance You can access SimpliVity virtual machines in a Federation and review performance information about an individual virtual machine from the Monitor tab. Chapter 7: Virtual machines 77

78 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. You can also access SimpliVity objects through the inventory panel by clicking vcenter Home and clicking on an item listed under the SimpliVity section at the bottom of the panel. 2. Click Virtual Machines. 3. Right-click the virtual machine you want to view and click All SimpliVity Actions > View Performance. You see the SimpliVity Performance subtab open with a chart that shows the read and write values for the throughput, IOPS, and latency. You can also double-click the name of the virtual machine, click the Monitor tab (if necessary), and click the SimpliVity Performance subtab. View virtual machine summary details You can access SimpliVity virtual machines in a Federation and review summary information about an individual virtual machine from the Summary tab. For example, you can see details on the available CPUs, memory available, storage HA status, used and total capacity, number of virtual hard disks, application-aware status (to use Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service [VSS]), and the name of the assigned backup policy. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. You can also access SimpliVity objects through the inventory panel by clicking vcenter Home and clicking on an item listed under the SimpliVity section at the bottom of the panel. 2. Click Virtual Machines. 3. Double-click the virtual machine you want to view. 4. Click the Summary tab. The Summary tab has a collection of portlets. The SimpliVity virtual machine summary information appears at the bottom of the tab. 5. Optional: To see the performance values for the virtual machine, click Monitor Performance. View virtual machines associated with a host or datastore You can view details on the virtual machines that reside on a particular host or datastore. For example, you can see the virtual machine name, provisioned disk space, used disk space, assigned backup policy, storage HA status, datastore and cluster names, and vcenter Server IP address. Chapter 7: Virtual machines 78

79 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Hosts or Datastores. 3. Double-click the OmniStack host or datastore you want to view. 4. For vsphere 6.0, click the Related Topics tab and then the SimpliVity Virtual Machines subtab. For vsphere 6.5, click SimpliVity Virtual Machines Objects. Clone virtual machines You can create a copy of a SimpliVity virtual machine. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines. 3. Right-click the virtual machine you want to clone and click All SimpliVity Actions > Clone Virtual Machine. 4. Optional: SimpliVity OmniStack software generates a name for the cloned virtual machine. You can override this by entering a new name in the Clone Virtual Machine Name field. 5. Optional: Click Advanced to view the Application Consistent check box. Select Application Consistent to backup application data with the contents of the memory and any pending writes or leave it unselected. If selected, it uses the default snapshot method to create the applicationconsistent backup. 6. Click OK. Move virtual machines You may find it useful to move SimpliVity virtual machines from one datastore to another; for example, if a datastore is running low on space. Before you begin Use the vsphere Shut Down Guest option and then power off the virtual machine. You do not need to use the Shut Down Guest and Power Off vsphere options to use the vsphere vmotion or vsphere Storage vmotion options with virtual machines. You can use the vsphere move options while the virtual machines remain powered on. For more information on these features, see the VMware vsphere documentation. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines. Chapter 7: Virtual machines 79

80 3. Right-click the virtual machine you want to move and click All SimpliVity Actions > Move Virtual Machine. 4. Optional: The New VM Name field displays the current virtual machine name by default. If you want to rename the virtual machine, enter the new name here. 5. Select the datastore that you want to send the virtual machine to from the Destination Datastore menu. You can filter datastore names by entering a string in the Destination Datastore field. For example, typing 2GB in the field limits the listing to datastores with names that begin with 2GB. This may be useful if you have a large set of datastores. Save credentials for VSS You must save the guest credentials to a virtual machine if you want to create application-consistent backups with Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). OmniStack stores the credentials securely and only uses them to access VSS. VSS coordinates the actions between applications to create a consistent shadow copy of the data and simplify the restore process. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines. 3. Right-click the virtual machine you want to save credentials for and click All SimpliVity Actions > Save Credentials for VSS. To use VSS with OmniStack, the virtual machine must use a Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, or 2016 operating system and have VMware Tools installed. In addition, the supported VSS-aware applications are SQL Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2014, and In the User Name and Password fields, enter the user name and password for the guest account that has administrator privileges. (The privileges allow access to VSS.) 5. Click OK. If the virtual machine is powered off, you see a message that OmniStack saves the credentials to verify them when the virtual machine powers on. If the credentials fail, you see an alert in vsphere Web Client. If you do not want to save the validated credentials at that time, you can click Cancel. However, you cannot create application-consistent backups with VSS until you save the credentials to the virtual machine. 6. Make sure you select the Application Consistent and Microsoft VSS options through the Advanced tab when you create a policy rule or edit one to create application-consistent backups. Format the NTFS Volumes on Virtual Machines Chapter 7: Virtual machines 80

81 overview When formatting NTFS volumes on Windows virtual machines, the allocation unit size (cluster size) defaults to 4 KB. For the best performance on OmniStack hosts, you need to format Windows NTFS volumes to an allocation size of any multiple of 8 K up to 64 KB (for example, 16, 32, or 64 KB). VMware allows you to over-allocate memory for virtual machines. This can cause virtual machines to use memory needed for the Virtual Controller and cause the OmniStack to stop responding. The OmniStack might return to normal operation after a short time, enabling you to correct the overallocation problem. However, in some instances the OmniStack will fail to respond. For example, when cloning a virtual machine you may see that the memory allocated to clones exceeds the available physical memory when powered on. Therefore, if an OmniStack fails to correct itself, restart the OmniStack and correct the memory over-allocation before restarting virtual machines. 1. Boot from the Windows installation media. 2. Press Shift+F10 at the first setup screen to open a command prompt. 3. Run the following commands to create the partitions: diskpart select disk 0 create partition primary size=100 This is the system volume and will be formatted with a cluster size <= 4 KB. The example uses an arbitrary size of 100 MB. active format fs=ntfs label= System quick create partition primary size =N This is the boot volume of size N, formatted with the 8 KB cluster size. format fs=ntfs label=os_8k quick unit=8192 assign exit 4. Complete the setup, deploying the Windows operating system to the second partition (not the 100 MB primary partition). If you add NTFS VMDKs at a later time, use Windows Disk Management to format the disk, specifying an 8 KB allocation size. Chapter 7: Virtual machines 81

82 Register virtual machines after an OmniStack power failure overview If both the primary and secondary OmniStack hosts for a virtual machine go offline while a virtual machine is out of Storage HA compliance, the VM might remain inaccessible even after you set all OmniStack hosts back online. This problem is dependent on the timing of system outages and one of the following: The primary and secondary OmniStack hosts for an HA compliant virtual machine are offline. The primary OmniStack host for a non-ha compliant VM is offline. If this occurs, there is no loss of data. But, data might be unavailable as long as the virtual machine is inaccessible. To resolve this, you must register the virtual machines again. 1. In vsphere Web Client, click SimpliVity Federation, then click Datastores. 2. Double-click the datastore with the inaccessible virtual machine. 3. For vsphere 6.0, click the Related Objects tab and then the SimpliVity Virtual Machines subtab. For vsphere 6.5, click SimpliVity Virtual Machines Objects. 4. Right-click the inaccessible virtual machine and select Remove from Inventory. When prompted to confirm, click Yes. 5. Click the Manage tab and click the Files subtab. 6. Double-click the folder for the virtual machine you just removed from inventory to expand it. 7. Right-click the.vmx file for the previously inaccessible virtual machine that you removed from the inventory and select Register VM. 8. Repeat these steps for each inaccessible virtual machine that you need to register. Delete virtual machines When you delete a virtual machine, the Federation keeps the virtual machine backups. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines. 3. Right-click the SimpliVity virtual machine you want to delete and select one of the following vsphere Web Client options: Remove from Inventory: Removes the virtual machine from the vsphere inventory, but retains its files. You can restore the virtual machine to the inventory. Chapter 7: Virtual machines 82

83 Delete from Disk: Removes the virtual machine and all the files associated with it, increasing storage space in the datastore. However, if you have backups of the virtual machine, you can restore the virtual machine. The amount of storage space reclaimed by the deletion might take several minutes to appear in the storage capacity displays. Chapter 7: Virtual machines 83

84 Chapter 8: Virtual machine templates This section contains the following topics: About SimpliVity virtual machine templates Create virtual machine templates Clone virtual machine templates Move virtual machine templates Delete virtual machine templates About SimpliVity virtual machine templates A SimpliVity virtual machine (VM) template is a model copy of a SimpliVity virtual machine that you can use to clone more virtual machines. Like standard VMware VM templates, SimpliVity VM templates include the virtual machine's disk settings from its.vmx (configuration) file. Templates save you time and help you avoid errors when configuring settings to create new virtual machines. You can also backup a SimpliVity VM template instead of a virtual machine to create a long term backup of a virtual machine. Or, you can use the VM template backup to create and deploy consistent copies of virtual machines across a company. Create virtual machine templates A SimpliVity virtual machine (VM) template is a model copy of a SimpliVity virtual machine that you can use to clone more virtual machines. overview Once you convert a virtual machine to a template, you can use SimpliVity options to back it up in a Federation. You can also clone a virtual machine to a template, clone a template to template, or convert a virtual machine using the vsphere New Virtual Machine option through a host. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the SimpliVity virtual machine you want to convert to a template and click Actions > Power Off. Chapter 8: Virtual machine templates 84

85 4. Right-click the SimpliVity virtual machine you powered off and click Template > Convert to Template. 5. Click Yes when prompt to convert the virtual machine. 6. Watch for the virtual machine template creation messages in the Recent Tasks panel. You can access the new VM template through the Home > SimpliVity Federation > VM Templates. To access the all the VM templates in vcenter Server (SimpliVity VM templates and VMware VM templates), click Home > vcenter Inventory Lists > VM Templates in Folders. Clone virtual machine templates You can create a copy of a SimpliVity virtual machine template. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click VM Templates to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the virtual machine template you want to clone and click All SimpliVity Actions > Clone VM Template. 4. Optional: SimpliVity OmniStack software generates a name for the cloned virtual machine template. You can override this by entering a new name in the Clone VM Template Name field. 5. Click OK. Move virtual machine templates You may find it useful to move SimpliVity VM templates from one datastore to another; for example, if a datastore is running low on space. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click VM Templates. 3. Right-click the virtual machine you want to move and click All SimpliVity Actions > Move VM Template. 4. Optional: The New VM Template Name field displays the current virtual machine name by default. If you want to rename the template, enter the new name here. 5. Select the datastore that you want to send the template to from the Destination Datastore menu. You can filter datastore names by entering a string in the Destination Datastore field. For example, typing 2GB in the field limits the listing to datastores with names that begin with 2GB. This may be useful if you have a large set of datastores. Chapter 8: Virtual machine templates 85

86 Delete virtual machine templates When you delete a virtual machine template, the Federation keeps the virtual machine template backups. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click VM Templates. 3. Right-click the SimpliVity virtual machine template you want to delete and select one of the following vsphere Web Client options: Remove from Inventory: Removes the virtual machine template from the vsphere inventory, but retains its files. You can restore the virtual machine template to the inventory. Delete from Disk: Removes the virtual machine template and all the files associated with it, increasing storage space in the datastore. However, if you have backups of the virtual machine template, you can restore it. The amount of storage space reclaimed by the deletion might take several minutes to appear in the storage capacity displays. Chapter 8: Virtual machine templates 86

87 Chapter 9: Backups This section contains the following topics: About planning backups About application-consistent backups About disaster protected backups Back up manually Back up with a policy Search for backups Manage backups Restore SimpliVity backups Restore backups when the Hypervisor Management Service is down About planning backups A virtual machine backup represents the contents of a virtual machine at the point in time a backup is created. You can restore an existing virtual machine, create a new virtual machine, or restore files and folders on a Windows guest virtual machine. You can create a backup of a SimpliVity virtual machine in two ways: Automatically create backups on a regular basis by using a backup policy that contains one or more policy rules. Manually create a backup at the current point in time. A SimpliVity Federation can contain thousands of virtual machine backups. You can easily search, filter, and sort backups at any time. For a SimpliVity backup, you can specify a retention time for a set number of minutes, hours, days, months, and years when you create the backup policies or backups. The maximum retention period is 20 years. The default retention time for backup policies must have a time set to automatically create and retain backups. You can lock the automatic backup for it to never expire or have it automatically delete aging backups according to the rules of the policy. Manual backups default to a state of never expires to preserve the backups until you manually delete them. They are not deleted automatically. Use the SimpliVity user interface from a central location to create or update backup policies for thousands of virtual machines across dozens of sites in less than one minute (approximately). Chapter 9: Backups 87

88 Plan your virtual machine backup schedule and the retention time for backups carefully. Balance the backup schedule to ensure reliable virtual machine performance. You should also consider the following: Backup policy rules: A backup policy can contain a large number of rules. For a comprehensive virtual machine backup strategy, add rules to create a mix of local and remote backups. In addition, create a mix of backups that are, and are not, application consistent. You can also assign policies to individual virtual machines and tailor the policy rules to best protect the virtual machine. VMware snapshots: VMware snapshots are supported, but not recommended for normal production use. Snapshots consume a significant amount of disk space and a virtual machine with several existing snapshots can cause backup failures. Retain only the most recent snapshot on a virtual machine. Backup and restore locations: SimpliVity restricts backup and restore locations to directly connected clusters only. For example, in a hub and spoke architecture, clusters on the spokes connect to the cluster in the hub and not to the clusters on the other spokes. Therefore, a cluster on one of the spokes can complete backups and restore to the cluster in the hub, but not to clusters on one of the other spokes. About application-consistent backups An application-consistent backup is a backup of application data that allows the application to achieve a quiescent and consistent state. This type of backup captures the contents of the memory and any pending writes that occurred during the backup process. For example, to ensure that the backup includes all the data at a specific point in time, the backup allows the pending I/O operations to finish before committing them to the database. These types of backups work well for database applications because they do not require extra work to restore files (such as journaling forward to ensure you have all the data). If you do not choose to create application-consistent backups, OmniStack creates crash-consistent backups. These backups capture all the virtual machine data at one time and work well for standard applications. You can create application-consistent backups when you back up virtual machines manually or with a policy. You can also use different methods to create application-consistent backups. However, one method may take longer than the other. When you select the Application Consistent option for a backup policy rule, you can use one of the following methods: VMware snapshot (default for Application Consistent option) Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) If you use application-consistent backups in a policy, all rules in the policy must use the same method. You cannot use a mix of application-conisistent methods (if you choose to include application-consistent rules). OmniStack uses the VMware snapshot method by default. It preserves the state of the virtual machine and includes all the data at a specific point in time. However, if the application is experiencing moderate to high rates of I/O, this backup process could take many hours and impact performance. Chapter 9: Backups 88

