Feedback requested for Virtual Storage Console 2.0 Users

[robertim]

We're looking for feedback from  customers that have downloaded Virtual Storage Console and are using it. Any and all comments and feedback welcome.

[gary_thomas]

The one thing that would be cool would be for a consolidated storage management so all 3 parts of vsc don't require manually adding the filers, obviously a option to have different accounts if required for those that have RBAC for each purpose.

Some sort of heartbeat to SMVI would also be good as if the service failed it can't alert you to the fact that its failed via email.

The ability to use internal certificates for the suite is also highly desired for a updated release.

Can't really comment on the actual operation, until the wrapper.exe  is updated to fix the licensing issue and the fix to the nfs license  being required for RCU to register a filer. Surprised this wasnt fixed overnight.

Other then that the 3-1 approach is certainly better then the old seperate utils.

[acistmedical]

So far so good

Maybe except the error message in the Plug-in window of the vCenter that i'm covering in a "VSC Upgrade" post.

[amritad]

It could be the older version VSC 1.0 listing that error. Could you check?

Regards

Amrita

[jerimiah303]

Great to have SMVI consolidated into vSphere! Have noticed that alert emails for SMVI are generated regardless of the email setting per job. (IE, Notify on: set to Errors or Warning only still generates an email for a successful job, small bug.)

[amritad]

There could be some warning in the log even though backup was successful. Could you please check that? I think that is why you are getting mails.

Regards

Amrita

[jerimiah303]

I did notice a few warn entries for things like RDM's or IDE controllers, but the job's exit as successful (not partially successful) and still generate an email. Perhaps that's just a change in logic for VSC 2.0 as those configurations where present when using SVMI on a standalone server, and emails were only recieved on warning or error. (but not about RDM or IDE controller)

When an email was generated from the old SMVI, the warning or error was also listed in the email.

VSC 1.0 was uninstalled prior to upgrading to ver 2.

[amritad]

We did change the logic a little bit to send messages when any warnings were logged. I guess that’s why you are getting mails. If you select just errors I think you wouldn’t get mails.

VSC 1.0 uninstall was for the other(acistmedical) post J

Regards

Amrita

[dpeterson_savo]

When will the updated version of VSC 2.0 that fixes the bug that prevents filers from being discoverable if you don't have NFS licensed be available?

Can you update the documentation/release notes to note this issue?

[lsanchez]

I found problems with integration of VSC 2.0 in a SMT environment.

vFiler should be can managed by vFiler0 when i don't have any access by other network (like SMT environment)

[radek_kubka]

Hi,

General impression - it's awesome!

The level of integration of storage management into vCenter Server interface is really impressive &  I don't think any other storage vendor can get even close to it at the moment.

One thing I'd like to see changed:

Say there is no backup job associated with a particular, single VM, but there is a backup job(s) associated with the datastore that VM lives in. When I select that VM, a list of backup jobs is completely empty, yet technically speaking that VM will be backed up together with the entire datastore. I see the rationale behind this behaviour, but I think it may be misleading: it looks like a VM is not protected, whilst in fact it is.

Regards,
Radek

[amritad]

Thanks for the feedback Radek. I agree with you there. IT was a design decision but it can be slightly confusing.

Regards

Amrita

[darren_hedges]

Overall impression is that it seems a lot better than previous seperate versions of software.

The NFS requirement bug was a bit sloppy to be honest and should have been picked up by QA.

There seems to be another issue on the system I have but I haven't raised a support ticket yet.  The problem is to do with the annoying SSL pop up when you go into the VSC software.  It does not always appear and if it doesn't then the software doesn't work.  Work around is to close the vsphere client and start it again which is very annoying.  Ideally the SSL popup wouldn't need to appear more than the very first time it's run on a machine.

The backup selection seems a lot quicker than pevious although that may have been because the previous version didn't work correctly on the vsphere version I was running.

On the page to automatically set various things such as MPIO, it doesn't always work first time and may need a second go at a server to set it correctly.

I was hoping for some sort of integration with the mbrscan and mbralign instead of just the download option so that we could have a graphical indication within the vsphere console of what is aligned or not and then simply click a button for it to align them.

Hopefully the next version will improve even more.

[amritad]

For the SSL I was wondering if you were seeing this error?

• ConnectException: Connection refused: connect    
  

• This means VSC tried to connect with a controller using SSL when it was not configured.    VSC will display the Controller Credential were you will be able to uncheck “Using SSL”
  

And once you uncheck are you still running into this?

Regards

Amrita

[dbkelly]

Darren,

KB#59556 should fix your issue where the SSL certificate is not being properly saved.

[mheimberg]

Integration of all the tools (SMVI, RCU) is great.

But me too I would like to request a "single registration" for the storage systems for all apps instead of adding/discovering the systems in each seperately.

[chqlsnetapp]

Hello,

We've just installed VSC 2.0 and loving it! Previously mentioned little bugs do not really hamper the production, but hopefully will be resolved soon enough.

I had a couple of questions regarding VSC and SMVI:

• required licenses are Snaprestore and Flexclone right?
  
• Isn't SMVI 3.0 suppose to come out this year, and if so, will be it an included app in VSC or standalone or both?
  
• we would like to remove some options off of the Netapp pluging. for example removing the option to update/discovery
  

thank you in advance!

Regards,

[amritad]

Hi

* required licenses are Snaprestore and Flexclone right?

You would need the SMVI and FlexClone license to use SMVI and the cloning feature. Other licenses are

SnapRestore, The required protocol license (NFS, FCP, iSCSI) and SnapMirror (if required)

* Isn't SMVI 3.0 suppose to come out this year, and if so, will be it an included app in VSC or standalone or both?

SMVI will always be part of the unified plug-in going forward

Regards

Amrita

[aholstnetapp]

Hello,

The integration of SMVI into virtual center has some benefit for skilled user.

I noticed that limited user have the right to change schedules for backup task under 'Backup and Recovery'. Are there any privileges to restict access to the whole page like for 'provisioning and Cloning'?

[amritad]

You could create a user and assign privileges to use Backup and recovery. Take a look at this KB

https://now.netapp.com/Knowledgebase/solutionarea.asp?id=kb59040

Regards

Amrita

[mheimberg]

I am not quite satisfied with this article.

What if Victor should have only access to a subset of Datastores or VMs to backup and restore? And Anna has access to another subset?

Or if Victor should only be capable of restores machines but not backup?

Thanks for any further links (or is it just RTFM? then I apologize for this post...)

Markus