How to install and configure the EMC storage Plugin with Vsphere using the Solutions Enabler Appliance

1. download the solutions enabler appliance from powerlink

2. login to the appliance with the username seconfig and set the IP and password

3. on the desktop that you use your vsphere client, install the VSI plugin from powerlink

4. on the desktop install the solutions enabler x32 version (even if 64 bit desktop, vsphere client is 32 bit so SE must match)

5. open dos and type the following set SYMCLI_CONNECT=SYMAPI_SERVER

6. from dos type the following set SYMCLI_CONNECT_TYPE=remote

7. C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMAPI\config\netcnfg and add the following line at the end SYMAPI_SERVER - TCPIP DNS_NAME_OF_APPLIANCE IP_OF_APPLIANCE 2707 ANY

8. Point a web browser to the solutions enabler appliance https://IP_of_appliance:5480

9. under nethost settings type in the workstation name that you will be using the vsphere client from as well as the username that you log into your workstation with. (in our case we use different logins to the vi console, however you must set the user to the user you login to windows with)




The error that I kept getting from the emc storage plugin when I put in the remote server name and port, and then clicked test connection was “Failed: The trusted host file disallowed a client server connection.” There were two reasons for this:
1. I was unaware that I had to install solutions enabler on the desktop, I thought that the appliance would do the trick.

2. I had the nethost configured incorrectly, I had my account that I logged into vsphere with however it had to be the account that I logged into windows with.

EMC VPLEX

I am here at EMC world and I have finally grasped the concept of VPLEX after attending the 2 hour Vplex hands on lab. VPLEX is the big buzz here at EMC world and to make it simple to understand, it is virtual raid that can go beyond the datacenter as well as also being storage agnostic. You simply carve up storage and present it to the vplex, the vplex then will claim storage from the backend and it will present it to your servers. You will claim storage from one SAN, claim storage from a different san (it could be in the same data center or at another data center within synchronous distance) and then you raid the storage together. When you svmotion a server between storage and even sites, the data is already there so it looks like it moves from site to site within seconds.

Some of the key points are:
It is active/active, very resilient
It can support 8000 virtual volumes per vplex cluster
the maximum lun size tested by EMC is 32 TB
They recommend using 8 gig fiber between vplex devices
It can support a maximum of 5 ms latency
the easiest migration path is through SVMotion (assuming you are fully virtual, like me)

Recoverpoint CAN corrupt your production data

I had to expand a production lun, and of course when you expand a lun that is replicated by recoverpoint you also need to expand the CDP replica volume as well as the CRR replica volume if you are using CRR and CDP. I followed the steps listed in priumus article emc148277, however the steps listed aren't correct, you can't destroy the CG and then detach the luns from the splitters. If you try to build a new CG at this point, recoverpoint will still see the original size of each lun, not recognizing that the lun has been expanded. What you need to do at this point is to reboot your RPA's all at the same time to flush the cache.

What I did (which they have now noted as a bug in the primus article, and they also now warn you NOT to do this thanks to my discovery) was removed the luns from the storage group in Navisphere. When i added the luns back to the storage group, i was then able to see the correct size in recoverpoint. A few hours later my exchange lun disappeared from the VM guest after it slowly started getting corrupted as shown in the windows event logs. The recoverpoint appliance mixed up the production lun with the CDP replica volume and started writing the replica directly on top of the production lun. BE VERY CAREFUL, and pay close attention to the notes that they have added to the primus article so that no one experiences the same issues that I had!

This is resolved in RecoverPoint 3.1.4 (3.1 SP4) and 3.2.3 (3.2 SP3).
See primus emc223955

Remove CDP or CRR from Recoverpoint

This seems like a simple task however since I always err on the side of caution I dug around on powerlink on the correct procedure to remove either CDP or CRR from a recoverpoint consistency group. After my search came up empty, I called EMC support and they stated that it is safe to just remove either CRR or CDP without any issues and here is how you can do it.

Good monitoring/alerting solution for san storage and vmware

One thing that our current monitoring solution solar winds orion was lacking was vmware and storage reporting. Solarwinds decided to fix this issue by acquiring a company called tek-tools. Right now they are two separate products however in the near future they will be fully integrated into a single pane of glass.

Below are some screenshots of the tek-tools product and they are pretty self explanitory. It can monitor and alert on the following, esx host cpu/memory/disk space etc, esx guest cpu/memory/disk space, datastore useage, datastore forecasting, san lun performance, just to name a few. Another thing that I am very pleased with the graphical information it can show me in my EMC Clarrion SAN (one thing navisphere reporting can't provide you with). This seems to do an excellent job of completing the circle for monitoring of your virtual environment and san storage, and once integrated into orion it will provide full monitoring of everything in your environment!

Attach RDM to vsphere with Recoverpoint

If you need to attach a recoverpoint volume to a guest through RDM you MUST select physical access in recoverpoint if you don't want to shut down the guest. If you select virtual access you must power down the guest and then attach the disk.

1. enable physical access in recoverpoint
2. ensure that your esx hosts can see this lun by verifying in navisphere storage groups
3. rescan datastore
4. edit properties of the guest and add a physical disk, if you did everything correctly attach RDM should be available.
5. Select a drive letter on the windows server for this disk.

Problem with Users running Windows Vista or windows 7 with CISCO NAC release 4.6.1

Here is a problem that my co-worker Mike Maron recently ran into along with the solution.

If you have users or guest desktops/laptops with windows vista or windows 7 installed that cannot access the network via NAC, it is due to a problem with windows User account Control. When this feature is enabled (it is by default), it doesn’t work properly because NAC requires Internet Explorer to run in elevated mode in order to release and renew IP addresses.

There are two workarounds to this issue

1. Right click IE and selecting run as administrator (this only works if the user has administrative rights to local PC) and then access the nac page. In many cases the user does not have administrative rights to the computer, so they can not run IE as admin, nor can they disabled user account control. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/nac/appliance/release_notes/461/461rn.html#wp791975

2. There is also a way on the NAC appliance to bounce switch port via NAC instead of windows which will allow the PC to properly renew the IP address.

In OOB Management > Profiles>Port>choose profile to edit
Make sure the check box for Bounce the port based on role settings after VLAN is changed is checked off and update



Then navigate to User Management>User roles>Choose role and edit
Make sure Bounce switch Port after login ( OOB ) is enabled as well as Refresh IP after Login( OOB ) and save role .