89 If you select the VSS method instead of the default snapshot method, it can save time when creating the backup. VSS uses application-specific writers to freeze the application and database and ensures that all the data transferring from one file to another is captured and consistent. Once VSS creates a shadow copy and the application is in a consistent state, it resumes writes against the application. VSS oversees the process and ensures it takes 10 to 60 seconds to complete. To use VSS with OmniStack, you must: Use a virtual machine that has a Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, or 2016 operating system and VMware Tools installed. In addition, the supported VSS-aware application is SQL Server 2008 R2 or later. Select the Microsoft VSS option for application-consistent backups when you create or edit a policy rule using SimpliVity options. Save the credentials to the virtual machines that use the policy using the SimpliVity "Save Credentials for VSS" option. To use VMware snapshots with OmniStack, just select the Application Consistent option when you manually back up a virtual machine or when you create or edit a policy. If you plan to use snapshots to create the backup, plan the backups when the hosts are not busy to reduce any performance impact. If you want to clone a virtual machine, you can create an application-consistent backup. However, you can only use the default method (snapshot). You cannot use VSS. Use these guidelines when creating policies with rules that use the Application Consistent setting (with the default or VSS method): Do not schedule the backups during OmniStack software upgrades. If you have a large number of virtual machines, you can create separate policies to separate the virtual machines into smaller groups. You can then create rules to back up each group at different times to reduce the number of simultaneous backups. Create a combination of application-consistent and crash-consistent backups to local and remote clusters. Do not schedule the backups at the same time as any third-party database backups. Guidelines for using Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) When you create a backup that uses Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), please keep the following guidelines in mind: SQL Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2014 and 2016 are supported VSS applications. Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, and 2016 are supported VSS operating systems. When Microsoft SQL Server is configured with either the Full or Bulk-Logged recovery model log, truncation is not performed as part of the Application Aware backups using Microsoft VSS. The transaction logs must be managed manually, or with a third party backup solution; otherwise, the transaction logs will continue to grow unbounded and the virtual machine may run out of space. Chapter 9: Backups 89

90 When Microsoft SQL Server is configured with the Simple recovery model, SQL Server manages the transaction logs, and log truncation is not required. A virtual machine's guest credentials are maintained for the following use cases: Initial set or subsequent reset of VSS guest credentials using the svt-vm-backup-params-set command SimpliVity move OmniStack host added to the Federation SimpliVity Restore In Place A virtual machine's guest credentials are NOT maintained for the following use cases: SimpliVity Restore to new VM SimpliVity Clone vsphere Storage VMotion vsphere Clone After you restore a virtual machine using one of these methods, you must configure its guest credentials. After you create or make configuration changes to a virtual machine, you must run the svt-vmbackup-params-set command to support VSS-based backups. All current published limitations with regard to scale apply for SimpliVity VSS backups. All limitations for VSS published by Microsoft apply. A successful SimpliVity VSS backup requires the following two conditions on the virtual machine: The virtual machine must be powered on. VMware Tools associated with vsphere version 6.0 or later must be installed and running on the guest virtual machine. Use of invalid credentials passed to svt-vm-backup-params-set may count against the virtual machine's account lockout policy. Use of the SimpliVItyBackup.ps1 script, available via SimpliVity How To: 4041 How to Back Up and Restore Application Consistent Snapshots of SQL and Exchange Databases, in conjunction with this feature is prohibited. You should discontinue the use of these scripts on any virtual machine on which you enable the VSS-integrated backups solution. The credentials you provide should be for a user added to the local machine's administrator group. Please see SimpliVity How To: How to Configure a Guest VM for VSS Backup for information pertaining to the depth of configuration required for administrator and non-administrator user accounts. SQL server must be properly installed with Microsoft VSS integration. About database backup types There are three basic types of database backups: Database (full), Differential, and Log backups. Chapter 9: Backups 90

91 1. Database (full) backup makes a copy of the all database files, and a small portion of the transaction log necessary to recover the database from the full backup. 2. Differential backup makes a copy of the modified portions of the database files since the last full database backup. It does this by tracking all the portions of the database. If a portion changes, it is marked as modified. When a differential backup is performed, only the modified portions are copied to the backup file. Later, when a full database backup is performed, all the tracking data is removed. 3. Log backups do not copy the database files. Instead, log backups copy the transactions found in the transaction log. After the backup copies the transactions, it marks all copied transactions as no longer required so that log space can be reused. About database recovery types There are three SQL Server database recovery types: Simple, Full, and Bulk logged: 1. The Simple recovery model is the easiest to manage. In the Simple recovery mode, the system takes full database backups, differential backups and file backups. The one backup that is not part of the simple recovery type is transaction log backup. In the simple recovery mode, whenever a checkpoint operation occurs, the space in any inactive portions of the log file becomes available for reuse. This process of making log space available for reuse is known as truncation, and databases using the Simple recovery model are referred to as being in auto-truncate mode. If you're using the simple recovery model, you can simply use SimpliVity VSS backups - you do not need to use SQL backups, which requires more I/O operations and are more disruptive to database applications than VSS backups. 2. In the Full recovery model, all operations are fully logged in the transaction log file. This means all INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE operations, as well as the full details for all rows inserted during a bulk data load or index creation operations. Furthermore, unlike in SIMPLE model, the transaction log file is not auto-truncated during CHECKPOINT operations, and so an unbroken series of log records can be captured in log backup files. As such, the FULL recovery model supports restoring a database to any point in time within an available log backup and, assuming a tail log backup can be made, right up to the time of the last committed transaction before the failure occurred. This is referred to as a point in time recovery. You can use a VSS backup to restore the same way you would restore using a full or differential backup; however, you cannot restore a log backup after restoring a VSS backup. You still need to use full backups and transaction log backups in order to perform point in time recovery, and to truncate the transaction logs. 3. Bulk Logged is the least-frequently used recovery model. It operates in a very similar manner to the Full model, except for logging bulk operations, which has implications for point-in-time restores. All standard operations (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and so on) are fully logged, just as they would be in the Full recovery model, but bulk operations are not logged. From a backup and restore point of view, you should perform a full backup after completing the bulk load operations because the transaction log backup does not include the bulk data. You can use a VSS backup to restore the same way you would restore using a full or differential backup; however, you cannot restore a log backup after restoring a VSS backup. You still need to use full backups and transaction log backups in order to perform point in time recovery, and to truncate the transaction logs. Chapter 9: Backups 91

92 About database backup strategies Combining different backup types to meet the backup requirements of the backup plan is the backup strategy for a database. Each database being managed should have its own approved backup plan, including requirements and strategy. There are three basic database backup strategies: Full Backup Simple Mode, Full & Log Backup, and Full Differential Log. 1. When you follow the Full Backup Simple Mode strategy, the DBA configures the database recovery model to simple, and performs periodic Full Database backups using VSS. This is the simplest backup strategy, and the easiest to restore; using VSS minimizes the system impact and provides transaction consistency. Use the Full Backup Simple Mode strategy only on development, read only, stage, system databases or databases not requiring a point in time recovery. For example, you can schedule daily backups every night or every weekend of all system databases. 2. In the Full & Log Backup scenario, the DBA schedules one full backup and multiple Log backups, between full backups. This plan has the advantage of reducing the amount of lost information in case of total server collapse, because you can schedule log backups more regularly than you can schedule full backups. 3. Sometimes the information stored in a database is so valuable that you want to back up the information very often. However, relying on backup logs is not feasible because, in case of failure, you will have to restore every log backup since the last full backup. In this case, the Full Differential Log strategy may help. When using Full, Differential, and Log Backups, you schedule a Full Backup occasionally, differential backups often, and Logs very often. In this case, occasionally means as frequently as needed, to minimize the impact of a full backup, but enough to avoid differential backups from growing too much. Often means as frequently as needed, to minimize the impact of restoring too many log backups. Very often means as frequently as needed to minimize data loss exposure. About disaster protected backups A disaster recovery plan is critical to protecting virtual machine data against a complete disaster. When planning a backup strategy, consider the frequency of backup operations and the amount of data protection that a backup provides. The level of data protection depends on the specified destination cluster for the backup: Local cluster backup: The backup is stored in the same cluster where the virtual machine resides. A local backup does not protect against a disaster that involves a catastrophic loss of cluster hardware. Remote cluster backup: The backup is stored in a cluster that is different from the one where the virtual machine resides. Remote backups protect against a disaster that involves a complete loss of cluster hardware. For disaster protection, the backup cluster must use hardware that is in a different physical location from the cluster with the virtual machines. Identify your disaster recovery goals to ensure that your business runs in the event of a disaster. Inventory your current infrastructure and clearly define a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). The RPO is the maximum amount of virtual machine data loss after an unplanned incident, expressed as a length of time. The more frequent a virtual machine backup operation, the smaller the RPO. Chapter 9: Backups 92

93 However, with higher backup frequencies, more Federation resources are consumed in storing and transferring backups. To avoid exhausting Federation resources within a short time and creating large data volumes, do not have a backup frequency interval set to a short duration, such as a few minutes. The allowed frequency range for virtual machine backups is 10 minutes to 1024 days. The RTO is the length of time required to restore virtual machine availability if a failure occurs, including the time to restart key applications and establish full communications. Minimizing recovery time for a cluster recovery is crucial for business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. Options for protecting and recovering data Consider these options when designing a backup strategy for virtual machines in a SimpliVity Federation: Recovery point objective The recovery point objective (RPO) is the maximum amount of virtual machine data loss after an unplanned incident, expressed as a length of time. The more frequent a virtual machine backup operation, the smaller the RPO. However, with higher backup frequencies, more Federation resources are consumed in storing and transferring backups. To avoid exhausting Federation resources within a short time and creating large data volumes, do not have a backup frequency interval set to a short duration, such as a few minutes. The allowed frequency range for virtual machine backups is 10 minutes to 1024 days. Recovery time objective The recovery time objective (RTO) is the length of time required to restore virtual machine availability if a failure occurs, including the time to restart key applications and establish full communications. Minimizing recovery time for a datacenter recovery is crucial for business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. Data retention time For a Federation virtual machine backup, the default retention time is to preserve backups until you manually delete them. You can specify a retention time for x number of minutes, hours, days, months. and years when you create backups and backup policies. The maximum retention period is 20 years. Plan your virtual machine backup schedule and the retention time for backups carefully. Balance the backup schedule to ensure reliable virtual machine performance. Backup policy rules A backup policy can contain a large number of rules. For a comprehensive virtual machine backup strategy, add rules to create a mix of local and remote backups. In addition, create a mix of backups that are, and are not, application consistent. You can also assign policies to individual virtual machines and tailor the policy rules to best protect the virtual machine. Chapter 9: Backups 93

94 Snapshots VMware snapshots are supported, but snapshots are not recommended for normal production use. Snapshots consume a significant amount of disk space and a virtual machine with several existing snapshots can cause backup failures. Retain only the most recent snapshot on a virtual machine. Backup and restore locations SimpliVity restricts backup and restore locations to directly connected clusters only. For example, in a hub and spoke architecture, clusters on the spokes connect to the hub cluster but not directly to the clusters out on the other spokes. In this situation, a cluster on one of the spokes can complete backups and restores to the cluster at the hub, but not to a cluster on one of the other spokes. Using the SimpliVity user interface from a central location, you can create or update backup policies for thousands of VMs across dozens of sites in less than one minute, on average. Back up manually About manual backups You can create a manual backup of a Federation virtual machine at any time. You specify the following information for a manual backup: Backup name: Optional user-specified name for the backup. If not specified, a default name will be chosen. In accordance with ISO Standard 8601, the OmniStack software includes a standard time stamp string as part of the default backup name. According to the standard, the backup name contains the complete date, plus hours, minutes, seconds, and a time zone designator as illustrated in the following example: VM_name-YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD Variable Definition VM_name Represents the name of the virtual machine. YYYY Represents the four-digit year MM Represents the two-digit month (01=January, etc) DD Represents the two-digit day of the month (01 through 31) hh Represents two digits for hour (00 through 23; a.m./p.m. not permitted) mm Represents two digits for minutes (00 through 59) ss Represents two digits for seconds (00 through 59) TZD Represents time zone designator (Z or +hh:mm or hh:mm) A "T" appears in the backup name and represents the beginning of the time element. Chapter 9: Backups 94

95 Destination cluster: Name of the cluster where you want the backup to reside. Remote clusters provide greater disaster protection if they are not in the same location as the virtual machine. Application-Consistent: Back up application data with the contents of the memory and any pending writes using the default snapshot method to create an application-consistent backup. Using this method can take hours. Leave it unselected to create a crash-consistent backup. Or, if the virtual machines use Microsoft VSS on a Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, or 2016 operating system and you need to back up data for SQL Server 2008 R2 or later, you can create application consistent backups using VSS. Retention: The length of time to retain the backup. When the retention time expires, the backup is automatically deleted. Back up virtual machine data manually overview You can back up a virtual machine manually if you do not want to use a policy to backup virtual machine data automatically. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the virtual machine you want to back up and click All SimpliVity Actions > Backup Virtual Machine. 4. In the Backup Name field, enter a name for the backup or leave it blank to generate an automatic name using the time zone of the cluster. 5. In the Destination Cluster field, select the cluster where you want the backup to reside from the drop-down menu. It defaults to the local cluster. 6. (Optional) Click Advanced to specify the following details: Leave Retention set to Remain until I delete to keep the backup unless you delete it (never expires). Or, select Set Retention Period and set the number of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years to retain the backup. The maximum is 20 years. Leave Application Consistent unselected or select it to back up data in a consistent state. If selected, the policy uses the default VMware snapshot method to create the backup. To use a faster method, select Microsoft VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service). For the process to use VSS, the virtual machine must have a Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2012 R2 operating system and VMware Tools installed. You must also store your credentials to the virtual machine using the SimpliVity "Save Credentials for VSS" option. In addition, the only supported VSS-aware application is SQL Server 2012 R2 or later. 7. Optional: Click Advanced to view the settings or do the following: Chapter 9: Backups 95

96 Select Application Consistent to backup application data with the contents of the memory and any pending writes or leave it unselected. If selected, it uses the default snapshot method to create the application-consistent backup. Leave Retention set to Remain until I delete to keep the backup, which never expires, unless you delete it. Or, select Set Retention Period and set the number of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years to retain the backup. The maximum is 20 years. 8. Click OK. Back up VM template data manually overview You can backup a virtual machine (VM) template manually if you do not want to use a policy to backup virtual machine template data automatically. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click VM Templates to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the virtual machine you want to back up and click All SimpliVity Actions > Backup VM Template. 4. In the Backup Name field, enter a name for the backup or leave it blank to generate an automatic name using the time zone of the cluster. 5. In the Destination Cluster field, select the cluster where you want the backup to reside from the drop-down menu. It defaults to the local cluster. 6. Optional: Click Advanced to view the settings or do the following: Leave Retention set to Remain until I delete to keep the backup (never expires, unless you delete it). Or, select Set Retention Period and set the number of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years to retain the backup. (The maximum is 20 years.) 7. Click OK. Back up with a policy About SimpliVity backup policies It is important to back up your data regularly. Backup policies allow you to schedule backup operations for OmniStack virtual machines. Backup policies also enable you to create a mix of crash-consistent backups (created by default) and application-consistent backups (using the default VMware snapshot method or Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service [VSS] method). And, with a policy, crash-consistent backups continue even when vcenter Server is down. To schedule backup operations, you create a backup policy and then add one or more rules to the policy. A policy must have at least one rule to create backups. A backup policy rule includes: Backup schedule Destination cluster for the backups Chapter 9: Backups 96

97 Maximum number of backups to retain Selection of application consistent or not (using the standard or VSS method) You can transmit backups to local and remote clusters for enhanced virtual machine data security. Scheduled backups are assigned a name based on the timestamp when the backup started. Verify that the policy rules create backups at the correct local time. If you delete or change a backup policy rule, the policy preserves all backups previously created under that rule and they continue to consume storage space. You must manually delete the preserved backups if you want to remove them. When you create a datastore, you must specify the default backup policy for new virtual machines created in the datastore. After you create a virtual machine, you can specify a different backup policy for the virtual machine. If you change the default backup policy assigned to a datastore, the change applies only to new virtual machines created in the datastore. You can also specify backup policies for individual virtual machines. At any time, you can also create a manual backup of a virtual machine. Create a backup policy overview You can create a backup policy to back up virtual machines. When you create a backup policy, you add rules that define how you want to back up the virtual machines. A backup policy must contain at least one rule before it can create backups. Although the number of rules is unlimited, SimpliVity recommends no more than 30 rules in a policy. You can modify a backup policy and add, delete, and edit rules when needed. For a comprehensive virtual machine backup strategy, you can add rules with a mix of local and remote backups. In addition, you can add some rules that are application consistent and some that are not. You can also assign policies to an individual virtual machine and tailor the policy rules to best protect it. If you have not created a SimpliVity datastore yet, create a backup policy with a rule for the datastore you plan to create. This policy can act as the default policy for the datastore. Any virtual machines that use that datastore use the default backup policy until you change it. If you have more than one backup policy for a datastore, you can select which one you want to use when you create the datastore. 1. On the Home page, click SimpliVity Federation. The SimpliVity Federation must contain at least one OmniStack host before you can create a backup policy using these steps. 2. Do one of the following, depending on how you want to open the Create a Backup Policy dialog box: Chapter 9: Backups 97

98 Click Create Backup Policy from the Basic Tasks section of the SimpliVity Home tab. Click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab and click the Create Backup Policy icon [ ]. Click Virtual Machines or VM Templates, right-click the object you want to create a policy for, and click All SimpliVity Actions > Set Backup Policy. Then click Create. Click Datastores, right-click the datastore you want to create a policy for, and click All SimpliVity Actions > Set Default Backup Policy. Then click Create. 3. In the Policy Name field, specify the name for the new backup policy. 4. Click Create Rule to open the Create Policy Rule dialog box. 5. In the Frequency field, set the time interval when backups are taken in minutes, hours, or days. The backup frequency must be less than 24 hours (or 1440 minutes). The minimum frequency interval is 10 minutes. Enter positive numbers only. 6. In the Retain Backups For field, set the retention time in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years. All month calculations use a 30-day month. All year calculations use a 365-day year. Enter positive numbers only. 7. In the Destination Cluster field, select the cluster where the backups reside from the drop-down menu. To select the local cluster of the vcenter Server, select <local>. 8. (Optional) Click Advanced to specify the following details: In the Server Local Time Start field, set a start time for the server to start the backups. In the Server Local Time Stop field, set an end time for the server to stop the backups. The default end time is midnight (12:00 AM) based on the time zone set for the cluster. The frequency of the backups applies to the server start and stop time period. A default rule creates a backup every hour for the entire day. In the Days field, select one of the following: Days of the week: Days you want to create backups. You can select one or more days. The default is all seven days. Days of the month: Days in the month that you want to create backups. Click the date(s) you want. For the last day of the month (28, 29, 30, or 31), select Last Day of the Month. Leave Application Consistent unselected or select it to back up data in a consistent state. If selected, the policy uses the default VMware snapshot method to create the backup. To use a faster method, select Microsoft VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service). For the policy to use VSS, the appropriate virtual machines must have Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2012 R2 operating system and VMware Tools installed. You must also store your credentials Chapter 9: Backups 98

99 to the appropriate virtual machine using the SimpliVity "Save Credentials for VSS" option. In addition, the only supported VSS-aware application is SQL Server 2012 R2 or later. 9. Click OK. View a backup policy for a virtual machine overview You can view a SimpliVity backup policy for a particular virtual machine and access different tabs to view SimpliVity details on it. For example, you can access the Summary tab to view summary information on the virtual machine and access the backup policy to edit it. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. It lists all the virtual machines in the Federation. 3. Double-click the row with the virtual machine that has the backup policy you need to access. 4. Click the Summary tab. 5. Scroll down to the SimpliVity portlet. You see details on the CPU, memory, storage High Availability status, used storage capacity, total capacity available, number of virtual hard disks, and the backup policy name. 6. At the Backup Policy Name field, click the link with the policy name. This opens to tabs for the policy you selected. 7. Click the tab you need to access. To review the number of rules, datastores, and virtual machines that use the policy, click the Summary tab. To create a new backup policy rule, edit a rule, or delete a rule, click Edit. To access details on other virtual machines that use the policy (names, datastores, clusters, provisioned status, storage High Availability [HA] status, and vcenter), click the Related Objects tab. View virtual machines related to a backup policy overview You can view all the virtual machines associated with a backup policy. For example, you can see the virtual machine name, amount of provisioned and used memory, name of the backup policy, storage HA status (yes/no/synchronizing/unknown), name of the datastore and cluster, and IP address of the vcenter Server. Before you change a backup policy rule, you may want to check which virtual machines use the policy. Chapter 9: Backups 99

100 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab. It lists all the backup policies in the Federation. 3. From the list of backup policies, double-click the one you want to view. 4. Click the Related Objects tab. 5. Click the SimpliVity Virtual Machines subtab. This opens a list of all the related virtual machines. View datastores related to a backup policy overview You can view all the datastores that use a backup policy. For example, before you change the rules in a policy, you may want to check to see what datastores use it. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab. It lists all the backup policies in the Federation. 3. Double-click the row with the backup policy that you need to access. The application defaults to the Getting Started tab or the last tab you accessed. 4. Click the Related Objects tab. 5. Click the SimpliVity Datastores subtab. You see a list of datastores that use the backup policy you selected. The list includes details on the datastore name, creation date and time, name of the backup policy the datastore uses, size of the datastore, cluster for the datastore, and the vcenter Server IP address. Set the default backup policy for a datastore overview You can change the default backup policy used by a single datastore or for multiple datastores if you decide you want to use a different policy. Any new virtual machines using the datastore start using the new policy after you apply your changes. Any existing virtual machines continue to use the previous policy. However, you can change the policy a virtual machine uses at any time. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Datastores to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the datastore you want to update and click All SimpliVity Actions > Set Default Backup Policy. Chapter 9: Backups 100

101 To select a group of adjacent datastores, hold down the Shift key and click the first and last datastore. To select non-adjacent items, hold down the Ctrl (Control) key as you select datastores. Click Yes when prompted to confirm your selection. 4. From the Backup Policy field, select a default policy from the drop-down list. 5. If you do not see a backup policy you want to use, you can create one by clicking Create to open the New Backup Policy dialog box. Once you enter a policy name and add at least one rule to create the policy, click OK. The Set Datastore Backup Policy dialog box opens with the new policy in the Backup Policy dropdown list. 6. Click OK. Set a backup policy for a virtual machine overview You can replace an existing backup policy for a single SimpliVity virtual machine or multiple virtual machines if you decide you want to use a policy different than the one used by the datastore. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the virtual machine you want to update and click All SimpliVity Actions > Set Backup Policy. To select a group of adjacent virtual machines, hold down the Shift key and click the first and last virtual machine. To select non-adjacent selections, hold down the Ctrl (Control) key as you select virtual machines. Click Yes when prompted to confirm your selection. 4. Select the backup policy you want to apply from the Backup Policy drop-down menu. 5. If you do not see a backup policy you want to use, you can create one by clicking Create to open the Create Backup Policy dialog box. Once you enter a policy name and add at least one rule to create the policy, click OK. The Set Virtual Machine Backup Policy dialog box opens with the new policy in the Backup Policy drop-down list. To set the virtual machines to that policy, select it. 6. Click OK. 7. Review the bar chart to see the backup consumption level for the Federation on a daily basis and the predicted steady-state level. 8. Do one of the following: Chapter 9: Backups 101

102 Click Yes to set the policy for the selected virtual machines and keep the consumption levels within an acceptable range. Click No to return to the Set Virtual Machine Backup Policy dialog box and make the appropriate changes. For example, you may need to select fewer virtual machines or select another policy with a lower frequency and retention time. Repeat steps If the backups exceed the maximum amount allowed (for example, over 100%), you see a chart with the consumption information. Click OK and do one of the following to proceed: Repeat steps 3-8 to select fewer virtual machines or select another policy to reduce the number of backups. Delete unnecessary backups and repeat this procedure again. Set a backup policy for a VM template overview You can replace an existing backup policy for a virtual machine (VM) Template if you decide you want to use a policy different than the one used by the datastore. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click VM Templates to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the VM Template you want to update and click All SimpliVity Actions > Set Backup Policy. To select a group of adjacent VM templates, hold down the Shift key and click the first and last objects. To select non-adjacent selections, hold down the Ctrl (Control) key as you select objects. Click Yes when prompted to confirm your selection. 4. Select the backup policy you want to apply from the Backup Policy drop-down menu. 5. If you do not see a backup policy you want to use, you can create one by clicking Create to open the Create Backup Policy dialog box. Once you enter a policy name and add at least one rule to create the policy, click OK. The Set Virtual Machine Backup Policy dialog box opens with the new policy in the Backup Policy drop-down list. To set the VM template to that policy, select it. 6. Click OK. 7. Review the bar chart to see the backup consumption level for the Federation on a daily basis and the predicted steady-state level. 8. Do one of the following: Click Yes to set the policy for the selected templates and keep the consumption levels within an acceptable range. Chapter 9: Backups 102

103 Click No to return to the Set Virtual Machine Template Backup Policy dialog box and make the appropriate changes. For example, you may need to select fewer virtual machine templates or select another policy with a lower frequency and retention time. Repeat steps If the backups exceed the maximum amount allowed (for example, over 100%), you see a chart with the consumption information. Click OK and do one of the following to proceed: Repeat steps 3-8 to select fewer virtual machine templates or select another policy to reduce the number of backups. Delete unnecessary backups and repeat this procedure again. Rename a backup policy overview Use the following steps to rename a backup. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Do one of the following: For the Backup Policies view, click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab with a list of the names of the policies. For the Virtual Machines view, click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. Double-click the virtual machine row with the backup policy you want to edit. Click the Summary tab and scroll down to the SimpliVity portlet. Click the Backup Policy Name link from the SimpliVity portlet. 3. From the Actions menu, select Rename Backup Policy. 4. Enter the new policy name and click OK. Results The backup policy list refreshes with the policy renamed. Add a backup policy rule overview You can add a rule to a backup policy at any time. However, when the total system backups reach 100%, you cannot add a backup policy rule. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Do one of the following: For the Backup Policies view, click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab. Select the backup policy where you want to add a rule. Chapter 9: Backups 103

104 For the Virtual Machines view, click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. Double-click the virtual machine with the backup policy to which you want to add a rule. Click the Summary tab and scroll down to the SimpliVity portlet. Click the Backup Policy Name link. 3. From the Actions menu, click Edit Backup Policy. 4. Click Create Rule to open the Create Policy Rule dialog box. 5. In the Frequency field, set the time interval when backups are taken in minutes, hours, or days. The backup frequency must be less than 24 hours (or 1440 minutes). The minimum frequency interval is 10 minutes. 6. In the Retain Backups For field, set the retention time in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years. This determines when OmniStack automatically deletes the backups to create room for more backups. 7. In the Destination Cluster field, select the cluster where the backups reside from the drop-down menu. To select the local cluster of the vcenter Server, select <local>. 8. Click Advanced to specify additional details or skip to the last step. 9. In the Server Local Time Start field, set a start time for the server to start the backups. The default start time is midnight (12:00 AM) based on the time zone set for the cluster. 10. In the Server Local Time Stop field, set a stop time for the server to stop the backups. The default end time is midnight (12:00 AM) based on the time zone set for the cluster. The "Server Local Time" start and stop times control the time period when backups can start. The frequency of the backups applies to this time period. A default rule creates a backup every hour for the entire day. 11. In the Days field, select one of the following: Days of the week: Days you want to create backups. You can select or one or more days. The default is all seven days. Days of the month: Days in the month that you want to create backups. Click the date(s) you want. For the last day of the month (28, 29, 30, or 31), select Last Day of the Month. 12. Optional: Leave Application Consistent unselected or select it to back up data in a consistent state. If selected, the policy uses the default VMware snapshot method to create the backup. To use a faster method, select Microsoft VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service). For the policy to use VSS, the appropriate virtual machines must have Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2012 R2 operating system and VMware Tools installed. You must also store your credentials to the appropriate virtual machine using the SimpliVity "Save Credentials for VSS" option. In addition, the only supported VSS-aware application is SQL Server 2012 R2 or later. Chapter 9: Backups 104

