VSC support for vSphere 6.7U2

[VirtualJoe]

Which version of VSC will support vSphere 6.7 U2?

[konnerth · Accepted solution]

Hi,

We are doing full testing with 6.7U2 and targeting support with our next Unified Virtual Appliance release this summer (current plan is to call this release 9.6, in line with ONTAP).  This release also has a completely new HTML5 interface.

---Karl

[EwyWins]

Hi there,

First, thanks for all your hard work.

Now, can you be a little bit more specific. For us floridians Summer is on from Jan to Dec, see what i mean 🙂

[konnerth]

Right, we have a long "summer" in California, too. 

As I posted last week, we are on track for a mid-August release.  It looks like that will cover 6.5U3 as well based on current testing.

---Karl

[fbassovem]

---

@konnerth wrote:

Right, we have a long "summer" in California, too. 

As I posted last week, we are on track for a mid-August release.  It looks like that will cover 6.5U3 as well based on current testing.

---Karl

---

Hello Karl,

I found in download page "Virtual Storage Console 9.6", as per IMT is compatible with vSphere 6.5 U2, vSphere from 6.7 to 6.7U2, Ontap from 9.1 to 9.6.

The "Storage Replication Adapter" instead as per IMT is compatibile with SRM 8.1.2, SRM 8.2 is not mentioned.

Any news about that?

Thanks

[konnerth]

We just qualified 9.6 with SRM 8.2 this week and you should now find it listed.  We are working on VMware certification testing now.

---Karl

[jkoch]

Looks like vSphere 6.7U3 is out now...

[fbassovem]

---

@jkoch wrote:

Looks like vSphere 6.7U3 is out now...

---

Yes, yesterday!

[tsm]

Maybe VSC 9.6 supports vSphere 6.7U3 out of the box?

[konnerth]

No, we need to complete QA testing on 6.7U3 before we list it as qualified.  VMware has a long history of making changes that impact VSC, VASA Provider, etc.

Right now our QA priority is finishing VMware certification with recent SRM releases.  Assuming no problems, this should wrap up in the next few weeks.

---Karl

[Oli71]

I do run a 9.6 against  6.7U3 and VSIM 9.6P2 in the lab. So far so good, but better wait for the green light of the support to push that to a production environment. 

Quick question Konnerth, can we expect in the near future the dependency on the oncommand apiserver and get straight the information out the ONTAP 9.6 through the Rest API? 

Oli

[konnerth]

Yes, we are working to adopt ONTAP REST APIs for the VVol file/LUN metrics as soon as they are available, replacing our current API-S usage.  Are you using VVols today?

---Karl

[Oli71]

@konnerth 

Not in production, just in lab mode but I hope to move to test on 2 different customers next month.  We are trying several scenarios to see how resilient it is in case of a failure or unavailability the appliance/vCenter.  I would love to see those points covered in the white paper because I have a lot of questions 🙂

In the meantime, I noticed a few quirks in VSC 9.6. Disclaimer, I am running everything in VMs

- VSC is asking always for the administrator password when you start the appliance on VMware Workstation. (Workaround was to install it in ESXi embedded then export the OVA again).

- VSC uses always the export 'default', it would be nice to be able to choose the export when using NFS PE.

I have witnessed other quirks but, I think it is because of my NetApp is running in a VSIM. I tell you more when I move to a real test environment.

Extra question, VASA in an appliance vs on the controllers? The only reference I found is a mention about the advantages and disadvantages of the approach but not really any deep dive.

Oli

[konnerth]

Hi Oli,

While on-box VASA Provider might work well with small storage arrays, the appliance approach works better for ONTAP scale-out clusters where volumes can move across them as needed.  We have customers using a single VP across 10 or more clusters as well.  There are other advantages (upgrade independently of ONTAP, no performance or availability impact on the storage OS, etc.).

---Karl

[Oli71]

@konnerth 

Thanks! Much appreciated! In the meantime, i would like to report another anoying  behavior of the appliance 🙂 In the case, you restart your VASA and vCenter is unavailable it request you to enter the URL/login again. I would be nice to propose an option to use the old one or enter a new one!

I do have extra questions, sorry I don't know if you are the right person for that 🙂 

- Why do you still use VMware from the ESXi ISO. VMware does recommend to use open-vmware-tools instead. There is an execelent session available from VMworld 2019 about it. 

- Do you consider to move PhotonOS maybe?

- What's the real impact of reseting the database? I am surprised there is no backup option for it.

- VASA 3.0 vVOL 2.0 certified soon? That missing replication fonctionnality does really cut down the opportunities to move to vVOLs

Regards,

Oli

[konnerth]

Hi,

Some quick answers.  I'll ask Engineering to look at the Tools - thanks!  We are working on plans to support the SRM Photon OS appliance, but haven't heard of plans to support Photon OS for the ONTAP virtual appliance.  The VASA Provider metadata is also stored in the FlexVol volumes, and there is a command to recover the database from that (vp dr_recoverdb).  Our VP 7.1 release is certified to the VVol 2.0 spec, but our VVol replication support is targeted to a release of SRM that supports VVols.

---Karl

[CASSEAU33]

Anyone know if any versions of VSC works with the SRM appliance? (non windows). Or if it best to stick with the windows version for purposes of  interoperability? Thanks.

[konnerth]

Hi,

We are working on plans to support the SRM Photon OS appliance with a future SRA release.

---Karl

[Oli71]

@konnerth 

Thanks!

What about non SRM setup with traditional Snapmirror? It seems also that all DirectSAN option while backuping with Veeam isn't supported/implemented with VVOLS. Is it limitation due the current state of VMware libraries?

Oli

[MesopotamianFella]

Any update on this? the only thing blocking us from updateding to 6.7U2 is the lack of NetApp support.

[konnerth]

Hi,

We still plan to qualify our next release of the virtual appliance (9.6) with vCenter 6.7U2.  This release is for the vSphere Client (HTML5) only, and is targeted for release at the end of July.  I have a build running in my lab and it looks good and performs better than the Flash/Flex client.

We have done some testing of VSC 7.2.1 with 6.7U2 and it seems to work OK.  However, there were some VASA/VVol changes with this vCenter release that we had to make corresponding changes for.  So it works for traditional datastores, but due to this VVol issue we can't qualify it and list it in the NetApp IMT.

---Karl