Vsan Troubleshooting on blogs.hareeshkg.com

Whats new with HCIBench 2.0?

Tue, 21 May 2019 14:22:15 +0000

We all know that there is a newer version of HCIBench 2.0 which was announced last month I was able to deploy and run this on one of the All-Flash Clusters , all new changes significantly seemed to have improved user experiences from the previous version . I request you to go thru “Detailed Guide for HCIBench-1.6x ” if you are looking for steps to deploy and configure HCIBench . Also better understanding the use case for HCIBench see : How to Achieve Best Performance Using HCIBench .

How to Convert standard vSAN Cluster to Stretched Cluster & viceversa

Wed, 30 Jan 2019 16:31:04 +0000

Here is a quick and easy guide to convert a normal vSAN cluster to a stretched cluster & converting a stretched cluster to a regular vSAN cluster .

Converting a Standard vSAN cluster to Stretched Cluster

I can categorize the tasks we will need to perform when we convert a normal cluster to a stretched cluster into three sections and I would also quote some of the examples where this will be your requirement in real life situation .

PNOMA – A vSAN Troubleshooting Framework

Fri, 20 Jul 2018 21:30:52 +0000

There are many questions revolving around different layers of vSAN back-end architecture and how we can isolate problems with vSAN or in general approach towards troubleshooting a problem with vSAN . Here is an article which can help you isolate and potentially resolve a problem which involves a vSAN environment by isolating the problem in different layers by breaking down architecture in a simple way.

The approach towards troubleshooting a problem can be categorized in 5 layers similar to OSI model of networking . Application layer , Management layer , Object layer , Object layer and physical layer . We further see examples on how we can tag/categorize issues with each layer , which will help you figure out the source of the problem and quickly finding a solution . You may not be able to find the solution to a problem at all times however be able to categorize the issue under one of these layers , being able to explain the issue accurately to the Technical Support team can help them quickly narrow down the problem and fix that .

Troubleshooting vSAN Encryption Deep Dive

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 15:43:56 +0000

I highly encourage you to check out my previous blog to understand how vSAN encryption works before you jump into troubleshooting problems with vSAN and a KMS server .

This blog should give you a general approach towards troubleshooting problems with vSAN-encryption and also be able to look at a specific log location in order to isolate and fix a specific problem . I have also included certain test-case scenario to see how the logging looks on the host when there is an issue with vSAN-encryption .

Unable to manage vSAN on Webclient

Wed, 09 May 2018 16:23:13 +0000

At many times we may see issues with webclient reporting a 120 second time out and we are unable to manage vSAN from the configure (Cluster ⇒ Configure ⇒ vSAN ) and monitor (Cluster ⇒ Monitor⇒ vSAN ) for vSAN . However from the SSH the cluster is health with no issues . This is generally indication of problems with the vSAN health services and some times it is the storage provider service which runs at the vcenter level which is responsible to poll and display information on the web-client for vSAN-UI area .

How to troubleshoot issues with vSAN Storage policy compliance and VASA Providers ?

Sun, 06 May 2018 15:00:31 +0000

At many times we wonder why we are not able to re-apply policy on a vSAN object or a virtual machine , it may be grayed out and many VMs on the vSAN datastore shows up as non-compliant . Here is a complete guide which helps you understanding the role and importance of the VASA providers in a vSAN environment ,the difference between the latest vSAN 6.7 VP and previous versions and troubleshooting methods to fix VASA issues .

Why does vSAN disks get unmounted ?

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 07:42:36 +0000

vSAN will declare the disks as permanently unavailable , dead or unmounted for multiple reasons . You will have further investigate on the logs to find out the case for such unmounts . Here is a small guide which should enable you to isolating the problem .

It is always good to start looking into the vmkernel.log and vobd.log for the drive (naa.ID) to see the reason for the Disk unmount or DG umounts . The vCenter ⇒ Cluster ⇒ Configure (Manage in 6.2) ⇒ Disk Management View should indicate the Disk or DG which is unhealthy failed or unmounted .

vSAN iSCSI targets configuration deep dive

Fri, 19 Jan 2018 16:16:34 +0000

I have been asked about vSAN iSCSI target configuration and how the objects looks within vSAN ? Here is a small guide that gets you going with vSAN iSCSI configuration and how you get to see the actual luns within vSAN as vSAN objects .

The iSCSI lun creation and presentation is very simple , I have put together screenshots from my lab to create and export vSAN iSCSI luns to a Windows server 2012 box . Please follow the series of screenshots to create and setup iSCSI exports from vSAN to external physical machines . In the below example we do not see creation of initiator group , usually initiator groups are created to allow a set of Luns to a certain set of IQN to which the luns must be visible .

Why and How to Deploy vSAN HCI Bench for vSAN?

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 09:03:23 +0000

After you setup a new vSAN/VxRAIL/VxRACK HCI deployment , you will definitely need to benchmark your cluster before moving it to production . Here is your small guide to “vSAN Performance Benchmark” using a famous useful tool called HCI Bench which is freely available on VMware Labs website .

You may be wondering what is the recommended and correct way to test the performance and review performance on a hyper-converged infrastructure .

If you have not gone thru my previous posts about understanding-vm-storage-policies and understanding-vsan-component-placement-sizing I highly encourage you to go thru that topic which will give you a deep insight on how components are created , placed and how we can view them .

