Intro
As we get this year kicked off, let's revisit some of the reasons so many customers choose NetApp and VMware. We are ramping up loads of new content for the new year, but first, this blog series highlights the advantages of hybrid multicloud environments powered by NetApp and VMware. Throughout the series, we will explore these benefits with supporting resources and technical examples to help you better understand each topic.
This blog focuses on the operational benefits gained when leveraging NetApp and VMware. Within this blog, we will provide best practice resources for your NetApp and VMware environment as a standardized foundation facilitates operational consistency. Additionally, we will review a step-by-step walkthrough of using VMware HCX to migrate workloads to the public cloud as an example.
The Setup
We help design virtual infrastructures that efficiently host a variety of applications and workloads to solve real business problems. VMware plays a vital role in achieving this by providing the ability to create software defined datacenters (SDDC) based on the business requirements. SDDCs consist of the compute and storage required while the network facilitates communication between resources.
Storage can be categorized into traditional and software-defined storage models. Both offerings aim to separate the logical provisioning of resources from the underlying physical components.
Traditional storage models include the following:
- Local storage
- NAS (NFS)
- SAN (FC, iSCSI
- Virtual Disks
- RDM
Software-defined storage models include the following:
- vVols
- vSAN
Consistent operations
NetApp is the only storage vendor that provides consistent operations for guest-connected storage and VMware datastores, regardless of whether they are deployed on-premises or in the public cloud. This level of consistency is made possible by leveraging ONTAP, which is built upon 20+ years of engineering development.
Whether you require traditional or software-defined storage, NetApp provides a tailored solution to meet your specific requirements through ONTAP. NetApp and VMware engineering collaborate to ensure comprehensive protocol and platform interoperability. Additionally, they ensure the availability of proper documentation and reliable support services.
VMware’s public cloud solutions include support for NFS datastores through various NetApp offerings such as Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, Azure NetApp Files and Google Cloud NetApp Volumes Service. These offerings enable independent scaling of compute and storage resources within a given, cloud-based SDDC. The provided storage can be used for VMs, virtual disks, content libraries, ISOs, and similar elements.
Having discussed different storage offerings, let’s delve into a consistent operation that can easily be performed with your hybrid multicloud using VMware HCX.
- VMware HCX - HCX provides bidirectional migration services between discrete VMware environments. VMware HCX offers bidirectional migration services between discrete VMware environments. Once your source and target sites are configured, you can perform the following migration services:
- Bulk migration
- Cold migration
- vMotion
- Replication assisted vMotion
- OS Assisted migration
Some helpful best practice and configuration resources are as follows:
- NetApp and VMware vSphere storage best practices
- VMware Cloud on AWS and Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP external NFS datastores
- Azure VMware Solution and Azure NetApp Files with external NFS datastores
- Google Cloud VMware Engine and Cloud Volume Service with external NFS datastores
- VMware HCX product documentation
The Example: VM migration with VMware HCX
In this example, we will migrate an on-premises VM using VMware HCX, demonstrating consistent operations with a standardized NetApp and VMware environment.
Configuring VMware HCX is beyond the scope of this blog, but the list below provides the high-level steps required.
- Activate HCX for the VMC software-defined data center (SDDC) through VMware Cloud Services Console.
- Download and deploy the HCX Connector OVA installer in the on-premises vCenter Server.
- Activate HCX with a license key.
- Pair on-premises VMware HCX Connector with VMC HCX Cloud Manager.
- Configure the network profile, compute profile, and service mesh.
- (Optional) Perform Network Extension to extend the network and avoid re-IP.
- Validate the appliance status and ensure that migration is possible.
- Migrate the VM workloads.
Note: In the example below, we are demonstrating an HCX vMotion, which is one of several migration types available with HCX.
1. Get started by confirming the site pairings between your on-premises vCenter and your SDDC in VMC by logging into your on-premises vCenter.
2. Select Migrate to HCX target by right clicking the desired VM and selecting “HCX Actions”.
3. Specify the destination compute container, datastore / storage cluster, and the migration profile to use and select GO.
4. Review the progress of the migration and confirm the VM has been migrated.
The HCX vMotion exercise demonstrated how consistent operations can be achieved when deploying a NetApp and VMware environment according to best practices.
Similar relevant steps can be used for a variety of datastore types and migration exercises within supported configurations.
The Wrap-up
This blog covered how operational consistency can be achieved when using VMware and NetApp. A standard virtual infrastructure, powered by ONTAP and vSphere enable HCX to provide a variety of migration types. With a NetApp VMware hybrid multicloud, many operational tasks can be executed with ease.
For more information see the NetApp solutions documentation for VMware:
