InfoScale™ 9.0 Virtualization Guide - Linux on ESXi

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)
Platform: Linux,VMware ESX
  1. Section I. Overview
    1. About Veritas InfoScale solutions in a VMware environment
      1.  
        Overview of the InfoScale Virtualization Guide
      2. How InfoScale™ solutions work in a VMware environment
        1.  
          How InfoScale™ product components enhance VMware capabilities
        2.  
          When to use Raw Device Mapping and InfoScale
        3.  
          Array migration
        4.  
          InfoScale™ component limitations in an ESXi environment
        5.  
          I/O fencing considerations in an ESXi environment
      3.  
        About InfoScale™ solutions support for the VMware ESXi environment
      4.  
        Virtualization use cases addressed by InfoScale
  2. Section II. Deploying Veritas InfoScale products in a VMware environment
    1. Getting started
      1.  
        Storage configurations and feature compatibility
      2.  
        About setting up VMware with InfoScale™ products
      3.  
        InfoScale™ products support for VMware environments
      4.  
        Installing and configuring storage solutions in the VMware virtual environment
      5.  
        Recommendations for improved resiliency of InfoScale clusters in virtualized environments
    2. Understanding Storage Configuration
      1.  
        Configuring storage
      2.  
        Enabling disk UUID on virtual machines
      3.  
        Installing Array Support Library (ASL) for VMDK on cluster nodes
      4.  
        Excluding the boot disk from the Volume Manager configuration
      5.  
        Creating the VMDK files
      6.  
        Mapping the VMDKs to each virtual machine (VM)
      7.  
        Enabling the multi-write flag
      8.  
        Getting consistent names across nodes
      9.  
        Creating a file system
  3. Section III. Use cases for Veritas InfoScale product components in a VMware environment
    1. Application availability using Cluster Server
      1.  
        About application availability with Cluster Server (VCS) in the guest
      2.  
        About VCS support for Live Migration
    2. Multi-tier business service support
      1.  
        About Virtual Business Services
      2.  
        Sample virtual business service configuration
    3. Improving data protection, storage optimization, data migration, and database performance
      1.  
        Use cases for InfoScale™ product components in a VMware guest
      2. Protecting data with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          About point-in-time copies
        2.  
          Point-in-time snapshots for InfoScale™ products in the VMware environment
      3. Optimizing storage with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        1. About Flexible Storage Sharing
          1.  
            Limitations of Flexible Storage Sharing
        2.  
          About SmartTier in the VMware environment
        3.  
          About compression with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        4.  
          About thin reclamation with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        5.  
          About SmartMove with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        6.  
          About SmartTier for Oracle with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
      4. Migrating data with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          Types of data migration
      5. Improving database performance with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          About InfoScale™ product components database accelerators
    4. Setting up virtual machines for fast failover using InfoScale Enterprise on VMware disks
      1.  
        About use cases for InfoScale Enterprise in the VMware guest
      2.  
        InfoScale Enterprise operation in VMware virtualized environments
      3.  
        InfoScale functionality and compatibility matrix
      4. About setting up InfoScale Enterprise on VMware ESXi
        1.  
          Planning a InfoScale Enterprise configuration
        2.  
          Enable Password-less SSH
        3.  
          Enabling TCP traffic to coordination point (CP) Server and management ports
        4. Configuring coordination point (CP) servers
          1.  
            Configuring a Coordination Point server for InfoScale Enterprise
          2.  
            Configuring a Cluster Server (VCS) single node cluster
          3.  
            Configuring a Coordination Point server service group
        5.  
          Deploying InfoScale Enterprise software
        6.  
          Configuring InfoScale Enterprise
        7.  
          Configuring non-SCSI3 fencing
  4. Section IV. Reference
    1. Appendix A. Known issues and limitations
      1.  
        Prevention of Storage vMotion
    2. Appendix B. Where to find more information
      1.  
        Arctera InfoScale documentation
      2.  
        Service and support
      3.  
        About Services and Operations Readiness Tools (SORT)

Installing Array Support Library (ASL) for VMDK on cluster nodes

In order for the cluster file system to work properly with the VMDK files, an ASL must be installed in the virtual server. The ASL package (VRTSaslapm) version that contains the VMDK ASL is 8.0.0.2501.

Note:

Any future updates to the VMDK ASL will be published on http://sort.veritas.com and will have a higher revision than 6.0.100.100.

To download the ASL package

  1. Go to http://sort.veritas.com.
  2. Under Downloads, click ASL/APM/DDI/DDL.
  3. Select the ASL package by appropriately filtering the array information.
  4. Click Download in the Array Support Library (ASL)/Array Policy Module (APM) Details page.

On each clustered file system node, perform the following steps. The steps are illustrated with the example installation and your details may vary.

To install the ASL package

  1. To install the package, follow the instructions outlined in the Readme file (VRTSaslap_readme.txt) which is displayed towards the end of the Array Support Library (ASL)/Array Policy Module (APM) Details page.

    You can also save this Readme file by selecting the Save As… option.

  2. Follow the steps outlined in the Installation Procedure section of the Readme.

In case of the mentioned installation exmaple, RHEL 7 is present as a guest OS.

After installing the ASL, you will notice that the disk has been renamed from disk_0 to vmdk0_0. Before ASL:

# vxdisk list
DEVICE         TYPE         DISK         GROUP         STATUS
disk_0         auto:none    -            - online      invalid

After ASL has been deployed:

# vxdisk list
DEVICE         TYPE         DISK         GROUP         STATUS
vmdk0_0        auto:none    -            - online      invalid

vmdk0_0 is the boot disk that is to be excluded from Volume Manger configuration.