105 13. Click OK. Then click OK again. 14. Review the bar chart to see the backup consumption level for the Federation on a daily basis and the predicted steady-state level. 15. Do one of the following: Click Yes to apply your changes if the policy edits keep the consumption levels within an acceptable range. Click No to return to the Create Policy Rule dialog box and make the appropriate changes. For example, you may need to lower the frequency and retention time. Repeat steps If the backups exceed the maximum amount allowed (for example, over 100%), OmniStack returns to the Edit Policy Rule dialog box. You must modify the policy again to reduce the number of backups (such as decreasing the frequency or retention time). Repeat steps Or, delete unnecessary backups and repeat this procedure again. Edit a backup policy rule overview You can modify a rule in a backup policy as long as your total system backups do not exceed 100% of the maximum backup system limit. If the backups do not exceed the limit, you can make changes at any time. Any changes you make apply to all the virtual machines that use that policy rule. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Do one of the following: For the Backup Policies view, click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab. Select the backup policy with the rule you want to edit. For the Virtual Machines view, click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. Right-click the virtual machine with the policy you want to edit and click All SimpliVity Actions > Edit Backup Policy. (You can also double-click the virtual machine name, click the Summary tab, scroll down to the SimpliVity portlet and click Backup Policy Name.) For the VM Template view, click VM Templates to open the Objects tab. Right-click the virtual machine template with the policy you want to edit and click All SimpliVity Actions > Edit Backup Policy. 3. From the list of rules, select the one you want to modify. 4. Click Edit Rule to open the Edit Policy Rule dialog box. 5. Modify the Frequency, Retain Backups For, or Destination Cluster field(s) as needed. 6. Optional: Click Advanced to modify the Server Local Time Start, Server Local Time Stop, or Days fields. For example, if the backup schedule is currently set to Days of the week with Sunday (Sun) and Friday (Fri) selected, you can change the schedule to days of the month by selecting Days of the Month and clicking the dates on which you want backups to occur. Chapter 9: Backups 105

106 7. Optional: Leave Application Consistent unselected or select it to back up data in a consistent state. If selected, the policy uses the default VMware snapshot method to create the backup. To use a faster method, select Microsoft VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service). For the policy to use VSS, the appropriate virtual machines must have Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2012 R2 operating system and VMware Tools installed. You must also store your credentials to the appropriate virtual machine using the SimpliVity "Save Credentials for VSS" option. In addition, the only supported VSS-aware application is SQL Server 2012 R2 or later. 8. Click OK. Then click OK again. 9. Review the bar chart to see the backup consumption level for the Federation on a daily basis and the predicted steady-state level. 10. Do one of the following: Click Yes to apply your changes if the policy edits keep the consumption levels within an acceptable range. Click No to return to the Edit Policy Rule dialog box and make the appropriate changes. For example, you may need to lower the frequency and retention time. Repeat steps If the backups exceed the maximum amount allowed (for example, over 100%), OmniStack returns to the Edit Policy Rule dialog box. You must modify the policy again to reduce the number of backups (such as decreasing the frequency or retention time). Repeat steps Or, delete unnecessary backups and repeat this procedure again. Delete a backup policy rule overview You can delete a rule from a backup policy at any time. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Do one of the following: For the Backup Policies view, click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab. Click the backup policy with the rule you want to delete. For the Virtual Machines view, click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. Double-click the virtual machine row with the backup policy rule you want to delete. Click the Summary tab and scroll down to the SimpliVity portlet. Click the Backup Policy Name link. 3. Do one of the following to open the Edit Backup Policy dialog box: From the Actions menu, click Edit Backup Policy. From the Rules field, click Edit. 4. Select the rule you want to delete and click Delete Rule. Hold the Shift key as you select rows if you want to select more than one rule. Chapter 9: Backups 106

107 5. Click Yes when prompted. 6. Click OK. 7. Review the bar chart to see the backup consumption level for the Federation on a daily basis and the predicted steady-state level. 8. Do one of the following: Click Yes to apply your changes if the policy edits keep the consumption levels within an acceptable range. Click No to return to the Delete Policy Rule dialog box and make the appropriate changes. For example, you may need to lower the frequency and retention time. Repeat steps 4-8. If the backups exceed the maximum amount allowed (for example, over 100%), OmniStack returns to the Edit Policy Rule dialog box. You must modify the policy again to reduce the number of backups (such as decreasing the frequency or retention time). Repeat steps Or, delete unnecessary backups and repeat this procedure again. If you deleted the last rule in the policy, you see a message indicating that automated backups cannot continue without at least one rule. Click Yes if you want to stop the backups for all the virtual machines using that backup policy. Delete a backup policy overview You can delete a backup policy from a Federation when no datastores or virtual machines use it. For example, you can check the policy a datastore or virtual machine uses by clicking the object in the SimpliVity Federation section of the inventory panel and checking the backup policy listed in the Objects tab. You cannot delete the last remaining policy for a datastore. If you do not want to create backups in a datastore that has one policy left, you can delete all the rules from the last remaining policy instead. You also cannot edit or delete the backup policy named "Fixed Default Backup Policy." This policy is automatically created by the SimpliVity extension. It does not contain rules. If you delete a backup policy, all virtual machine backups previously created under that policy remain and continue to consume storage space. You must manually delete the backups if you want to remove them. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Do one of the following: For the Backup Policies view, click Backup Policies to open the Objects tab. Select the backup policy you want to delete. For the Virtual Machines view, click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. Double-click the virtual machine row with the backup policy you want to delete. Click the Summary tab and scroll down to the SimpliVity portlet. Click the Backup Policy Name link. Chapter 9: Backups 107

108 3. From the Actions menu, select Delete Backup Policy. 4. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the selected policy. Search for backups About searching for backups You can search for manual or policy backups associated with any SimpliVity cluster or virtual machine. To perform a search, you select a SimpliVity cluster or virtual machine and click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab from the Manage tab. You can also search for backups from the SimpliVity Home tab by selecting Search Backups under the Basic Tasks menu. The SimpliVity Search Backups tab opens with a row of inactive fields that show the object you selected. (For example, you may see fields that show the cluster equals Boston.) It may also include an active row of fields that you can use in your search. Or, you can use the field drop-down lists to define a different search criteria. You can create a search query to find thousands of backups, but the screen only shows up to 500 backups at a time. You may want to refine your search to see a limited number of backups. For example, you can search on any of the items in this list and see them in a table: Datastore: Name of datastore where the backup resides. Virtual Machine: Name of the virtual machine that had the data backed up. Backup Name: Name of the backup. Application Consistent: Application consistent indicator for the backup type and the process used. You can see Yes (Default [for snapshot method]), Yes (VSS [for Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service]), or No (for crash-consistent backup). Type: Created from a policy automatically, manually backed up, or locked. Cluster: Name of the cluster where the datastore with the backup resides. Timestamp: Date and time for the backup to start (in MM/DD/YYYY and hours:minutes format). Status: Current status (for example, Protected, Cancelled, or Failed). During the backup process, you can see a status of New, Saving, Degraded, Rebuilding, or Queued. Size: Size of the backup. Sent Size: Size of the backup in physical bytes sent over the network (for remote backups only). Sent Duration: Time (in hours, minutes, or seconds [or all three]) that it took to send the data over the network (for remote backups only). Sent Completion: Date and total time for the backup to complete from start to finish (in MM/DD/ YYYY and hours:minutes format). This includes any time spent in a queued state (for remote backups only). Expires: Date and time the backup expires. VM Template: Yes for VM template backups or No for virtual machine backups. You cannot sort or filter items in this column. VM State: State of the virtual machine (Active, Removed, or Deleted). Chapter 9: Backups 108

109 Unique Backup Size: Unique backup size (if greater than or equal to used). Unique Size Calculation Time: Time when OmniStack calculated the unique size of the backup. To add a new filter row, click the plus icon ( remove a row of filters, click the minus icon ( clicking Search Backups. ). You can then set the filters to customize your search. To ). You can start the search and refresh the backup list by Search for backups through the SimpliVity Home tab overview You can initiate a search for backups from the SimpliVity Home tab or by selecting a SimpliVity cluster or virtual machine and clicking the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab from the Manage tab. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. From the SimpliVity Home tab, click Search Backups from the Basics Tasks section. This opens the Search Backups pane. The Search Backups pane initially opens with no filters or properties selected. Once you create and run a search query, the pane opens to that selection the next time the Search Backups task is initiated from the Home tab. 3. In the Select a property field (under Filters Applied), select a search parameter from the dropdown list, and complete the search criteria based on your requirements. 4. Optional: Click the plus icon ( ) to open a new Select a property field. You can add additional search criteria, such as Datastore or Timestamp. 5. Click Search Backups. The list refreshes with the criteria you specified. (To remove a property, click the minus icon [ ].) Click Search Backups whenever you change a property field to update the search and refresh the screen. 6. Click Back to SimpliVity Federation to return to the SimpliVity Home tab. Search for backups through a cluster or virtual machine overview You can search for a backup through a cluster or virtual machine and refine your search by selecting a search property option. Some options open additional fields for you to create a filter equation. This search criteria helps you quickly find the backups you need. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. Chapter 9: Backups 109

110 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Right-click the cluster or virtual machine with the backup you need to access and click All SimpliVity Actions > Search Backups. (You can also double-click the object with the backup you need to access. Click the Manage tab and click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab.) The SimpliVity Search Backups subtab opens with information on the number of filters used to list the backups. You also see inactive fields that show the object you selected. 4. In the active Select a property field (under Filters Applied), select one of the following from the drop-down list: Cluster: Select Equals, Starts with, or Contains from the drop-down list and type the letters of the name of the cluster you need to locate. (Use an asterisk as a wildcard character.) Application Consistent: Leave Equals and select Yes (Default) for VMware snapshot, Yes (VSS) for Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service, or No for crash-consistent from the dropdown list. Datastore: Select Equals, Starts with, or Contains from the drop-down list and type the letters of the name of the datastore you need to locate. (Use an asterisk as a wildcard character.) Expires (expiration date): Select Before, After, or On from the drop-down list. Then click the calendar icon and select a date. The time field defaults to 12:00 AM. Leave the default or select another one from the drop-down list of hours (12:00 AM to 11:00 PM). Name (backup name): Select Equals, Starts with, or Contains from the drop-down list and type the letters of the name of the backup you need to locate. (Use an asterisk as a wildcard character.) Sent Size (physical bytes sent): Select Greater than or Less than from the drop-down list. Enter a number for the size and select KB, MB, GB, or TB from the drop-down list. Size (backup size): Select Greater than or Less than from the drop-down list. Enter a number for the size and select KB, MB, GB, or TB from the drop-down list. Status: Leave Equals and select New, Saving, Protected, Deleted, Canceled, Failed, Queued, Degraded, or Rebuilding from the drop-down list. Timestamp: Select Before, After, or On from the drop-down list. Then click the calendar icon and select a date. The time field defaults to 12:00 AM. Leave the default or select another one from the drop-down list of hours (12:00 AM to 11:00 PM). Type (backup type): Leave Equals and select Policy, Manual, or Locked from the drop-down list. Unique Backup Size (size of the data processed and stored by the virtual machine): Select Greater than or Less than from the drop-down list. Enter a number for the size and select KB, MB, GB, or TB from the drop-down list. VM State: Leave Equals and select Active, Removed from Inventory, or Delete from Disk from the drop-down list. Virtual Machine: Select Equals, Starts with, or Contains from the drop-down list and type the letters of the name of the virtual machine you need to locate. (Use an asterisk as a wildcard character.) Chapter 9: Backups 110

111 5. Optional: Click the plus icon ( ) to open a new Select a property field. You can add additional search criteria by selecting it from the drop-down list. 6. Click Search Backups. The list refreshes with the criteria you specified. (To remove a property, click the minus icon [ ].) Click Search Backups whenever you change a property field to update the search and refresh the screen. Manage backups About managing backups An OmniStack host has a limited number of backups that it can create and store or transmit and receive from a cluster. The backup limits for an OmniStack host are: Simultaneous local backups: 100 Simultaneous backups transmitted to another datacenter: 50 Simultaneous backups received from another datacenter: 100 A SimpliVity Federation is also limited to a maximum amount of backups that it can create and store: Maximum daily backups: 725,000 Maximum total backups: 250,000 The daily limit is larger than the total limit because of policies that may use very low backup frequencies or short retention times (less than eight hours). When you create the first datastore in a cluster, OmniStack creates a default backup policy called the Fixed Default Backup policy. This policy has no rules, and you cannot modify or delete it. If you create a new virtual machine and try to assign a policy to it that causes the backups to exceed the maximum daily or total number of backups allowed, OmniStack automatically assigns the datastore default policy or the Fixed Default Backup policy to the new virtual machine. For example, if the datastore default policy prevents the backups from exceeding the limit, the new virtual machine can use it. If not, the new virtual machine must use the Fixed Default Backup policy. The Fixed Default Backup policy prevents the new virtual machine from creating more backups. To monitor the percentage of daily backups created and stored and see the percentage of projected steady-state backups the current policies can create and store in a Federation, access the Backup Consumption tab. If necessary, you can reduce the number of backups created by modifying the backup policies and decreasing the frequency or retention time. Once the backups do not exceed the limits, OmniStack can create more backups and you can assign different policies to new virtual machines. View backups overview Chapter 9: Backups 111

