ONTAP 9.3 Simulator

[tonyd]

Is there any timeframe for when Simulate ONTAP 9.3 may be available?

[nbkyeyu]

I do not see the options for NVE, does the ONTAP 9.3 Simulator support NetApp Volume Encryption?

[AlexDawson]

Nope, not supported. It should be transparent for essentially everything - what particularly would you like to test?

[nbkyeyu]

I am an engineer at Gemalto, and our external Key Manager is certified with Ontap 9.3 for external Key Management via KMIP.. I wanted to setup the KMIP communication from the Ontap Simulator to the Gemalto KeyManager to verify KMIP handshake...

[AlexDawson]

Ah, that is a different scenario then. Can you send your gemalto contact details through to my NetApp email address? (<firstname>.<lastname>@netapp.com) and I will find a contact for you to see what we can do.

[howard]

Yes..this is an ongoing dilema.

I am once again starting from scratch. Last attempt (cursor not showing keystrokes) I managed to blow right past setting up Cluster Management Interface. Going into OnCommand there seemed to be no way to populate the Mgmt Interface. 

So we start over.

This is running on Vmware ESX 6.0.0 (5224934) I am using the Vmware Fat Client to access, not the Web Interface (still sucks).

So...couple things to note:

"Wipe filer procedure requested", then I get > ifconfig: interface e0g does not exist...then it spits out a bunch of cryptomod0fips results, then we start getting auto disk assignment disabled, MCC quater shelf disabled, scsi.cmd.pastTimeToLive: error1 Unkown device v0.16 request failed, then a few more device failures.....v0.18, v0.17    requests failed after try #1 cdb 0xa0.These then repeat once more....then...more dots across the screen. One "dot" every 5 seconds......

Its now been 10 min....and I am still looking at Dots going across the screen.......OMG.

it continues to do something....which tells me nothing about what this thing is doing. So we wait.......and we wait......

Still waiting.....will report back....later sometime...whenever this thing figures itself out.

Before "starting again" I also tried to putty into this thing. I enter admin/password...putty closes immedialty....so much for that idea. So i thought maybe there is a login thats hung, so I reboot and try again...no joy. Putty terminates as soon as I enter the p/w and hot 'enter'.

Sheesh.....this is really leaving a bad taste in my mouth. 

[GidonMarcus]

Hi  @howard i have geed news for the dots endless-waiting.

in ONTAP 9.4 there's soft-zeroing feature (can't recall the branded name) that will elminate the very long wait required for this stage in the install.

Gidi

[howard]

Sad to report...maybe the dots are not going across the screen like 9.3, but 9.4 cannot even get past starting cluster services. ...It just sits there......doing nothing all the while disk drives have the odd green flashing light.....so something is going on, but whatever it is has nothing to do with management ot creating a cluster.

Even after I have zero'd the disks, entered Node IP....then go to create the cluster......no response from this sim. Black Hole.

9.4 is no better than 9.3. 

I am giving up.....wasted far to much time on this already for no reaqson other than to be frustrated.

[Zubrania]

When the  9.4 simulator  will be available for download&

[AlexDawson]

Hi Howard,

The dots are from the system initializing the disks, which does take a while, depending on underlaying storage and system CPU. I understand your frustration, but I can assure you that this is very much the "sausage-making" part of the system, and isn't reflective of operating products.

We have strong channel partners and distributors who are able to assist you with implementation of our systems, as well as provide you access to already setup demonstration environments, or assist you, hands on, with setting up the demonstrator as a solutions engineering activity.

You can find a selection of partners to work with at https://www.netapp.com/us/partners/index.aspx

[artur_alikulov]

You can now download 9.3 simulator from support site.

https://mysupport.netapp.com/cgi-bin/simulator

[AlexDawson]

Just if anyone is curious - I have successfully upgraded the public 9.1 simulator to 9.3, using the regular ONTAP package downloaded from the support site.

I had to expand the root aggregate and node root volume, but after that it was fine. It did seem to pause for about 10 minutes at boot, and then it took another 15-20 minutes for the https interface to be available, but all seems to work.

[howard]

This Simulator has got to be the worst thing I have ever setup.

9.2 just would NOT play nice..PERIOD.

So now I am onto 9.3, same darn problem tho...if I "Release" my cursor to do something else while the Simulator thinks about what its going to do, when its time to enter tdata agin...I get NO RESPONSE from my typing......, I get NO KEYBOARD INPUT. What a nightmare.

However, by accident.....I found that I can type a single character.....then click OUT OF THE VM...the letter apperars. I go back into the VM, type my NEXT letter.....does NOT appear until I exit the VM and click away from it.

What is going on here?? This cannot be the way this is supposed to work.

So at this point...I cannot run a Simulator....at all...so much for testing out a possable purchase from Netapp, but if I cannot run a Simulator to Demo...then we cannot consider Netapp as a Solution.

[asulliva]

Hi @howard,

Sorry to hear you're having this issue...have you tried pressing scroll lock or the Pause/Break button after it begins exhibiting this behavior?

Andrew

[SeanHatfield]

I've seen some oddities with hypervisor consoles, but not that particular one.  Which hypervisor are you running it in, and on which host OS?  I have the most issues when I'm using a hypervisor console window inside an RDP session.  I actually prefer the serial port console, but its a bit of extra effort to set up.

[AlexDawson]

Hi there,

The best way to use the simulator is to perform a minimal setup on the system via the remote connection provided by the hypervisor, then connect to it over ssh and/or https, as this most closely imitates the experience of using a real system. Unlike some vendors, our simulator is not just a UI simulation - it is a capacity limited low memory version of our controller software. Any support for remote KVM is just for setup. I understand your frustration - I find using hypervisor consoles is always a little clumbsy in my experience, even with plain Windows server.

[skurtz]

since we just went GA yesterday, is there an update to this? Any chance this would also support a 4 node cluster?

[SeanHatfield]

In the interim you can apply the update to a vsim running 9.2. Larger clusters do work, you just need to give each node unique serials & sysids (try the ones from the 8.2 7-mode license sheet).  And you'll need a lot more ram 🙂

[bazmercer]

Hi,

I've not had any luck applying 9.3 to 9.2 I get a panic on boot. Any ideas?

Thanks

[asulliva · Accepted solution]

Hi @tonyd,

I don't believe we usually publish them for public consumption until after the ONTAP release goes GA.

That being said, you should be able to access the pre-release versions internally.

Hope that helps.

Andrew

[GidonMarcus]

Hi

you can sometimes also do an normal ontap upgrade from within the simulator and have it working (i think i did it for 8.2>8.2.1) and it worked. 

Gidi