Microsoft Virtualization Discussions

What would YOU like to see in the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit?

cknight
24,360 Views

The initial response to the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit has been tremendous, but that doesn't mean we have all the answers!  We've only begun to tap the enormous potential of PowerShell, and the combination of this Toolkit with other 3rd-party modules (HyperV, PowerCLI, etc.) is where things really get interesting.  Here's your opportunity to tell us how you'd like to use the Toolkit and how we can improve it to help you get there.

I'll offer a few things we're already considering:

  • Snapvault
  • Consistency group
  • Snapshot multicreate
  • Reallocate
  • System.DateTime values in addition to Int64 values
  • Find-NaController (discover controllers on the network, including new, unconfigured ones)

Clinton

120 REPLIES 120

erick_moore
4,423 Views

I would love to see FlexShare included.  With the big push towards multi-tenancy the need to prioritize certain workloads is very important.  I think this is a must have feature especially since the TR for FlexShare states you need to set priority settings on every volume in order to achieve the best performance.

cknight
4,423 Views

OK, Erick, thanks.  I've captured that for consideration in a future Toolkit release.

cknight
4,423 Views

FlexShare didn't make the cut for Toolkit 1.2, Erick, but it will be in 1.3.

erick_moore
4,503 Views

What version of OnTap do you need for 1.2 of the Toolkit?  I am getting some api errors with some of the new cmdlets:

Get-NaNetInterface : Unable to find API: net-ifconfig-get

cknight
4,503 Views

Erick, the latest Toolkit still works with ONTAP 7.2 and later, but as you have noticed, some cmdlets exercise newer APIs.  Many of the networking cmdlets require Data ONTAP 7.3.3 or later, but are not (yet) supported in the Data ONTAP 8.x releases.

wippel
4,550 Views

When will 1.3 be available?

cknight
4,550 Views

I can't make any promises about release dates, although it won't be before Christmas.  That said, we are striving to maintain a release cadence in the PowerShell space that others will be hard-pressed to match.

egrigson1
4,550 Views

Is there a cmdlet for vol copy? I can see Start-NaClone and a few other cloning related cmdlets, but no vol copy.

Thanks,

Ed.

cknight
4,550 Views

Hi, Ed.  To copy a flexible volume within an aggregate, your best bet is New-NaVolClone followed by Start-NaVolCloneSplit.  That will leave you with a volume copy with no dependency on the parent volume.

ryanf123
4,693 Views

I'd love to see more command pipelining. That makes it more usefull outside of the scripting capabilities. Other than that, I'd also like to see the navolsize command return the true size of the volume, and the set-nalunsize command respond to +10g (or whatever sizing modification) in the same manner as the set-navolsize command.

cknight
4,693 Views

Thanks, Ryan.  Good suggestion for Set-NaLunSize.  For more info on command pipelining, here's a timely bit of info:

Weekend Scripter: Use the PowerShell Pipeline with Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit

BISHTECHIT
4,872 Views

Hello Dr. Knight -

I had a chance to read the Scripting Guy blog that you guest Blogged on -

Can you help me understand the *Clone* cmds?

::

::

I have a requirement to scan LUNs, check if a clone is active, if it is not - remove it.

Could you provide some understanding on best practice when work with NetApp clones.

thanks in advance,

Peter

cking22001
4,693 Views

I would like to see some documentation on setting up your PowerShell environment. I am not stupid but after a couple hours yesterday and over an hour today, I am still at a loss to what I need to do to make this work.

I am sure some of you are probably rolling your eyes about now but why don't you start the 'getting started' section with getting started and not running your first script? I got the SDK (even though I am not sure I need it) I read about the DLLs I need for Powershell but where do I put them? How do I register them? Do I? Who knows. I am frustrated because I feel I am an experienced Windows admin, scripter for almost two decades and here I sit about ready to quit my job and go into selling shoes!

Anyone got a something for what must be a really dumb guy?

cknight
4,693 Views

If you haven't already, you might try Microsoft's Getting Started With Windows PowerShell.

And this document has a little more info about what you need to get started with the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit.  You don't need the Manage ONTAP SDK to use the Toolkit.

If you still have questions after digesting those, please share a little more about your own environment and the specific questions you have.

cking22001
4,693 Views

Wow, good burn on the  'getting started with PS' link. LOL

Thanks for the quick reply.

In the meantime I had taken a deep breath and took a step back. I used APITEST.EXE from SDK to verify I could connect to filer but using ssl. RPC seems to be an issue from my machine.

So, after that, it was a piece of cake to use: Connect-NaController -name filer -Credential (Get-Credential)

If SSL works for everything I want, I am fine with that. Any known issues with RPC and Windows 7? I have 64 bit and have tried turning off firewall but it seems that connecting via RPC simply does not work.

-ck

cknight
4,693 Views

FWIW, I verified RPC with Windows 7 (32-bit).  No problems.  For RPC to work, you must add your controller to a domain, register a domain user with the controller, and be logged into your PowerShell host as that domain user.  Then RPC should be able to use your domain identity to authenticate with the controller via AD.

cking22001
4,693 Views

Thanks. Seems like RPC log in using the PowerShell  Connect-NaController cmdlet does work for me. I think I was chasing my tail and got a bit mixed up. Using the APITEST.EXE from SDK still does not work unless I use SSL but I guess it does not really matter. Powershell is what I am interested in anyway.

-c

BrendonHiggins
4,835 Views

I know you have already said snapvault but snapvault!

I am new to powershell, so a lot of examples to learn from and a step by step guide based on common NetApp tasks.  For example, I have been trying to create a script which gets the snapmirror lag and then alerts when volumes pass a lag limit I set.  I know this can be done with Operations Manager but I would like a per service view of the world.

Also could a nice GUI be created or a plug-in so that it works in vEcoShell which is also on my 'long' list of things to do.

http://vcommunity.vizioncore.com/administration/vecoshell/default.aspx

Bren

cknight
4,835 Views

Hello, Brendon.  The Toolkit has supported SnapVault since the 1.1 release.  Check out the documents section of this community, as well as the sample scripts sub-section, for lots of great Toolkit usage examples.

BrendonHiggins
4,835 Views

It has been I while since I had a look at the powershell kit.  Binned it when it did not have snapvault.

Will give it another go.

Have found http://communities.netapp.com/community/interfaces_and_tools/data_ontap_powershell_toolkit/samples?view=all

Should I be looking anywhere else for example scripts?

Bren

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