112 You can view backups at any time. For example, if you need to see details on the backups of a cluster or virtual machine, you can search the SimpliVity backups for those objects and find the backup you need. Some of the details you can see right away are the datastore, virtual machine, and backup name. You may also see: Application consistent status (Yes or No). If Yes, you also see the method used to create the backup ("Default" for VMware snapshot or "VSS" for Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service). Type (Policy, Manual, or Locked). Status (New, Saving, Protected, Canceled, Failed, Queued, Degraded, or Rebuilding). Cluster name. Timestamp and size of the backup. Bytes sent over the network. Virtual machine state (Active, Deleted from disk). Virtual machine template indicator (Yes or No). Expiration date and time. Unique backup (if greater than or equal to the used size) Time when the unique size was calculated. You can view up to 500 backups at a time. The SimpliVity Home tab also contains a Search Backups option to open the Search Backups tab. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. You can also view backups for a datastore by double-clicking the cluster containing the datastore, clicking Manage > SimpliVity Search Backups, and then filtering the backups based on the datastore. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). The tab populates with information on the number of filters used to list the backups (up to 500 backups at a time). You also see inactive fields that show the cluster or virtual machine you selected. 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. (For example, you can view backups for a datastore by creating a filter with a certain Chapter 9: Backups 112

113 datastore name.) Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. The list refreshes with the criteria you specified. (To remove a property, click the minus [-] button.) Click Search Backups whenever you change a property field to update the search and refresh the screen. Rename a backup overview Use the following steps to rename a backup. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines, depending on how you want to search for a backup to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object (cluster or virtual machine) with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to rename. 8. Click Backup Actions > Rename Backup. 9. Enter the new backup name and click OK. 10. Click Search Backups to refresh the view. The new name appears in the Backup Name column. Rename a backup of a VM template overview Use the following steps to rename a backup of a virtual machine template. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the cluster with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Scroll to the right of the table to view the VM Template column. The column shows Yes to indicate a VM template backup or No for a virtual machine backup. Chapter 9: Backups 113

114 7. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed to find the VM template backups, you can enter all or part of the name of the template. For example, you can select Virtual Machine from the property drop-down menu, select Equals, Starts with, Ends with, or Contains and enter all or part of the VM template name. Once you set up your filter, click Search Backups. 8. Select the row with the backup you want to rename. 9. Click Backup Actions > Rename Backup. 10. Enter the new backup name and click OK. 11. Click Search Backups to refresh the view. The new name appears in the Backup Name column. Set the retention time for a backup overview The retention time is the length of time to preserve a virtual machine backup. When the retention time expires, OmniStack automatically deletes the backup. The countdown to delete it starts immediately after OmniStack creates the backup. You can change the retention time for one backup or more at any time. Changing the retention time changes the lifetime of the backup and can make some backups delete automatically. For example, if the current retention time is three weeks and you change the retention time to two weeks, OmniStack deletes the backup if it is already older than two weeks. However, you see a prompt to cancel or confirm the deletion process. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to change. The Expires column shows the current expiration date based on the creation timestamp and current retention time. 8. Click Backup Actions > Set Retention Time. This opens the Set Backup Retention Time dialog box. It lists the backup name. 9. In the Retain Backups For field, enter a number and select Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, or Years from the drop-down list. (You can set a maximum time of 20 years.) 10. Click OK. 11. If you changed the time to a value that deletes the backup immediately, you see the Set Backup Retention Time Confirmation dialog box. Click OK to confirm the deletion process or Cancel to stop it. Chapter 9: Backups 114

115 If you want to set a backup to never expire, you can lock it instead of changing the retention time. To lock a backup, select the backup from the Search Backups list and click Backup Actions > Lock Backup. Lock a backup overview You can lock any policy (automatic) or manual backup that includes an expiration date to prevent it from being deleted. For example, when you lock a backup, the expiration date changes to Never. This excludes it from getting deleted during the cleanup process. If you do not lock it, OmniStack deletes it when the backup reaches its expiration date (retention time). You can still perform backup tasks on a locked backup. For example, you can rename the backup or restore files from it. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to lock. The backup must have a date in the Expires column to lock it. 8. Click Backup Actions > Lock Backup. 9. Click Yes when prompted if you want to exclude the backup from the scheduled cleanup. 10. Click the Refresh icon ( you locked. ) in the title bar to see the new Expires setting of Never for the backup To unlock a backup, select it and click Backup Actions > Set Retention Time and assign a new time. This changes the Expires setting from Never to a set date. For example, if you set the retention time as seven days, the countdown to delete the backup within seven days starts right after OmniStack creates the backup. (The Timestamp shows the creation date and time.) Lock a backup of a VM template overview Chapter 9: Backups 115

116 You can lock any policy (automatic) or manual backup that includes an expiration date to prevent it from being deleted. For example, when you lock a backup, the expiration date changes to Never. This excludes it from getting deleted during the cleanup process. If you do not lock it, OmniStack deletes it when the backup reaches its expiration date (retention time). You can still perform backup tasks on a locked backup. For example, you can rename the backup or restore files from it. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the cluster with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Scroll to the right of the table to view the VM Template column. The column shows Yes to indicate a VM template backup or No for a virtual machine backup. 7. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed to find the VM template backups, you can enter all or part of the name of the template. For example, you can select Virtual Machine from the property drop-down menu, select Equals, Starts with, Ends with, or Contains and enter all or part of the VM template name. Once you set up your filter, click Search Backups. 8. Select the row with the backup you want to lock. The backup must have a date in the Expires column to lock it. 9. Click Backup Actions > Lock Backup. 10. Click Yes when prompted if you want to exclude the backup from the scheduled cleanup. 11. Click the Refresh icon ( you locked. ) in the title bar to see the new Expires setting of Never for the backup To unlock a backup, select it and click Backup Actions > Set Retention Time and assign a new time. This changes the Expires setting from Never to a set date. For example, if you set the retention time as seven days, the countdown to delete the backup within seven days starts right after OmniStack creates the backup. (The Timestamp shows the creation date and time.) Export a backup overview You can export backup information to a CSV file at any time. For example, if you need printed details on the backup of a cluster or virtual machine, you can search the SimpliVity backups for any of those objects, select the backup you need, and use the Export Backups option to save the information in a spreadsheet format. Chapter 9: Backups 116

117 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on the your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your versino of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to export. 8. Click Backup Actions > Export Backups. 9. Browse to the location you where you want to export the file and click Save. The SimpliVity Extension saves the CSV file with a name that includes these details: SimpliVity_Backups_year_month_date_hour_minutes_seconds. The file includes the same backup information shown on the Search Backups screen (datastore, virtual machine name, and so on). Copy a backup to another cluster overview You can copy a backup to another cluster in the same vcenter or another vcenter (if using vcenter Linked Mode) for additional protection. If you are copying the backup to preserve an additional copy, you can lock the local copy to preserve it from automatic deletion under the backup policy rules. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to copy to another cluster. 8. Click Backup Actions > Copy Backup. This opens the Copy Backup dialog box. It lists the original virtual machine and datastore, current backup location, vcenter IP address, backup name, and creation time. Chapter 9: Backups 117

118 9. In the Destination Cluster field, click the cluster where you want to copy the backup. Check the vcenter IP address too in case the cluster uses a duplicate name. To use a filter to locate a cluster or vcenter, enter a word that appears in the cluster name or the vcenter IP address you need to find. 10. Click OK. Copy a VM template backup to another cluster overview You can copy a backup of a virtual machine template to another cluster in the same vcenter or another vcenter with Linked Mode for additional protection. If you are copying the backup to preserve an additional copy, you can lock the local copy to preserve it from automatic deletion under the backup policy rules. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the cluster with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Scroll to the right of the table to view the VM Template column. The column shows Yes to indicate a VM template backup or No for a virtual machine backup. 7. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed to find the VM template backups, you can enter all or part of the name of the template. For example, you can select Virtual Machine from the property drop-down menu, select Equals, Starts with, Ends with, or Contains and enter all or part of the VM template name. Once you set up your filter, click Search Backups. 8. Select the row with the backup you want to copy to another cluster. 9. Click Backup Actions > Copy Backup. This opens the Copy Backup dialog box. It lists the original virtual machine and datastore, current backup location, vcenter IP address, backup name, and creation time. 10. In the Destination Cluster field, click the cluster where you want to copy the backup. Check the vcenter IP address too in case the cluster uses a duplicate name. To use a filter to locate a cluster or vcenter, enter a word that appears in the cluster name or the vcenter IP address you need to find. 11. Click OK. Chapter 9: Backups 118

119 Cancel a backup overview You can cancel a backup in process (in the New, Saving, or Queued status). For example, if you notice the backups reaching the recommended limit of 250,000 backups, you may want to cancel another backup. Then you can delete unnecessary backups before you continue to create more. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to cancel. 8. Click Backup Actions > Cancel Backups. 9. Click Yes when prompted. To refresh the screen and see the status of the backup change to Canceled, click Search Backups. Delete a backup overview You can delete one or more backups at any time. For example, if you know you are running out of storage space, you can delete unnecessary or expired backups to make room for new backups. SimpliVity recommends storing 250,000 backups or less for the best performance. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to delete. To select more than one item, hold down the Ctrl key and click individual rows. Or, hold down the Shift key to select a contiguous group of rows. Chapter 9: Backups 119

120 8. Click Backup Actions > Delete Backups. 9. Click Yes when prompted. The list refreshes and no longer shows the backups you deleted. If you attempt to delete a remote backup (for example, a backup that resides in a cluster other than the local one) and the backup had a status of Saving, the backup may complete the save process and remain stored. If you see the backup has a status of Saving, cancel the Saving process first and then delete the backup. About calculating unique data in backups You can obtain an estimate of the amount of unique data in a virtual machine backup. This calculation indicates the amount of physical space recoverable if you decide to delete or move the backup. Deleting unique data frees up physical space. Recent virtual machine backups tend to contain a smaller amount of unique data compared to older backups. For example, if you have a 100 GB virtual machine (the source virtual machine), where you take VMBackup-1 at 10:00 p.m. You then run the source virtual machine and 10 GB of data is modified in the data files. You then take another backup, VMBackup-2, at 12:00 p.m. VMBackup-1 has a logical size of 100 GB, but shares 90 GB with VMBackup-2 and the source virtual machine. Therefore: VMBackup-1 contains 10 GB of unique data, corresponding to the 10 GB change in the source virtual machine between 10:00 p.m. and 12:00 p.m. VMBackup-2 has a logical size of 100 GB, but contains 0 (zero) bytes of unique data at 12:00 p.m., because its data content is equivalent to the source virtual machine at that point in time. The value calculated for unique data is a close estimate of the actual on-disk value and is accurate only at the point-in-time that you initiate a calculation. However, you should expect the value to be reasonably close to the amount of free physical space that you can reclaim by deleting the backup, provided you do this within minutes of initiating a calculation. The freed space might not be available immediately. On a Federation with typical or lower rates of I/ O, reclaimed physical space is available within a few minutes of deleting an unwanted backup. On an active Federation, with higher rates of I/0, it might take some time for the reclaimed physical space to be represented in the Logical Capacity and Physical Capacity panels. Also, it can take some time before reclaimed space resolves any current cluster storage capacity alarm conditions such as:\ SimpliVity Clust physical capacity is running low. Usage: <Percent Used>%. In a new Federation, or for virtual machines recently added to an established Federation, you might have a large number of virtual machine backups that contain very little unique data. Consequently, locating backups to delete might be less effective than other methods of reclaiming storage space, such as deleting unwanted virtual machines from inventory. The process of calculating unique data Chapter 9: Backups 120

121 consumes system resources and might result in a noticeable decrease in I/O performance and slower Federation response times. You can: View the most recently calculated unique size of an individual backup, which also includes a timestamp of when the size estimate was calculated. The size and timestamp will show as never and unknown if the backup size has never been calculated for a specific virtual machine. Manually calculate (or recalculate) the unique data size of an individual backup. About alternate methods of reclaiming physical space Deleting backups is only one of a number of methods of freeing up physical space. You can also Delete any unwanted virtual machines that are already removed from inventory. Delete any existing surplus virtual machines such as test virtual machines or clones. Clean up backups with a DELETED status while retaining the minimum required for recovery according to your recovery point objective. Backups created with a policy use retention rules to expire. Backups created manually do not expire. You must delete them manually. Reduce backups of current virtual machines to an optimum level. Ensure the backup policy rules are creating an optimum number of backups. Move virtual machines to locations with more available resources. Calculate unique backup size overview You can calculate the unique size of a backup. For example, you may want to do this to calculate the amount of unique data in a backup. This helps you see how much free space you can recover if you decide to delete (or move) the backup. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus (+) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. 7. Click the Refresh icon ( ) to update the list of backups. Then select the row with the backup where you need to calculate the unique data. Chapter 9: Backups 121

122 8. Click Backup Actions > Calculate Unique Backup Size. You see a prompt indicating that the calculation process can impact I/O. 9. Click Yes to confirm that you want to proceed with the calculation. 10. Wait for the unique backup size and time of calculation appear with a Completed status in the Recent Tasks panel. (You may need to click the Refresh icon [ ] at the top of the application.) When the calculation finishes, scroll to the right of the Search Backups chart to view the value in the Unique Backup Size column. You can also see the date and time in the Unique Size Calculation Time column. 11. If you want to delete the backup, right-click the row and select Delete Backup. Restore SimpliVity backups About restoring backups Restore a backup by: Creating a new SimpliVity virtual machine or VM template from a backup. Replacing the data on an existing virtual machine or VM template with the data from another backup. Restoring one or more files or folders from a backup of a virtual machine and copying them to the same or a different virtual machine. Create a new virtual machine or VM template from a backup 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters, Virtual Machines, or VM Templates to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus ( ) icon to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters click Search Backups. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to use to restore the virtual machine or template. 8. Click Backup Actions > Restore Virtual Machine or Restore VM Template. The Restore dialog box opens with details on the history of the backup. It includes details on the backup name, time of backup, original name of the virtual machine or template that was backed up, original datastore that contains the backup, cluster for the datastore, and IP address of the vcenter Server. 9. Leave Create a new virtual machine or Create a new VM template selected to use the backup to create a new virtual machine or template. Chapter 9: Backups 122