Understanding VM-Storage-Policies

Wed, 27 Dec 2017 05:34:22 +0000

I highly encourage everyone to go thru the Blog/Article about “understanding-vsan-objects-and-component” which explains how components are created based on the policy that you create . So that you understand the fundamentals of Objects and components which will help you “Understanding VM-Storage-Policies” .

Lets pick up a single virtual machines try and apply different policy , look at the object placement view and number of components created their placement , object reservation and number of child components created . Look at this from Webclient / RVC and from ESXi perspective and understand the data/outputs . We really need to know the RVC method and ESXCLI method because during an outage we might have lost vcenter , to look at status of the objects esxcli commands will be still helpful .

Understanding vsan Objects and Components

Mon, 18 Dec 2017 12:02:57 +0000

To understand vSAN component placement and sizing , we should be proficient in creating storage policy and understand the parameters you choose while creating a storage policy . I recommend you to read the vm-storage-policy guide before proceeding .

Please note the following Section “Understanding Component Placements” will not apply to vSAN Clusters running version 7 U1, as there are some changes for placements, which considers new space efficiency feature for slack-space. Please read the new blog for “Component-Placement-7U1 and above”.

Things to know for vSAN management

Sat, 16 Dec 2017 20:35:51 +0000

At many times we may wonder while managing multiple vSAN clusters in a production environment , what are my”Things to know for vSAN management” you may ask yourself ?,a Complete guide for your every day tasks while managing vSAN clusters and things to know which can cause potential disaster without taking precautions

Virtual machine storage policy compliance

You might have already seen all my other previous hosts and by now you would have realized that virtual machine storage policy is everything when it comes to data protection . We need to always make sure all the important virtual machines are compliant with their storage policies at all times and if there were any VMs running FTT-0 which we may still need redundancy , change the policy to FTT-1 (fault to tolerate). Please see How-to-create-VM-policy-vSAN .

How to Silence Warnings on vSAN health Plugin

Sat, 30 Sep 2017 14:51:18 +0000

How to silence warnings on vSAN health Plugin? There are many situations that you may be aware of a particular warning which is not very critical and which is something you are already aware of , however you would like to have the warning silenced or disabled and would like to see the health check come clean every-time time you log in the web-client . There may be known warnings on the vSAN health check plugin you may see in a vSAN cluster , Ex : vMotion: MTU check (ping with large packet size) , vSAN Build Recommendation Engine Health , Component metadata health, Customer experience improvement program (CEIP) and vSAN HCL DB Auto Update ..etc.

How to Login into RVC?

Sat, 30 Sep 2017 13:44:50 +0000

How to Login into RVC? , I have been asked this question multiple times and there is no default KB and direct link explaining the steps to login to RVC for vCenter servers . This article explains steps to login into RVC for both vcenter Server Appliance and Windows based vcenter server .

How to log into RVC on a VCSA (appliance)

Example :

How to perform vSAN cluster maintenance activities

Thu, 10 Aug 2017 15:34:41 +0000

How to perform vSAN cluster maintenance activities? You may be wondering what should be the Steps to reboot vSAN hosts and pre-checks before attempting a host reboot which is participating in a vSAN cluster , here is your guide to make sure your are not affecting your production in the process of a vSAN node upgrade . It is highly recommended to have a BACKUP in place for your VMs before you attempt any maintenance activity on a production cluster .

Troubleshooting vSAN cluster partition vSAN 6.7 and vSAN 6.6

Thu, 27 Jul 2017 16:13:25 +0000

Here are the troubleshooting Steps to resolve Unicastagent issues on vSAN cluster post upgrade usually from vSAN 6.1 / 6.2 / 6.5 to vSAN to 6.6 6.50d and below as we no longer use multicast from version 6.7 and unicastagent list is not updated with correct details on one or more hosts and you also vSAN network partition on one or more hosts .

In these cases you will need to manually add the unicastagent address list on all hosts part of the cluster , follow thru the steps listed below .

How to Upgrade vSAN CLuster with Best practices

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 14:37:02 +0000

Here is your simple “How to Upgrade vSAN with best practice guide ?” . I have been asked by a lot of people recently regarding vSAN upgrades sequence , questions will generally be like ,what are my threats? , what are the prerequisites ? , Should I perform upgrades on all hosts together or one node after another ? what are my checks before I proceed to upgrade vSAN hosts? what are the dependencies before I start upgrading my hosts .However you may ask why should I upgrade my hosts / VCenter servers ? The answer to that is very simple , based on certain known issues seen on each version or builds the fixes are provided in the next patches /updates or version releases . It is recommended to get the hosts to latest patches available at the current version if not going forward with the next version release .

vSAN deployment and administrator’s Guide

Sun, 11 Jun 2017 08:25:54 +0000

Learn everything about vsan setup and administration , to know about most of things around vSAN you will need to understand very few basic things/checks on your environment which will help you monitor your environment better . The general queries that comes to everyone’s mind which I can think of are as below . For more information regarding vSAN administration and best practices also refer VMware vSAN Admin Guides which are available here

Download vmem file from a vSAN datastore

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 18:58:12 +0000

I recently came across a customer who was trying to download .vmem from the vSAN datastore, so that the memory dump can be shared with the Guest OS vendor like Microsoft for core dump analysis . Since vSAN datastore is an object store file system , the OSFS namespace will only contain the pointer file of about 118 bytes which points to the associated object within vSAN datastore similar to all the VMDK files and v-swap file .