Dell Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) 10.0 Is Here

We have just released our latest (10.0) version of our VMware vCenter plugin.

What is VSI?
Dell EMC Virtual Storage Integrator is a plug-in that extends the VMware vSphere Client, allowing users of the vSphere Client to perform Dell EMC storage management tasks within the same tool they use to manage their VMware virtualized environment.

If you are new to the VSI plugin, i suggest you start by reading about it here What is Dell Technologies PowerStore – Part 17, Managing the array via VMware vCenter with the VSI 8.4 Plugin | Itzikr’s Blog (volumes.blog)

here Manage your Dell PowerStore array from VMware vCenter, with VSI 8.5 | Itzikr’s Blog (volumes.blog) and here Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) 8.6 is Here! – Itzikr’s Blog (volumes.blog)

here Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) 9.0 is here – Itzikr’s Blog (volumes.blog) and, here

Dell Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) 9.1 Is Here – Itzikr’s Blog (volumes.blog)

What’s new in 10.0

PowerStore Replication Support – VSI 10.0 introduces this feature for VMFS datastore and volume group

View replication details under Replication tab

Click the replication rule text will navigate to replication rules page

View replication details for volume group under Replication tab of a volume group

Click the replication rule text will navigate to replication rules page

PowerStore Metro Support

Configure Metro under “Storage Details” tab

Click configure metro button will open the dialog
Select the remote system by dropdown button
If selected the check box “Do not perform the host mapping operation”,

it will do the host mapping automatically.

View Metro status and details

View Metro status on protection card under storage details tab of a VMFS datastore
View Metro details under replication tab of a VMFS datastore

Updated host mappings tab

Map Host button becomes dropdown button when datastore configure metro
Added columns in data grid

Updated map host dialog

Show hosts outside cluster when selected the checkbox

Updated Hosts tab

Added modify host connectivity in dropdown buttons
Added columns in data grid

Modify host connectivity setting dialog

Select host connectivity type Local or Metro
If Metro is selected, Metro type will calculate by selected system(s)

PowerStore Snapshot & Replication Rule and Protection Policy Management

VSI 10.0 introduces this feature under the “Protection” tab of a specific PowerStore system.

Click proper item in dropdown menu to navigate to the management page.
Only storage owners can perform create/edit/delete action.

View Snapshot Rules:

Hover on the Policies info icon to show the policies names, which are using this snapshot rule.

Click Add/Edit/Delete/Refresh button to manage snapshot rule.

Manage Snapshot Rule:

With checked “Create Another Rule”, the create dialog will auto reopen after current snapshot rule created successfully.
User could decide whether to delete all snapshots created by selected rules with check/uncheck the checkbox in delete dialog.

View Replication Rules:

Hover on the Policies info icon to show the policies names, which are using this replication rule.

Click Add/Edit/Delete/Refresh button to manage replication rule.

Manage Replication Rule:

With checked “Create Another Rule”, the create dialog will auto reopen after current replication rule created successfully.
Click “Setup new” to add one more new remote system for replication rule destination.

View Protection Policies:

A protection policy consists of “snapshot rule” and “replication rule”, and applied to kinds of resources, such as volume, volume group, virtual machines, etc.
Hover on the info icon to show more detailed information.

Click Add/Edit/Delete/Refresh button to manage protection policy.

Manage Protection Policy:

Select some “snapshot rule” or “replication rule” to create/edit a protection policy.
With checked “Create Another Policy”, the create dialog will auto reopen after current protection policy created successfully.

PowerStore 3.0 Appliances and Nodes Monitoring:

View performance charts for PowerStore with AppsON internal hosts.
View performance charts for PowerStore appliances and nodes.
View capacity charts for PowerStore appliances.

Performance monitoring for PowerStoreX internal hosts:

On parity with PowerStore Management UI, show performance monitoring for PowerStoreX internal hosts in VSI host minitor page.
If the host is not an internal host of PowerStoreX 3.0 and above, or the cluster is not registered, there will be prompted that the host is not supported performance monitoring.
Performance monitoring for PowerStore appliances and nodes:
Add a drop-down in PowerStore system performance tab with default option to show charts for the cluster
Show Appliance and Node performance charts when an appliance in the drop-down is selected
Show AppsON metrics on the charts for PowerStore X model
Do not show charts if system version is prior to 3.0
Capacity monitoring for PowerStore appliances:
Add a drop-down in PowerStore system capacity tab for cluster and its appliances.
Make the capacity tab show appliance’s capacity info (Physical Capacity, Historical Usage and Data Savings) when an appliance is selected from the drop-down.
Do not show chart if system version is prior to 3.0

VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Enhancement

SRM Servers info location change

SRM RecoveryPoints with PowerStore

Manage by SRM Protection Groups

Manage by Dell Protected Storage

Set snapshot(s) – single replication session

Set snapshot(s) – multiple replication sessions

Set snapshot(s) – protection group(s)

Clear snapshot(s) – protection group(s)/replication sessions

PowerStore Volume Group Support

VSI 10.0 Introduces PowerStore Volume Group Support through the VSI plugin.