123 10. In the New Virtual Machine Name or New VM Template Name field, leave the current name or enter a new one (up to 80 characters). Avoid special characters (for example, /, \, [, ], %) and use underscores or dashes between words instead of spaces. 11. In the Destination Cluster field, leave the current cluster or select another one from the dropdown menu. If you do not see the datastore you need, type the name in the search field to access it. 12. Click OK. When you view a list of virtual machines or templates through the Objects tab, you see the new virtual machine or template in the list with the name you chose. Replace a virtual machine or VM template with a backup 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Clusters, Virtual Machines, or VM Template to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with the backup you need to access. 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on the your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus ( ) button to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters, click Search Backups. The list refreshes with the criteria you specified. 7. Select the row with the backup you want to use to replace the data on the virtual machine. 8. Click Backup Actions > Restore Virtual Machine or Restore VM Template. The Restore dialog box opens with details on the history of the backup. It includes details on the backup name, time of backup, virtual machine that was backed up, datastore that contains the backup, and cluster for the datastore. 9. Select Replace existing virtual machine or Replace existing VM Template to replace the data on the virtual machine or template you selected with the data from the backup you selected. 10. Click OK. 11. Click Yes to confirm that you want to change the data on the selected virtual machine or template. (The virtual machine powers off during the restore process.) 12. When done, click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link to see the backup listed for the virtual machine or template you selected. Restore files from a backup You can restore files or folders (one or more) to a virtual machine associated with the backup. Before you begin The target VM for the restored files must be powered on. Chapter 9: Backups 123

124 Do not restore core Windows operating system files such as boot, registry or.dll files. For more information, refer to the third-party documentation for your applications or contact SimpliVity Customer Support. Do not restore from Junction Point folders (folders acting as an alias or symbolic link to a directory). Select files and folders on native NTFS partitions only. The ISO image of restored content cannot contain files and folders on non-native NTFS partitions that use Windows RAID, striping, or spanning for file systems, such as Self-certifying File System (SFS). File and folder permissions are not preserved when the ISO image of the restored file appears on the target virtual machine. This includes access masks and file ownership. Only the user authorized to access the target virtual machine (or an administrator) can access the restored content. If you minimize the Restore Files wizard to pause the restoration process, the wizard appears in the Work In Progress panel until you click it again. You can then continue through the wizard. But, if you minimize the Restore Files wizard, log out of vsphere Web Client, and log back in, the Work In Progress panel appears empty. You cannot continue where you left off in the restoration process. You must start the Restore Files wizard again. The restored image only remains on the target virtual machine as an ISO image on the DVD drive for 24 hours (based on the image creation timestamp). The OmniStack software deletes it after that time. overview If a file becomes corrupt on a virtual machine, you can locate the backup for that virtual machine, browse to the last good version of the file, and restore it. The restored file appears as an ISO image on the DVD drive of the target virtual machine. The end user (or administrator) can copy the restored file from the target virtual machine to a preferred location. In a ROBO environment, file level restore can only take place between the hub and spoke and not between spokes. You can restore files to any Windows virtual machine in any SimpliVity cluster in the Federation if the selected backup originated from the hub. However, if the selected backup originated from a spoke, you can only restore files to Windows virtual machines located in the hub cluster or in the cluster of the selected backup. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the virtual machine with the backup you need to access. (The virtual machine must use a Windows operation system to restore files.) 4. Click the Manage or Configure tab (depending on your version of vsphere). 5. Click the SimpliVity Search Backups subtab or link (depending on your version of vsphere). 6. Optional: If you need to filter the backups listed, click the plus ( ) icon to open a Select a property field. Select the property you want to use to set up filtering equations to search for backups. Once you set up your filters click Search Backups. Chapter 9: Backups 124

125 7. Select the row with the backup that contains the files or folders you need to restore. 8. Click Backup Actions > Restore Files. The Restore Files wizard opens. Click Next to open the Select Files screen. 9. Expand the.vmdk disc and then the NTFS Partition that contains the files and folders in the backup. 10. Select the checkbox next to the file or folder you need to restore. There is no limit to the number of files and folders you can select, but you can only restore up to 32 GB of content. The Restore Wizard displays the total known size of selected files, but not folders. For example, if you select a file that exceeds 32 GB, you see an error message to make another selection. However, you do not see an error message if you select a folder that exceeds the limit. You can determine the total known size of a selected folder by opening the folder (and any subfolders) to the file level. Review the Size column to check the size of the files you selected. If necessary, change your selection before you continue to ensure the restore process succeeds. 11. Click Next to open the Select Destination screen. 12. In the Destination Cluster field, select the cluster where the target virtual machine resides from the drop-down list. Once you select a cluster, you see a list of available virtual machines appear in a table. It lists the virtual machine name, datastore it uses, provisioned space on the datastore, and used space. By default, the Destination Cluster field lists the cluster associated with the backup. In a ROBO configuration only clusters connected to the cluster that the backup is associated with are available from the drop-down list. 13. Select the virtual machine where you want to restore the files. (The restored file appears as an ISO image on the DVD drive of the virtual machine you select.) Click Next. 14. Review the Source Information about the backup and the Target Information about the virtual machine receiving the restored files. Click Finish. Wait until the restoration task finishes before attempting to restore another file. You can monitor the progress through the Recent Tasks panel. 15. Notify the end user that the restored files reside on the DVD drive as an ISO image on the target virtual machine. The user (or you) must copy the restored image to a preferred location within 24 hours. 16. Unmount the DVD with the ISO image. You must do this before you restore files from the same backup or destination to successfully complete the next restoration process. Chapter 9: Backups 125

126 If you do not unmount the image, OmniStack automatically unmounts it and deletes the ISO image from the Virtual Controller after 24 hours to ensure other restored files can reside on the virtual machine (if necessary). About restoring VSS backups Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) based backups are restored by first restoring the virtual machine to create a new VM and then identifying and reverting the shadow copy volumes or individual files. Before you begin: When performing this procedure on a guest VM: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) based backups Verify that applications such as SQL Server as well as any applications writing to the SQL database are stopped. Do not attempt to restore the System Volume (C:\). Be sure to restore all non-c:\ volumes used by the SQL database. Failing to do so leaves the database in an inconsistent state. This process includes the following tasks: Restore an entire virtual machine using svt-backup-restore. Identify the shadow copies to be restored. Revert the selected volumes using either the diskshadow utility or the revert.ps1 PowerShell script. Revert individual files by making the shadow copy visible as another drive and copying individual files from the shadow copy to the original volume. Restore an entire virtual machine overview Restore an entire virtual machine using svt-backup-restore to create a new VM. Restore the virtual machine using svt-backup-restore. The following example creates a new virtual machine with volumes that are in a post-quiesced state: svt-backup-restore --vm Win2k12 --datastore DS1 --backup NyBackup --name Restored_Win2k12A new VM Restored_Win2k12 Revert shadow volumes using diskshadow utility Use the diskshadow utility on the guest virtual machine to revert volumes. Chapter 9: Backups 126

127 1. Locate the backup information in its known location. In this example, the backup directory is \OmniStackBackup\: cd c:\omnistackbackup\backup_3e3f125c-b baf4-fd41e Copy the name of the "cab" file for use in later steps: C:\OmniStackBackup\backup_3e3f125c-b baf4-fd41e > dir Directory: C:\OmniStackBackup\backup_3e3f125c-b baf4-fd41e Mode LastWriteTime Length a--8/3/2016 5:41 PM _ _WIN-0794DN22RK5.cab -a--8/3/2016 5:41 PM 0 -a--8/3/2016 5:41 PM a--8/3/2016 5:41 PM 250 -a--8/3/2016 5:41 PM 5319 Name ---cmd_ t err cmd_ t out shadowcopy.dsh shadowcopy.ps1 C:\OmniStackBackup\backup_3e3f125c-b baf4-fd41e > diskshadow Microsoft DiskShadow version 1.0 Copyright (C) 2013 Microsoft Corporation On computer: WIN-0794DN22RK5, 8/3/2016 6:05:21 PM 3. Load the metadata file you identified in the previous step so that you can use the short cuts: DISKSHADOW> load metadata _ _WIN-0794DN22RK5.cab Alias VSS_SHADOW_1 for value {f8a a21-4eec-8ee5-198b7ce78023} set as an environment variable. Alias VSS_SHADOW_2 for value {b63bcdc9-0f35-4d32-b f1e3cc066} set as an environment variable. Alias VSS_SHADOW_3 for value {6b8a b3-462e-a443-1a2e3bf34804} set as an environment variable. Alias VSS_SHADOW_4 for value {633c6f9f-c b-a0c0-dc24ec4f153c} set as an environment variable. Alias VSS_SHADOW_SET for value {b948cf13-a6c2-464e-89f9-a6f175cb3bef} set as an environment variable. 4. Identify the Volume Shadow Copies Available. The output in the following example is truncated to show only one volume: DISKSHADOW> list shadows all Querying all shadow copies on the computer... * Shadow copy ID = {b63bcdc9-0f35-4d32-b f1e3cc066} %VSS_SHADOW_2% - Shadow copy set: {b948cf13-a6c2-464e-89f9-a6f175cb3bef} %VSS_SHADOW_SET% - Original count of shadow copies = 4 - Original volume name: \\?\Volume{dba16e9c-25ff-4c19-8a5da862cf0872d3}\ [E:\] - Creation time: 8/3/2016 5:41:49 PM - Shadow copy device name: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device \HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy3 - Originating machine: WIN-0794DN22RK5 - Service machine: WIN-0794DN22RK5 - Not exposed - Provider ID: {b b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5} - Attributes: No_Auto_Release Persistent Differential Chapter 9: Backups 127

128 * Shadow copy ID = {6b8a b3-462e-a443-1a2e3bf34804} %VSS_SHADOW_3% - Shadow copy set: {b948cf13-a6c2-464e-89f9-a6f175cb3bef} %VSS_SHADOW_SET% - Original count of shadow copies = 4 - Original volume name: \\?\Volume{796f6e1a acf7-9037c0b3f107}\ [F:\] - Creation time: 8/3/2016 5:41:49 PM - Shadow copy device name: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device \HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy4 - Originating machine: WIN-0794DN22RK5 - Service machine: WIN-0794DN22RK5 - Not exposed - Provider ID: {b b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5} - Attributes: No_Auto_Release Persistent Differential Number of shadow copies listed: 5 5. Revert the volume using the shortcut. The following example shows the E volume reverted using the shortcut %VSS_SHADOW_2%: WARNING: Before reverting the volume, verify that applications such as SQL Server as well as any applications writing to the SQL database are stopped. DISKSHADOW> revert %VSS_SHADOW_2% -> %VSS_SHADOW_2% = {b63bcdc9-0f35-4d32-b f1e3cc066} Reverting to shadow copy ID {b63bcdc9-0f35-4d32-b f1e3cc066} on volume \\?\Volume{dba16e9c-25ff-4c19-8a5d-a862cf08 72d3}\ from provider {b b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}. Shadow copy attributes: [0x ]... The volume was successfully reverted to the shadow copy. The shadow copy is deleted. 6. Repeat this for every volume for which you made a shadow copy except possibly c:\ and the unnamed partition. 7. Restart all applications once the restore completes. Revert shadow copy volumes using PowerShell script overview Use the revert.ps1 PowerShell script to revert shadow copy data after a backup has been restored. The revert script has five optional flags: version, list, revert, checkdb, and cleanup. The list and cleanup switches can only be used when the revert is performed. WARNING: There are several things to consider before using the revert.ps1 PowerShell script. The VSS revert operation can only be performed once, and can t be undone. All instances of SQL Server will be stopped before reverting the shadow copies. All connections to the SQL server will be forcibly terminated. Chapter 9: Backups 128

129 Any databases stored on the system drive (typically the C: drive) will not be recovered as part of the reverting of the shadow copies. This may cause inconsistencies between databases on the system drive and databases on the volumes to be reverted. All data stored on the volumes other than the system disk (volume) will be replaced with data from shadow copies when the volumes are reverted. If you have made changes to those volumes since the shadow copies were made, those changes will be irretrievably lost. Option Description -checkdb Runs DBCC CHECKDB on all databases for all instances on the local system. Prints out an error if a problem is found with the database. This can take a very long time for large databases. -cleanup After reverting the shadow copies, deletes the.cab file used to find the list of shadows and all unused shadow copies that were found in the manifest file. To manually delete the VSS shadow copies, use the diskshadow.exe utility subcommand delete shadows all. -list Lists all available shadows after the revert of the shadows has completed. To obtain a listing of all VSS shadows before running the script, use the diskshadow.exe utility sub-command list shadows all. -revert Discovers all the.cab files and selects the most recent one so that the most up-to-date VSS shadow copies are reverted. Reverts all drives found in the manifest EXCEPT for the system drive. -verbose PowerShell common parameter that enables additional output; normally highlighted in yellow. -version Reports the version of the script and exits About the revert.ps1 PowerShell script Use the revert.ps1 PowerShell script to revert the data disks after a Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) backup has been restored and the virtual machine has been started. The VSS backup process creates a subdirectory in the %SystemDrive%:\OmniStackBackup directory. The subdirectory contains one or more.cab files that were created when the VSS backup was performed. The.CAB file is a file of files (similar to ZIP), one of which is a manifest file that has a Chapter 9: Backups 129

