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In this post will share you the process to update a Brocade Fibre Channel switch firmware.ANd it is recommended to confirm with OEM before you proceed for an upgrade of the firmware.

Prerequisite

FTP server accessible from SAN Switch

Supported Firmware

Pre-upgrade Process

Take Complete Backup of Switch Configuration and License details

Check the current firmware version using below command

firmwareshow

Verify the upgrade path from within the Brocade Fabric OS Upgrade Guide which you will find in the Brocade document library. If your switch is provided by any other OEM like HPE, you have to check their site as well

• Run a Brocade supportsave
• You can also run error clear command all existing stats

errclear

• Check no ports are G ports

switchshow

• Check that no firmware upgrade is already in progress

firmwaredownloadstatus

• If the switches are in a fabric run the commands below and capture the setting. Run these commands again after to ensure the fabric is healthy

nsshow

nsallshow

fabricshow

• Download the switch firmware from Brocade   or from Specific OEM Site
• Extract the Zip file and place it on your FTP server

Upgrade the Firmware 

• Connect to the switch with an admin account
• Enter the command to download the firmware and follow the prompts.

firmwaredownload

You will then see the switch update begin which will take aprox 30mins.

Post Upgrade Check

After rebooting the Switch will be available to access, login to switch and run upgrade status to verify that upgrade is completed or not.

firmwareshow

Note:- If you see message Firmware download is in progress wait for soem more time and check again

firmwaredownloadstatus

Every Infratire has backend as a different storage system and key challenges we face, especially in larger environments is managing systems from multiple vendors. Every organization has the same situation, and monitoring all of the different systems and keeping track of their performance and health are challenging because every vendor has its own set of tools.

Now we have a solution to this challenge, Xorux has a single product, STOR2RRD will provide you a single web-based interface where you can view the performance of all your different systems.  STOR2RRD is one of the best tools offers you end-to-end views of your storage environment including LAN and SAN. It can save you significant money in operation monitoring and by predicting utilization bottlenecks in your virtualized environment. In this post, we will share the procedure to install and configure STOR2RRD Virtual Appliance with 3PAR  storage for real-time performance monitoring.

Also, you can generate policy-based alerts, view the overall health status of your systems, provide capacity reports and forecasting data.

• Real-time storage, SAN and LAN performance visibility in multi-vendor environment
• Historical reporting (graph, CSV, PDF, XLS)
• Alerting based on performance thresholds
• Event monitoring

The full list of supported systems is significant and includes both storage systems and switches which you can find here – supported systems

STOR2RRD  is free software which you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
For customers, under support, there is distributed the enterprise edition with additional benefits.

Download STOR2RRD  Appliance

You can use VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V image for fast start or for product evaluation purposes.It contains installed and configured LPAR2RRD and STOR2RRD products with all their prerequisites.It is distributed in OVF or Hyper-V format easily importable in your infrastructure

Download

Virtual Appliance can be installed on below options

• As a virtual machine in your vCenter or ESXi
• On VMware player. A free non-commercial version.
• As a virtual machine in your Microsoft Hyper-V server

The acquired IP address will be visible on the console after the appliance starts up. Navigate to the web browser to the address shown on the welcoming screen.  http://<appliance IP>/

Product webs are accessible with these credentials:

System Defaults

Virtual Machine settings

The VMware image should work on recent VMware products as well on other virtualization software that support OVF (Open Virtualization Format). The image has been successfully installed on at least:

• VMware player 6
• VMware ESX 4.1 or Higher

Recommended HW sizing:

• Evaluation purposes:
  • 6GB RAM
  • 2 CPU
  • 100GB disk space (thin provisioning)
• Production with 1000 VMs and 10 storages
  • 12GB RAM
  • 4 CPUs
  • 100GB disk space (thin provisioning)

STOR2RRD OVF Deployment

Right-click the data center and select Deploy OVF Template.

Browse the file and Click Next

Review the details and Click Next

Provide a name for VM and Select the Folder and Click Next

Select the Esxi Host and Click Next

Select the Datastore and Click Next

Select the Network and Clik Next

Review the Details and Finish, select the power on after deployment option

Once VM is powered on you can view the IP of the machine in the console.

