Simulator in vCenter?

[TMADOCTHOMAS]

Hello,

I will soon be setting up our first cdot simulators, for 9.9.1. I've read the install guide and downloaded the files. Can this be deployed in vCenter even though it's not specifically stated? Also, I see that you can deploy two of them but that HA doesn't work. If HA doesn't work, what is the value of having a two node simulated cluster? Thanks!

[hmoubara · Accepted solution]

Hello @TMADOCTHOMAS ,

You need to install one of the following VMware applications on the host system to
use Simulate ONTAP:
• VMware Workstation Pro
• VMware Workstation Player
• VMware Fusion

As for the HA, as mentioned in the documentation it is not supported with Ontap Simulator, but the reason behind setting up two node is the ability to test snapmirror/snapvault for DR replication per exmaple.

Hope this answer your questions.

Thanks 

[TMADOCTHOMAS]

Okay thank you @hmoubara !

[TMADOCTHOMAS]

@hmoubara , I'm looking through the Installation and Setup Guide for 9.9.1. Page 13 - 14 describes in detail how to set up a 2-node simulator-based cluster?? Why is that in the install guide if it doesn't exist / isn't supported? Am I missing something?

[hmoubara]

Hello,

As per documentation, you can create a 2-node simulator but the HA features will not work as it is not supported because of the virtualization architect. As previously mentioned above, you would use the 2-mode vSIM setup for Snapmirror/Snapvault replication.

Thanks

[TMADOCTHOMAS]

Also, the following article provides a greater deep dive into how to configure the simulator. This guide includes installation on vCenter as an option??

https://community.netapp.com/t5/Developer-Network-Articles-and-Resources/Building-and-Customizing-NetApp-Simulators/ta-p/87157

[TMADOCTHOMAS]

Okay thanks @hmoubara . Interesting. It seems of limited value to me as typically I would likely create two separate single node clusters to test snapmirror/snapvault rather than a 2 node cluster (although I know the latter can work).

[TMADOCTHOMAS]

For the record in case anyone is interested, I did set up the simulator in vCenter and it works just fine. Not sure why they decided to drop it from the documentation as it works without a problem. I have CIFS and iSCSI so far and it all works fine. There just isn't any HA but that's the only difference.

It would be interesting if the sim could be "hacked" to make it use HA - perhaps by mirroring the aggregates to each node and connecting it to OnTAP Deploy to see if it could be made to treat it like an OTS instance? Likely not but it would be interesting to see if that would work.