130 list of all the volumes that comprise a VSS backup. If the VSS backup had to restart, then it is possible that a subdirectory contains more than one.cab file. The subdirectory is cleaned as part of the backup process, and typically does not remain on a virtual machine, but will be present after a restore. When a Volume Shadow copy is reverted, it replaces the original volume from which it was copied. This is similar to the VMware Snapshot revert operation, but for a Windows volume. The VSS copy replaces the original volume, and the original volume is destroyed. If the original volume contains new data that was added after the VSS copy was created, then that data is lost when it is replaced with the shadow copy. One of the system restrictions is that the system drive (typically the C: drive) cannot be replaced with its shadow. The revert.ps1 PowerShell script detects which drive is the system drive, and removes it from the list of volumes to revert. If you have databases on the System drive, they are restored as part of the restoration process, but they will not be reverted to a VSS consistent point in time. The revert.ps1 PowerShell script uses a Windows utility, called diskshadow.exe, to perform all the necessary VSS operations. You can manually run the diskshadow.exe utility to perform common operations, such as: list all shadows (list shadows all), delete shadows (delete shadows all), mount shadows read-only (expose), read a cab file (load metadata), and so on. The diskshadow.exe utility is also the utility that creates the.cab file as part of creating a VSS shadow copy. The revert.ps1 script does the following: 1. If you set the -revert switch, the script: Discovers all the.cab files in the %SystemDrive%:\OmniStackBackup directory and subdirectories. If there are no.cab files found, the script prints a message to that effect and stops. Selects the most recent.cab file so that the most recent VSS shadow copies are reverted. Extracts from the.cab the Manifest.xml which has the list of shadows and their volume name (drive letter). Stops all instances of SQL Server. Reverts all drives found in the manifest EXCEPT for the system drive (typically the C: drive). Starts all instances of SQL Server. 2. If you set the -cleanup switch, the script deletes the newest.cab file and all unused VSS shadow copies found in the manifest. 3. If you set the -list switch, the script lists all remaining VSS shadow copies it finds on the system. For most systems, there will not be any remaining VSS shadow copies. If there are remaining VSS shadow copies, you can manually delete them using the diskshadow.exe utility (subcommand delete shadows all). 4. If you set the checkdb switch, the script runs "DBCC CHECKDB on all databases on all instances on the local system. If the script find a problem with a database, it prints out an error. This can take a very long time for large databases. The PowerShell revert script can be found in %SystemDrive%:\OmniStackBackups directory. Restore individual files Restore individual files by making the shadow copy visible as another drive, and then copying individual files from the shadow copy to the original volume. Chapter 9: Backups 130

131 1. Once you identify the available shadow copies using DISKSHADOW> list shadows all from the previous steps, use the expose command to make the shadow copy visible as another drive: DISKSHADOW> expose %VSS_SHADOW_3% q: -> %VSS_SHADOW_3% = {6b8a b3-462e-a443-1a2e3bf34804} The shadow copy was successfully exposed as q:\. 2. A drive "q:\" appears in windows explorer which can be browsed and copied from. When done retrieving files, simply undo the previous "expose" operation: DISKSHADOW> unexpose q: Shadow copy ID {6b8a b3-462e-a443-1a2e3bf34804} is no longer exposed. 3. The drive disappears but in this case, the shadow copy remains for future access. When you finish with the shadow copy, you can delete it: DISKSHADOW> delete shadows ID %VSS_SHADOW_3% -> %VSS_SHADOW_3% = {6b8a b3-462e-a443-1a2e3bf34804} Deleting shadow copy {6b8a b3-462e-a443-1a2e3bf34804}... 1 shadow copy deleted. Restore backups when the Hypervisor Management Service is down Restoring a backup to a new virtual machine when the Hypervisor Management System is down Use this procedure to restore a virtual machine backup to a new virtual machine at any accessible cluster and datastore when the Hypervisor Management System (HMS) is down. Before you begin A SimpliVity CLI account (svtcli) password is required. Before using this procedure, a best practice is to determine the issues causing HMS to be down and return HMS to an operational state. When HMS is not in an operational state, use the svt-backuprestore command with the --emergency switch to restore a virtual machine backup to a new virtual machine. 1. Open an SSH connection directly to the SimpliVity host Virtual Controller and log in to your SimpliVity CLI (svtcli) account. 2. Run the svt-backup-show command with the --emergency switch to determine the backup to restore on a new virtual machine. svt-backup-show [--datastore datastore-name GUID] --emergency [--vm vmname GUID] Chapter 9: Backups 131

132 3. Run the svt-backup-restore command with the --emergency switch to create the new virtual machine that will contain the restored backup. svt-backup-restore --emergency --datastore datastore-name GUID -vm vm-name GUID --backup backup-name GUID --source datacenter-name -destination datacentername GUID --emergency vm-name GUID --home datastorename GUID --name vm-name GUID Keep the terminal window open. A CLI command is required later in this procedure. 4. Log in to the SimpliVity host on which the new virtual machine resides. If you're using VMware vsphere 6.5, log in using the ESXi web interface. If you're using VMware vsphere 6.0 or earlier, log in using the standalone vsphere client. 5. Right-click the datastore that will contain the new virtual machine and select Browse Datastore. During manual import, the ESXi web interface does not allow you to provide a different name to a virtual machine, which may result in duplicate machine names, and cause confusion during the restoration process. One solution is to right-click, and add a note that identifies the original virtual machine. Another solution is to rename the original virtual machine before you import it. 6. Open the folder for the new virtual machine. 7. Right-click the.vmx file and select Add to Inventory. 8. Specify the name and cluster location of the new virtual machine. Click Next. 9. Select the SimpliVity host on which to run the new virtual machine. Click Next. 10. Click Finish to register the new virtual machine. This displays the new virtual machine in the vsphere Client inventory. 11. In vsphere Client, right-click the new virtual machine and select Power > Power On. When you restore a Hypervisor Management System (HMS) virtual machine to a backup, any new datacenters, clusters, or hosts that you added after the creation of the backup where the virtual machine was restored must be manually re-added to the HMS inventory. Use the same datacenter, cluster, or host name when you re-add them. See the vsphere Web Client help for information about adding a datacenter, cluster, or host. 12. If vsphere Client triggers an alarm that a MAC address is not assigned to the new virtual machine, perform these steps: a) In vsphere Client, right-click the old virtual machine that you specified in step 2 and select Edit Settings. b) Click the Hardware tab and the network adapter. c) Copy the MAC address. Click OK. d) In vsphere Client, right-click the new virtual machine and select Edit Settings. Chapter 9: Backups 132

133 e) Click the Hardware tab and the network adapter. f) Select the Manual radio button and paste the MAC address of the old virtual machine into the MAC address field of the new virtual machine. Click OK. g) Right-click the new virtual machine and select Power > Power On. 13. If you restored a virtual machine hosting the HMS, complete the following steps: a) Wait for HMS to be fully operational. When you can log in to the HMS via vsphere Client, perform the remaining steps. b) Run the svt-emergency-hms-sync command to synchronize the HMS inventory with the configuration stored in the SimpliVity Federation. c) Remove any orphaned virtual machines from all SimpliVity hosts, then run the svtemergency-hms-sync command. See VMware KB article for more information. Remove virtual machines with (Orphaned) appended to the virtual machine name only. Do not remove virtual machines with (Inaccessible) appended to the virtual machine name. Restore a virtual machine from a backup when Hypervisor Management System is down You can restore a virtual machine from a backup when the Hypervisor Management System (HMS) is down to recover a virtual machine. This will replace the contents of the virtual machine with the contents that existed at the time the backup was created. Before you begin Restoring a virtual machine deletes any data changes that occurred since you created the backup. This procedure is only intended to restore a virtual machine from a backup when HMS is down. Best practice before using this procedure is to determine the issues causing HMS to be down and return HMS to operational state. When HMS is in operational state, use the svt-vm-restore command to restore a virtual machine from a backup. A SimpliVity CLI account (svtcli) password is required. overview You can restore a virtual machine from a backup when the Hypervisor Management System (HMS) is down to recover a virtual machine. This will replace the contents of the virtual machine with the contents that existed at the time the backup was created. Restoring a virtual machine deletes any data changes that occurred since you created the backup. Chapter 9: Backups 133

134 1. Open an SSH connection directly to the SimpliVity host Virtual Controller and log in to your SimpliVity CLI (svtcli) account. 2. Run the svt-backup-show command with the --emergency switch to determine the backup from which to restore the virtual machine. svt-backup-show [--datastore datastore-name GUID] --emergency [--vm vmname GUID] 3. Run the svt-vm-restore command with the --emergency switch to restore the virtual machine from a backup. svt-vm-restore --datastore datastore-name GUID --vm vm-name GUID -- backup backup-name GUID Keep the terminal window open. A CLI command is required later in this procedure. 4. In vsphere Client, log in to the SimpliVity host on which the restored virtual machine resides. 5. Right-click the restored virtual machine and select Power > Power On. 6. If you restored a virtual machine hosting the HMS, complete the following steps: When you restore a Hypervisor Management System (HMS) virtual machine to a backup, any new datacenters, clusters, or hosts that you added after the creation of the backup to which the virtual machine was restored must be manually re-added to the HMS inventory. Use the same datacenter, cluster, or host name when you re-add them. See the vsphere Web Client help for information about adding a datacenter, cluster, or host. a) Wait for HMS to be fully operational. When you can log in to HMS via vsphere Client, perform the remaining steps. b) Run the svt-emergency-hms-sync command to synchronize the HMS inventory with the configuration stored in the SimpliVity Federation. c) Remove any orphaned virtual machines from all SimpliVity hosts, then run the svt-emergencyhms-sync command. See VMware KB article for more information. Remove virtual machines with (Orphaned) appended to the virtual machine name only. Do not remove virtual machines with (Inaccessible) appended to the virtual machine name. Chapter 9: Backups 134

135 Chapter 10: Troubleshooting This section contains the following topics: Cluster issues Host issues Virtual machine issues Backup issues Miscellaneous issues Cluster issues Cannot use certain options to customize the search in a SimpliVity Virtual Machine table for a cluster From vsphere Web Client Home, you click SimpliVity Federation > Clusters and can see all the clusters listed in the Objects tab. You can then double-click a cluster, click the Related Objects tab, and click the SimpliVity Virtual Machines subtab to list the virtual machines in the cluster. However, when you try to use the Filter or Find options on the Provisioned, Used, or Storage HA columns, those options do not function. Solution No solution is available at this time. You cannot use the Filter or Find options on the Provisioned, Used, or Storage HA columns in the SimpliVity Virtual Machines table for a cluster. No data is displayed in the SimpliVity Performance view If no data was available during a particular data range or if the data range is set to one minute and the client and server clocks are more than one minute apart, the data points in the server data when mapped to the client chart are not visible. Solution Use the data range slider to expand the range of viewed data until the data comes into view. Also, ensure that the server and client clocks are synchronized. Chapter 10: Troubleshooting 135

136 Host issues Cannot see a Virtual Controller name change in the SimpliVity Host table for a cluster You click Home > SimpliVity Federation > Clusters, double-click the cluster, and click the Virtual Machines tab to list the virtual machines in a cluster. You then right-click the virtual machine named OmniCubeVC and use the vsphere Rename option to rename it. You see the new Virtual Controller name in the list for the vsphere Virtual Machine tab, but you cannot see the new name in the Virtual Controller Name column for OmniStack hosts. For example, you continue to see the old name appear in the Virtual Controller Name column when you click Home > SimpliVity Federation > Clusters, double-click the cluster, and click the SimpliVity Hosts subtab. You also see the old name when you click Home > SimpliVity Federation > Hosts. The Virtual Controller is a virtual machine dedicated to the OmniStack host. It runs the OmniStack software. It defaults to a name with OmniCubeVC-<management IP address>. The Virtual Machines tab is a vsphere tab, not a SimpliVity Virtual Machines tab. The SimpliVity tab and options do not list the Virtual Controller as a virtual machine. Solution Do not use the vsphere Rename option to change the name of the OmniStack Virtual Controller. The default name of OmniCubeVC-<management IP address> helps you identify it as a unique part of an OmniStack host. Virtual machine issues Cannot see any virtual machines listed in the Objects tab You clicked Virtual Machines from the SimpliVity section of the vcenter Inventory Lists panel. The panel lists a virtual machine name in gray, italic letters with (inaccessible) next to the name. You can see all the other virtual machines listed in the inventory panel, but you cannot see any virtual machines listed in the Objects tab. The tab appears empty. Solution A virtual machine can become inaccessible due to a power outage or if the datastore becomes inaccessible (for example, from corrupt metadata, a damaged disk, or invalid lock types). To resolve this issue, try one of the following: Right-click the inaccessible virtual machine and select Power On (if available) to start up the virtual machine. Right-click the inaccessible virtual machine and select Remove from Inventory. This vsphere option removes the virtual machine from inventory, but retains its files. You can then restore the virtual machine to inventory by creating a new virtual machine from a backup. Once the virtual machine is accessible (or removed), you can see all the virtual machines in the Objects tab. Chapter 10: Troubleshooting 136

137 Performing an action on a virtual machine produces an error after it completes successfully You performed a SimpliVity action on a virtual machine (for example, moving it to another datastore) and the action completed successfully, but you saw an error appear in the Recent Tasks panel. Also, the log files show a data source exception: no virtual machine objects found error. Solution You may see errors after performing tasks on virtual machines if another user in another session tried to perform an action on the same virtual machine while you were performing your action on it. If you see an error after successfully performing an action, click Refresh ( ) to clear it. Also, avoid performing tasks on virtual machines at the same time another user may try to access the same virtual machine (if possible). Deleting a virtual machine removes it from the list in the Objects tab, but does not the reduce the count You chose a virtual machine and selected Remove from Inventory to remove the virtual machine and retain its files or Delete from Disk to delete the virtual machine and all its files. After you complete the task, you notice that the object count in the tab and inventory panel show the same value as before you deleted the virtual machine. It does not decrease. Solution Click the Refresh icon ( ). If that does not adjust the count to the appropriate value, continue to perform other tasks and then click Refresh again. Backup issues See an error when creating a backup policy rule From vsphere Web Client Home, you clicked SimpliVity Federation > Create Backup Policy to create a backup policy. After entering a name and clicking Create Rule, you entered letters or negative numbers in the Frequency or Retain Backups For fields. After selecting a cluster and clicking OK, you see an input string or a negative numbers error and could not create the rule. Solution Enter whole numbers in the Frequency and Retain Backups For fields to successfully create a backup policy rule. You cannot enter letters or negative numbers. See an error when replacing an existing virtual machine with a backup From vsphere Web Client Home, you clicked SimpliVity Federation > Virtual Machine (or Cluster), searched for backups, and selected the backup to replace an existing virtual machine with a backup. When you selected Backup Actions > Restore Virtual Machine and selected the Replace existing virtual machine option, you saw an Unknown datastore message and could not replace the virtual machine with the backup. Chapter 10: Troubleshooting 137