Verify that Application is working by Open: https://<appliance IP>/ from browser

Login to the STOR2RRD console using  url  ” https://ip_or_fdqn/stor2rrd/ ”  and you have to enter the username and password (admin/admin)

NOw you are logged to the first-time console look like below

Virtual Appliance contains all required software except 3rd party storage APIs which cannot be freely distributed, they must be installed manually, refer to your storage installation.

Note: STOR2RRD is installed under user lpar2rrd in Virtual Appliance.

Configure the Storage

Now we have set passwordless ssh access to storage from our STOR2RRD appliance

• Do all actions below under stor2rrd account (lpar2rrd on the Virtual Appliance) unless is explicitly specified root in the procedure, here use lpar2rrd since we use the virtual appliance
• Create user stor2rrd on the storage with browse role and allow it for all domains.

Login to 3PAR Storage using putty and create using below command

# createuser -c "password" "username" all browse

Under lpar2rrd account create config entry

# su - lpar2rrd (user stor2rrd if it is not an Appliance)

#vi /home/stor2rrd/stor2rrd/etc/storage-list.cfg

$ perl /home/stor2rrd/stor2rrd/bin/conntest.pl "3PARIP" 22
  Connection to "3PARIP" on port "22" is ok

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -N ""
  Generating public/private rsa key pair.
  Enter file in which to save the key (/home/stor2rrd/.ssh/id_rsa):

$ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

# ssh lapr2rrd@3par_storage stor2rrd@3par_storage password: "password"

 sshrsa AF5afPdciUTJ0PYzB6msRxFrCuDSqDwPshqWS5tGCFSoSZdE= stor2rrd pubic key
 SSH public key successfully set!

$ ssh stor2rrd@3par_storage

$ cd /home/stor2rrd/stor2rrd
$ ./bin/config_check.sh 
  =====================
  STORAGE: 3par01: 3PAR
  =====================
  ssh -o ConnectTimeout=15 -i /home/stor2rrd/.ssh/id_rsa  lpar2rrd@3PARIP  "showuser"
  connection ok

$ crontab -l | grep load_3parperf.sh
$

$ crontab -e

# HPE 3PAR storage agent
0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * /home/stor2rrd/stor2rrd/load_3parperf.sh > /home/stor2rrd/stor2rrd/load_3parperf.out 2>&1

$ crontab -e

# STOR2RRD UI (just ONE entry of load.sh must be there)
5 * * * * /home/stor2rrd/stor2rrd/load.sh > /home/stor2rrd/stor2rrd/load.out 2>&1

$ cd /home/stor2rrd/stor2rrd
$ ./load.sh

Old  3PAR Inform Management Console wasn’t exactly the best, screen refreshes taking a while, being logged out of StoreServ’s with the connection still showing as open.

HP’s new 3PAR StoreServ Management Console – ‘SSMC’ is more features and stable one.

What’s New

• New dashboard with the same look and feel as OneView
• Management of file and block from same interface
• Inbuilt System Reporter
• Web based
• Smart Search across all objects

Compatibility

SSMC will be compatible with 3PAR Inform OS 3.1.3 or above.

License

No licenses are required this will be a free download

Supported Operating Systems

SSMC will be available as a Windows based install on Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 or 2012 R2.  It will also be available in certain flavours of Linux