Map/Unmap Volumes Groups and group members from Hosts

Viewing Members of the Volume Group

Change Protection/Performance Policy and edit capacity for Volume Group Members

Create/Modify/Delete VG Snapshot

Create Thin Clone of Volume Group Snapshot

Refresh using Volume Group Snapshot

Restore Volume Group from Snapshot

Create Thin Clone of Volume Group

Refresh Using related Volume Group

PowerStore Rename and Sync VMFS Datastore

Allow the user to rename their VMFS Datastore
- Rename the Datastore on vCenter
- Sync with the backing volume with the prefix _VMFS
  - Sync button is disabled if the names are in sync

VSI Health Checker: Initial Setup

During Initial Setup show the connection status for DNS, NTP and the current server time. If VSI can not reach either the NTP or DNS servers, we will show an error here notifying the user.
The VSI Current server time must match the vCenters current server time for everything to work properly.

In the management interface, the user can now see DNS, NTP, Current Server time, CPU Usage, Disk Usage, and the status of all of the VSI Services.

In the VSI Dashboard through vCenter the user can now also see the DNS, NTP, Current Server Time and how many VSI services are up and running.

PowerMax NVMe oF/TCP Support for VMFS Datastores

Overview of NVMe oF/TCP support:

VMware supports NVMe oF/TCP storage protocol for storage provisioning with the release of VMware vSphere 7 Update 3+ versions.
Dell PowerMax Juniper supports VMFS datastore provisioning using NVMe oF/TCP Protocol along with FC and ISCSI.
VSI enables this additional support with the help of NQN Initiator Id’s of the ESXi host and Unique nguid created to identify the backing LUN(Volume) created in PowerMax via NVMe oF/TCP Protocol.
The requirement for VSI to support NVMe is to use Vsphere 7.0.u3+, ESXi 7.0.2+, Unisphere for PowerMax 10.0 managing Juniper V4 arrays.
Refer the references section for detailed information on requirements on setting up the connectivity for above.

Initiator details of Esxi Host in VSI along with Storage Group and PowerMax Host Information:

Creation of VMFS datastore using NVMe is Just like any other PowerMax VMFS datastore.
The user needs to be aware of Storage group created in Unisphere which has NVMe initiator. The example Storage group in Unisphere is shown below on the left
The Same details of Esxi Host and respective Nqn intiator is shown below on the right which is VSI Esxi Hosts tab (Dell VSI -> Storage Systems -> Hosts)

Successful Create datastore to show nguid in summary page:

To create datastore using nvme type protocol user needs to select the respective storage group in the Storage Selection wizard
The above is just like any other VMFS datastore create
The Datastore Configure view page shows the details of nguid (Unique identifier of LUN mapped to the datastore)
For Devices which are not created using NVMe/TCP protocol, nguid in VSI will be NA.

PowerMax NFS Datastore Support

PowerMax 10 provides support for Filesystems , NAS Servers, NFS Shares with active management for each
Using Filesystems NFS Datastores can be created and mounted from VSI on several ESXi Hosts that are managed by vCenter
This requires Registration of Juniper array and NAS Servers in VSI
The requirement to provision a storage using NFS datastores in VSI are Embedded Unisphere 10.0, at least a single NAS Server created in Unipshere 10.0
Once NAS server is created the same will be discovered in VSI during Array registration
Along with provisioning NFS datastore VSI supports Mount and Unmount NFS datastores in multiple Esxi Hosts

Storage Access to PowerMax NAS Servers

NAS Servers can also be registered after registering Storage system which supports NAS Servers.
NAS Servers tab will be enabled in Dell VSI Tabs.

Storage Access edit for NAS Servers

NAS Servers access can be controlled from Storage access Edit Access. Expand all to select / remove access for selected users

Unregister NAS Servers

NAS Servers can be unregistered by clicking on the remove icon as mentioned above from VSI
Once User unregisters NAS Servers, any user will not be able to provision / manage NFS datastores.

PowerMax NFS/NFS4.1 Datastore Create

You can create PowerMax NFS Datastore from usual Right Click -> Dell VSI (Inventroy -> Hosts/Clusters/Datacenter) ->Create Datastore or from Actions Menu.

Host Access can be set for selected hosts within the table. If there are multiple Hosts , Host access to all Datastores can be Set by setting Set access mode for all selected hosts, which will update the record respectively in the table as well (refer below image).