138 Solution The original datastore no longer exists. Select Create new virtual machine instead and select another datastore from the Destination Datastore drop-down list. Sorting filtered backups based on unique size calculation time results in an incorrect sorting of the column Filtering backups on the basis of the unique size calculation results in an incorrect sorting of the column. Solution No solution is available at this time. Sorting filtered backups based on unique backup size results in an incorrect sorting of the column Filtering backups on the basis of the unique backup size when some backup sizes are unknown results in an incorrect sorting of the column. Solution The column sorts correctly if all backup sizes are known. Miscellaneous issues Export List feature does not display provisioned nor used values with measurement units An Exported list of SimpliVity virtual machines does not provide Provisioned and Used values with measurement units as they are displayed by VMware. Solution An Exported list (.csv) of SimpliVity virtual machines provides raw provisioned and used values with no units. The corresponding values when viewed on the datastore related VM tab are displayed with units (for example GB). Providing the raw values in the.csv output allows the user to perform calculations in the spreadsheet without first converting the numbers. See "All SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client Actions" option for unexpected virtual objects If you use vsphere Web Client 6.0 or later, you see the All SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client Actions > No Actions Available options when you right-click certain objects under the vcenter Inventory List section in the inventory panel. For example, if you click Virtual Machines under vcenter Inventory Lists and right-click the Virtual Controller, you see All SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client Actions > No Actions Available. Because the Virtual Controller runs the OmniStack software for the OmniStack host, you cannot perform any SimpliVity actions on it. You also cannot perform SimpliVity actions on a standard ESXi host, but the same All SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client Actions > No Actions Available options appear available. Chapter 10: Troubleshooting 138

139 Solution If you see the All SimpliVity Extension for vsphere Web Client Actions > No Actions Available options, ignore them. vsphere Web Client automatically creates these options using the full name of the extension and adds them to the Actions drop-down menu by default. The correct SimpliVity menu option appears under objects you can manage with SimpliVity actions. For example, you see All SimpliVity Actions under the Actions menu or when you right-click SimpliVity objects. Cannot perform actions on hosts, virtual machines, or datastores objects when they appear accessible You browsed to a SimpliVity host, virtual machine, or datastore in a SimpliVity Federation, right-clicked the object and did not see the All SimpliVity Actions option with SimpliVity features. Instead, you see the All SimpliVity Extension for VMware Web Client option with SimpliVity features. When you try to use a feature (for example, Clone Virtual Machine or Edit Backup Policy), the action fails. You see an "unable to locate a healthy OmniCube" message instead. Solution You or another administrator may have powered off the virtual machines before shutting down the Virtual Controller of an OmniStack host. If you do not power on the Virtual Controller and the virtual machines on the OmniStack host, the host, virtual machines, or datastores appear available when they are not. To check the status of the objects, view them through the vcenter inventory panel options or tabs. They should show the status as "unavailable" if powered off. You can power on the host, Virtual Controller, and virtual machines you want to access and try the SimpliVity actions again through the correct SimpliVity menu. Chapter 10: Troubleshooting 139

140 Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms This section contains the following topics: SimpliVity Alarms SimpliVity Alarms OmniStack software is tightly integrated with vsphere Web Client, so your experience monitoring conventional vsphere virtual machines with alarms is directly relevant to your monitoring SimpliVity virtual machines and Virtual Controllers. The OmniStack software supports two types of alarms: VMware pre-configured alarms with default VMware threshold values for alarm triggers, for example Host connection failure. SimpliVity recommends that you do not customize the threshold values for these pre-configured alarms. As necessary, configure Actions in vcenter for specific pre-configured alarms. SimpliVity-specific alarms, for example Simplivity backup policy suspended. SimpliVity-specific alarms are triggered by SimpliVity events and do not support configurable thresholds for triggers. About pre-configured alarms Events and alarms help you monitor normal operations and identify problems before they disrupt service. To the extent that OmniStack hyperconverged platforms are implemented on VMware, the preconfigured alarms available to all VMware VMs are the foundation for monitoring SimpliVity VMs. For monitoring, OmniStack does not support specific SNMP MIBs, but does support basic vcenter SNMP services. Browse pre-configured vcenter alarms overview Pre-configured alarms are available from the vcenter Server and propagate down the inventory hierarchy. Therefore, an alarm defined for a virtual machine at the datacenter level applies to all the virtual machines in that datacenter. Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 140

141 To view the VMware pre-configured alarms for the Virtual Controller, do the following: 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click VMs and Templates. 2. Click the row with the OmniStack virtual controller for the host you need to view from the list of virtual machines. (A Virtual Controller virtual machine contains "OmniStackVC" in the name). 3. Click the Configure tab. 4. Click Alarm Definitions. In this example, the alarms on the OmniStack Virtual Controller indicate that they are defined at the vcenter level. The "defined in" link points to where the alarm is defined, so you could click any entry to display the vcenter Server level associated with that particular alarm. View pre-configured alarms that have been triggered overview To view alarms that have been triggered, do the following: 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click VMs and Templates. 2. Click the row with the OmniStack virtual controller for the host you need to view from the list of virtual machines. (A Virtual Controller virtual machine contains "OmniStackVC" in the name). 3. Click the Monitor tab. 4. Click Triggered Alarms to display a table of triggered alarms for the selected inventory object. Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 141

142 5. Settings for sample CPU and memory usage alarms OmniStack uses VMware default values for thresholds all the pre-configured alarms. The following two alarms are useful examples of monitoring VM CPU and memory usage. Alarm Warning Alert Description Virtual machine CPU usage Above 75% for 5 minutes Above 90% for 5 minutes Default alarm to monitor virtual machine CPU usage Above 95% for 10 minutes Default alarm to monitor virtual machine CPU usage Virtual machine memory Above 85% for 10 usage minutes IO alarms and VMware vrealize IO usage for a particular VM is not monitored thoroughly through pre-configured or SimpliVity-specific alarms. To monitor VM-level IO in your deployment, consider using VMware vrealize. Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 142

143 About SimpliVity-specific alarms SimpliVity-specific alarms monitor a variety of objects in the vsphere inventory: hosts (systems), virtual machines, datacenters, and vcenter services. Observe the following about SimpliVity-specific alarms: SimpliVity-specific alarms do not support configurable threshold values for triggers. SimpliVity-specific alarms tend to be informational (SimpliVity OmniStack Available Physical Capacity 20 Percent or Less) or suggestive of responses (SimpliVity Accelerator NVRAM persistence error. Call Support). Almost all SimpliVity-specific alarms are self-clearing. View SimpliVity-specific alarms overview To view alarms specific for SimpliVity, do the following: 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the virtual machine with alarms you need to view. 4. Click the Monitor tab. 5. Click Alarm Definitions. 6. Enter the string "simplivity" (any character case) in the filter field. You see a list of SimpliVity alarms appear as shown in the example. Results These top-level SimpliVity alarms can be modified only at this level ( OmniStack VM). Settings for sample SimpliVity-specific alarms As of this writing, there are 90 SimpliVity-specific alarms. Of those alarms, some of the most useful monitor storage capacity. Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 143

144 Alarm Events (Status) SimpliVity OmniStack Available Physical Capacity 10 Percent or Less com.simplivity.event.control.phys.capacity.node.error (Alert) DESCRIPTION: Monitors for low OmniStack physical capacity for SimpliVity Storage. SimpliVity OmniStack Available Physical Capacity 20 Percent or Less DESCRIPTION: Monitors for low OmniStack physical capacity for SimpliVity Storage. com.simplivity.event.control.phys.capacity.node.within.tolerance (Normal) com.simplivity.event.control.phys.capacity.node.warning (Normal) com.simplivity.event.control.phys.capacity.node.error (Alert) com.simplivity.event.control.phys.capacity.node.within.tolerance (Normal) com.simplivity.event.control.phys.capacity.node.warning (Normal) Configure actions for SimpliVity-specific alarms Before you begin Before configuring an action for a SimpliVity-specific alarm, verify the following: Your vcenter Server is configured to generate SNMP or trap notifications The account that you are using has Alarms.Create Alarm or Alarm.Modify Alarm privileges overview Both pre-configured vcenter alarms and SimpliVity-specific alarms support custom actions. Without modifying the threshold values that trigger an alarm, you can configure the action(s) that vcenter takes when that alarm is triggered. Typically, you can set one or more of the following actions: Send (s) in response to an alarm being triggered. Send an SNMP trap in response to an alarm being triggered. Run a script or command in response to an alarm being triggered. The procedure to set a custom action for a particular alarm varies in detail by the version of vcenter that you have installed and how you have configured it. At a high level, the steps are the same. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click SimpliVity Federation. 2. Click a SimpliVity objects (for example, Hosts or Virtual Machines to open the Objects tab. 3. Double-click the object with alarms you need to view. 4. Click the Monitor tab. 5. Click Alarm Definitions. Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 144

145 6. Select the row with the alarm you want details on, then click the Actions drop-down arrow to view the list of available alarm actions. 7. Choose an action and click the Configuration column to display a list of , SNMP, or command configuration options. 8. Provide information for the appropriate action configuration and click OK. About types of alarms and OmniStack hosts This section describes how to configure or to work with some of most popular alarms. Recommended Settings Type of Alarm Warning Condition Setting Critical Condition Setting Rationale CPU Alarm 90% for Omnicube virtual controller VM 100% for Omnicube virtual controller VM OmniStack virtual controller CPU usage could reach 100% frequently Memory Alarm 85% 95% Keep vcenter defaults since the memory alarm values are appropriate for the Omnicube virtual controller I/O Alarm None available by default None available by default Use vcenter or vrealize to monitor I/O performance Capacity Alarm Disable default vcenter alarm if environment is 100% Disable default vcenter alarm if environment is 100% SimpliVity (no other storage connected to VMware ESXi) SimpliVity (no other storage connected to VMware ESXi) Virtual Controller generates alarm for capacity usage and takes into account thin provisioning, deduplication and compression. Monitoring CPU performance with CPU alarms overview You can monitor CPU performance for an OmniStack host using vsphere options. 1. From vsphere Web Client Home, click VMs and Templates. Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 145

146 2. Click the row with the OmniStack virtual controller for the host you need to view from the list of virtual machines. (A Virtual Controller virtual machine contains "OmniStackVC" in the name). 3. Click themonitor tab. 4. Click the Performance tab to open it. 5. Click Advanced to display CPU statistics similar to those displayed in the following figure. Results Note that vcenter provides performance statistics as a rolling average. To get more specific statistics, use the vrealize Operations Manager (Foundation version) formerly known as vcenter Operations Manager. CPU Performance alarms are pre-defined within vcenter for all virtual machines and apply to theomnistack host and its associated Virtual Controller. Definitions Type of Alarm Warning Condition Setting Critical Condition Setting Action Virtual Machine CPU Usage CPU usage is above 75% for 5 minutes. CPU usage is above 90% for 5 minutes. No default actions are set for this alarm. You may choose to modify this alarm by adding an Action field to get an . Be mindful that you must choose the appropriate frequency for getting an notification. You could also modify the Reporting tab to change the frequency of triggering an alert. Ensure that the VM CPU usage trigger type in the Alarm settings at the cluster level under the Trigger tab has Trigger if all of the conditions are satisfied selected. See the following VMware KB article for more details. language=en_us&cmd=displaykc&externalid= This alarm is set at the vcenter Server level. If you modify this alarm, all VMs within that vcenter Server will be affected. To the extent that Virtual Controller CPU usage could frequently reach 100%, the recommendation is to disable the existing alarm and create a new CPU alarm threshold with values for Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 146

147 warning events as 90% and critical event at 100%. You would first need to create a folder structure as mentioned above so that this alarm would apply only to Virtual Controller VMs. Memory alarms You can monitor memory utilization for the Virtual Controller through vcenter or through the vrealize Operations Manager. Similar to CPU alarms, memory utilization alarms are pre-defined within vcenter with the default values shown in the following table. Type of Alarm Warning Condition Setting Critical Condition Setting Virtual machine memory Memory usage is above Memory usage is above usage 85% for 10 minutes. 95% for 10 minutes Action No default actions are set for this alarm. You may choose to modify this alarm by adding an Action field to get an and by choosing the appropriate frequency for getting an notification. You could also modify the Reporting tab to change the frequency of triggering an alert. This alarm is set at the vcenter Server level, so modifying it would affect the memory utilization alarm for all virtual machines within that vcenter Server. As a best practice, preserve the default values for the warning and critical condition fields of the Memory Alarm for Virtual Controller virtual machines. If you determine that memory alarms are triggered at some incorrect frequency, you can create a new alarm with the desired frequency values. Note that before creating a new alarm, you must create a folder structure for Virtual Controller VMs such that alarms are specific to those virtual machines only. I/O alarms There are no pre-defined vcenter I/O alarms or SimpliVity generated I/O alarms. You may choose to create an alarm within vcenter to monitor the latency of your SimpliVity Virtual Machine called VM Max Total Disk Latency alarm after your environment is stabilized to get a baseline. This baseline varies from application to application, so there is no set value that can be suggested for an I/O alarm. If there are periods during which you expect to see routine I/O spikes, consider using the vrealize Operations Manager because it understands I/O patterns and can adapt to patterns of spikes without triggering alerts. The following figure shows different options available within vrealize Operations Manager to view performance metrics including Datastore I/O, Network usage and virtual disk I/O. Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 147

148 Datastore I/O can be monitored for a VM using vrealize Operations Manager. Capacity alarms There is a pre-defined vcenter datastore usage alarm that monitors the percentage of disk space used on each datastore in your vsphere environment. The default settings of the datastore usage alarm is to trigger a Warning when disk usage exceeds 75% and an Alert at 85%. Although you can adjust these thresholds for the needs of your environment, it is a good practice to begin taking action as your datastore approaches 80% utilized. These thresholds may vary depending on the size of your datastores and how they are being used. The following figure depicts the configuration for a trigger. If your environment is running OmniStack hosts exclusively, disable the vcenter datastore alarm since the OmniStack host generates a capacity alarm when its physical capacity is running low. In addition, the datastore alarm does not take into account OmniStack capabilities such as thin provisioning, deduplication, compression. The SimpliVity alarm generates a warning within vcenter when the cluster has 20% or less physical space available and an alert is generated when the cluster has 10% or less physical space. For both the warning and the alert (event) a phone home event is triggered. Depending on your environment and how SimpliVity storage is used, this alarm can be changed to suit your environment to make it more aggressive or less aggressive. Furthermore, if Phone Home is not required for the warning message, Customer Support can turn this switch off using Support commands. Chapter 11: SimpliVity alarms 148