VVols is  was a new storage architecture introduced in vSphere 6 and further enhanced with vSphere 6.5. HPE is a key design partner with VMware who selected HPE 3PAR StoreServ as the Fibre Channel (FC) reference platform for VMware’s engineering team. HPE 3PAR StoreServ provides a tightly integrated experience that does not require an additional plug-in or software piece to enable VVols and to support VMware’s VASA 3.0 specification. HPE 3PAR delivers unique capabilities, like ASIC-based Zero Detect for space reclamation and tiered snapshots, which can be assigned on a per-VM basis through VMware’s Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM).VVols eliminate the need to provision large datastores (LUNs) for VMFS volumes; storage provisioning now happens automatically on a per-VM basis. Each VM is assigned its own unique VVols, which is equivalent to a traditional storage LUN. With the tight integration with HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage, customers will be able to deploy VVols, in parallel with VMware’s Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) where necessary. VVols introduces two big benefits: (1) VM-level granularity by introducing a one-to-one mapping of VMs to storage volumes, and (2) support for VMware’s Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) to simplify storage management and automate storage provisioning and space reclamation. Before the introduction of VVols, storage arrays primarily integrated with vSphere at the datastore level using VMware’s VMFS.Moving forward, users can choose to use VMFS or VVols (or both), with VVols offering more advanced capabilities.

Comparison Between Tradition VMFS  Datastore and VVols

Architecture overview of VVols on HPE 3PAR

VMware Virtual Volumes with HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage changes the storage architecture of vSphere from LUN-centric to VM-centric and allows storage arrays to become VM-aware. HPE 3PAR StoreServ integration with VVols shifts many common storage operations from the
vSphere host to the HPE 3PAR StoreServ array and enables the VMware vSphere VASA client to do the following:

• Dynamically create and manage HPE 3PAR StoreServ volumes
• Create, snapshot, clone, and delete HPE 3PAR StoreServ array volumes
• Discover HPE 3PAR StoreServ storage capabilities available for VVols
• Discover compliance issues with requested capabilities for VVols
• Automatically reclaim space when VMs are deleted or moved

The technology shift from a SCSI LUN-based model to an object-based model is the core difference introduced with vSphere 6 and VVols. VVols are object storage access, different from traditional block storage (LUN). Instead of the traditional approach of simply presenting a LUN (a linear range of Logical Block Addresses [LBAs]), vSphere 6 now manages data placement and access, giving the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage visibility into what LBAs correspond to objects such as a VMDK, configuration, swap, or clone.

VVols with the VASA Provider providing control path and the Storage Container on HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage

HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage supported features with VVols

The following HPE 3PAR features are supported with VVols

• Array-based snapshots
• Space reclamation (UNMAP)
• Array-based thin provisioning
• Thin deduplication
• Array-based replication
• Auto Zero Detect
• Adaptive flash cache

Each of the features listed above are resource intensive when performed by the host. By shifting them to the storage array using VVols, they are performed faster and more efficiently and help to increase available host resources.

More –  Implementing VMware Virtual Volumes on HPE 3PAR StoreServ

For VVols replication – HPE 3PAR StoreServ and VMware VVols Replication Implementation Guide

Note :-
VMware VVols 2.0 (VASA 3.0) was released as part of vSphere 6.5, which is supported for HPE 3PAR OS 3.3.1 and higher and includes support for array based replication. VVols eliminate the need to provision large datastores for ESXi hosts, and offer more flexibility in managing storage
associated with virtual machines.

VAAI (vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration) The vSphere Storage APIs are a set of technologies and interfaces that enable vSphere to leverage storage resources to deliver the efficiency, control, and ease of customization that clients demand of their virtual environment. The vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) is one of these technologies. Under the VAAI initiative, APIs have been introduced to improve performance, resource utilization, and scalability by leveraging more efficient array-based operations.

vSphere 5 and 6 provide enhanced support for the T10 SCSI standard without the need to install a plug-in, enabling vSphere to directly utilize more advanced features of the storage array. Native T10 support is built into HPE 3PAR OS 3.1.1 and greater, allowing the ESXi host to communicate directly to HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage without a VAAI plug-in.

Some of the important hardware primitives that VAAI enables are documented below:

Hardware Assisted Locking eliminates SCSI reservation contention by providing a fast, fine-grained locking mechanism. The ATS (“Atomic Test and Set”) command verifies that a block of metadata is what is expected (test) and then replaces it with an updated block (set) in a single, atomic operation. Using this command, the ESXi host can lock a portion of a LUN related to a single VM instead of locking the whole LUN as seen inFigure 9, thereby allowing other VMs on the same LUN to continue operating normally. The implementation of ATS on HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage arrays uses the HPE 3PAR StoreServ ASIC to further improve performance. The combination of ATS and the HPE 3PAR StoreServ ASIC allows an increase in VM density per LUN and greater scalability for vSphere deployments.

Fast Copy uses the XCOPY command to improve the performance of common storage operations, such as VM cloning and Storage vMotion,by performing large data movement operations directly within the storage array. By not requiring each block to make a round-trip to the host,the time required for these operations is significantly reduced and storage network traffic minimized. When combined with HPE 3PAR Thin Persistence Software, drive I/O and storage capacity can also be reduced since blocks of zeros are not written due to the array’s Zero Detect capability, which is integrated into the HPE 3PAR StoreServ ASIC.Block Zeroing uses the standard SCSI command WRITE_SAME to offload large, block-level write operations of zeros from the host to the storage array. Block zeroing improves host performance and efficiency when allocating or extending Eager Zeroed Thick (EZT) virtual disks, or on initial access to a block on a non-EZT virtual disk. When combined with built-in Zero Detect and EZT virtual disks, storage array bandwidth, disk I/O bandwidth, and disk consumption is minimized. Initializing EZT virtual disks in seconds rather than minutes eliminates the tradeoff between fast VM creation and more predictable run-time performance

HPE 3PAR storage system supports VAAI using the “esxcli storage core device list” command

VAAI UNMAP command

Note
With vSphere 6.5, UNMAP commands may be issued by the guest OS (with the restrictions listed below), and no CLI operations are necessary to reclaim space when these conditions are met.

UNMAP is a SCSI primitive that allows VMFS to communicate to the storage target that certain blocks are no longer used on a LUN backing a datastore. Using the UNMAP command, vSphere can issue a command to the storage array to deallocate blocks of storage freed by vSphere,for example from a deletion of a VM, and return it to the storage array’s resource pool without the involvement of a storage administrator.
For vSphere 6, it is now possible for a guest OS to issue an UNMAP command to reclaim space. There are several prerequisites that must be metto allow UNMAP to run:

• The VMDK for the VM must be thin provisioned.
• The VM hardware version must be 11 (ESXi 6.0).
• The ESXi host advanced setting EnableBlockDelete must be set to 1.
• The guest OS must be able to identify the disk as thin.

Note : Windows 2008 and above is able to detect that the disk is thin provisioned.
SPC-4 SCSI command support was added in vSphere 6.5, allowing UNMAP commands to work with compatible Linux guest filesystems.UNMAP priority can be configured via the GUI or CLI: esxcli storage VMFS reclaim configuration set

UNMAP priority configuration via the GUI

More –  VMware vSphere VAAI for HPE 3PAR Storageperformance benefits 

With the release of LeftHand OS 12.0, HP have introduced a Multi-Path Extension Module to replace the previously recommended path selection policy being ‘Round Robin’ and Storage Array Type Plugin VMW_SATP_DEFAULT_AA .By default Round Robin would send 1,000 I/O down each path , Reference –  Verify Mutilpath Policy IOPS  .

HP StoreVirtual Multipathing Extension Module (MEM) for VMware vSphere – Reduce latency and improve performance in VMware vSphere environments. The MEM also optimizes data-path traffic in multi-site (or stretch-cluster) configurations .

Download MEM for vSphere 6.5

Here we explains with a example of 2 nodes cluster .

we have two cluster nodes, A and B. When the first volume is created it is ‘owned by a master node’ in this case ‘node A’.  When the second volume is created it is owned by ‘node B and so on, as shown below.

• Volume 1 – Node A
• Volume 2 – Node B
• Volume 3 – Node A
• Volume 4 – Node B

Using the recommended bonding method of ‘Adaptive Load Balancing’ SCSI read and write commands are issued on all NIC’s in the bond which can result in data being accessed from a non-authoritative node, which means a trip across the network to the authoritative node.

This was rather inefficient and meant that random reads (which are served from disk) could be accessed from a non-authoritative node.  This is where the StoreVirtual Multi-Path Extension Module (MEM) steps in.  It has knowledge on where the data resides and ensures that all:

• Read I/O’s are always serviced by the storage node that holds the authoritative data.
• Write I/O’s are always serviced by the storage node that receives a mirror copy of the data ensuring data integrity.  Remaining copies are then forwarded to the remaining storage nodes.

This results in the following data flow architecture.

The installation guide for HP StoreVirtual Multipathing Deployment Guide is fairly straight forward.  The only issue I ran into was ‘could not find trusted signer’ when trying to install the vib.

This was resolved by adding –no-sig-check to the end of the command esxcli software vib install -v /HPMEM.vib –no-sig-check

Once installed, you will need to change the path selection policy for your datastores to HP_PSP_LH

More – StoreVirtual OS 12.7

The HPE 3PAR StoreServ array is comprised of the following logical data layers

• Physical disks (PDs)
• Chunklets
• Logical disks (LDs)
• Common provisioning groups (CPGs)
• Virtual volumes (VVs)

The relationship between system data layers is illustrated in Figure 1. Each layer is created from elements of the layer above. Chunklets are drawn from physical disks. Logical disks are created from groups of chunklets. Common provisioning groups are groups of logical disks. And
virtual volumes use storage space provided by CPGs. The virtual volumes are exported to hosts and are the only data layer visible to hosts.

Physical disks

A physical disk is a hard drive (spinning media or Solid State Drive) located in an HPE 3PAR StoreServ drive enclosure.

Cage

Cage is a legacy HPE 3PAR term and is interchangeable with “Drive Enclosure,” “Enclosure” and “Drive Shelf.”

Chunklets

Physical disks are divided into chunklets. Each chunklet occupies physically contiguous space on an FC, NL or SSD disk. On all current HPE 3PAR StoreServ all chunklets are 1 GB. Chunklets are automatically created by the HPE 3PAR OS, and they are used to create logical disks. A chunklet is assigned to only one logical disk.

Logical disks

A logical disk is a collection of chunklets arranged as rows of RAID sets. Each RAID set is made up of chunklets from different physical disks.Logical disks are pooled together in common provisioning groups, which allocate space to virtual volumes.The underlying logical disks are automatically created by the HPE 3PAR OS when you create VVs. The RAID type, space allocation, growth increments, and other logical disk parameters are specified when you create a CPG or can be modified later. The HPE 3PAR StoreServ supportthe following RAID types:

• RAID 1 aka RAID 1+0
• RAID 5 aka RAID 50 (must be enabled from the CLI for NL or FC drives)
• RAID Multi-Parity (MP) aka RAID 6 or double parity
• RAID 0 (must be enabled from the CLI and provides no data protection from failed drives).

Virtual Copy

Virtual Copy is a legacy HPE 3PAR term and is interchangeable with “Snapshot.”

CPGs (Common provisioning groups)

A CPG is a template for the creation of logical disks that allocate space to virtual volumes on demand. A CPG allows up to 65,536 virtual volumes to share a CPG’s assigned resources. You can create fully provisioned virtual volumes (FPVVs), Thinly Deduped Virtual Volumes (TDVVs) and
Compressed VVs that draw space from a CPG’s logical disks. It is important to note that if no volumes of any type have been created in a CPG, it consumes no space.

VVs (Virtual volumes)

VVs (Virtual volumes) draw their resources from the LDs in CPGs and are exported as LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers) to hosts. Virtual volumesare the only data layer visible to the hosts. You can create clones (previously known as full copies) or snapshots (previously known as virtual
copies) of virtual volumes. Clones remain available if the original base volume becomes unavailable. VVs can be created using the CPGs created at installation time or user defined CPGs.

Exporting virtual volumes

For a host to see a VV, the volume must be exported as a LUN. Volumes are exported by creating VV-LUN pairings (VLUNs) on the system.When you create VLUNs, the system produces both VLUN templates that establish export rules, and active VLUNs that the host sees as LUNs as attached disk devices. A VLUN will be created for each path available to the host for each VV exported.

FPVVs (Fully provisioned virtual volumes)

A FPVV virtual volume is a volume that uses logical disks that belong to a CPG. Unlike TPVVs or TDVVs, fully provisioned virtual volumes have a set amount of user space that is allocated for user data. The fully provisioned volume size is allocated and consumed at the time of provisioning, size limits range from 256 MB to 64 TB (Compressed and Dedupe VVs have a maximum size of 16 TiB). The volume size can be increased at any time (provided free space is available) up to the maximum 64 TiB size without any downtime however, the VV size cannot be decreased below the initial allocation.

TPVVs (Thinly provisioned virtual volumes)

A TPVV is a volume that uses logical disks that belong to a CPG. TPVVs, TDVVs, or DECO VVs (deduped and compressed) associated with the same CPG draw space from those CPGs’ LDs as needed, allocating space on demand in 16 KiB increments for each VV. As the volumes that draw
space from the CPGs’ LDs (including compressed and deduped) require additional storage the HPE 3PAR OS automatically creates additional logical disks or expands the size of existing LDs and adds them to the CPG until the CPG reaches a user-defined growth limit, if one has been set,
or the system runs out of space.

TDVVs (Thinly deduped provisioned virtual volumes)

In addition to the features and functionality of TPVVs; TDVVs go through an additional process before allocating space on a disk. All data writes with a block size 16 KiB or greater have a unique hash generated and the resulting value is compared to a hash lookup table to determine if the
data has already been stored. If the data is a duplicate of existing data, an entry is added to the destination volume’s lookup table but no data is written. Otherwise it is written to disk. For more information on this, refer to the HPE 3PAR Thin Technologies white paper located here.

Clones (also known as Physical Copies)

A clone duplicates all the data from a base volume to a destination volume. The base volume is the original volume that is copied to the destination volume. The clone on the destination volume remains available if the original base volume becomes unavailable.A clone requires the destination volume have usable capacity equal to or greater than the usable capacity of the base volume being cloned. As of HPE 3PAR OS 3.2.1 the clone can be exported immediately after creation, while the data copy continues in the background.

Snapshots (also known as Virtual Copy)

Unlike a clone, which is a block for block duplicate of an entire volume, snapshots preserve a bitmap of a VV at a particular point in time.Updates to VVs are written to SD (Snap Data) space and the bitmap (Snap Admin space) of the VV.

Snapshots for FPVVs, TPVVs, dedupe compressed and DECO clones and other snapshots are created using copy-on-write techniques available(aka Virtual Copy) snapshots for TDVVs are created using ROW (Redirect On Write). Hundreds of snapshots of each virtual volume can becreated assuming that there is sufficient storage space available. It is worth noting that snapshots do not consume any space unless data on the base volume has been updated and the original data copied to the SD (Snap Data) space. Changed data is copied only once regardless of thenumber of snapshots taken. Snapshots are particularly useful for test/dev environments as they can be created in seconds and exported while not effecting production data. Also, testers and developers can be granted the ability to create snapshots while not having any ther administrative privileges, lowering administration requirements (see the HPE 3PAR CLI guide for correct usage for granting the updatevv privilege). Snapshots can now be updated without the requirement to unexport and re-export the VV. For more information on snapshot/Virtual Copy technologies refer to the white paper here .

File Provisioning Group

A File Provisioning Group (FPG) is an instance of the HPE intellectual property Adaptive File System. It controls how files are stored and retrieved. Each FPG is transparently constructed from one or multiple Virtual Volumes (VVs) and is the unit for replication and disaster recovery for File Persona Software. There are up to 16 FPGs supported on a node pair.

Virtual File Server

A Virtual File Server (VFS) is conceptually like a server; as such it presents virtual IP addresses to clients, participates in User Authentication Services and can have properties for such characteristics as user/group Quota Management and Antivirus policies.

File Stores

File Stores are the slice of a VFS and FPG where snapshots are taken, capacity Quota Management can be performed, and Antivirus Scan Services policies customized.

File Shares

File Shares are what provide data access to clients via SMB, NFS, and the Object Access API, subject to the share permissions applied to them