Category: vSAN [en]

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Remediate vSAN Policy ‘Out of Date’

Every object in vSAN (OSA) has an assigned storage policy. If no custom policies have been defined, objects are assigned the factory-installed vSAN default policy. Compliance of the selected policy with the current state is checked regularly. If the object is compliant with the assignes policy, the compliance status is set to ‘Compliant’.

However, it can happen that several objects in the cluster show the compliance status ‘Out of Date’. This will be shown in Skyline Health as an informative note. In the example below, several VMs with their vDisks were out of date.

Remediation in vSphere-Client

If there is only one or very few objects, the affected VM can be highlighted in Skyline Health. By doing so, we switch to the context of this VM and we can see details about namespace-object (VM Home) or the vDisks under Configuration > Policies. In the dialog (image below) we can select the object and click on ‘Reapply VM Storage Policy’. Usually this is enough to bring all objects of the VM back to the ‘Compliant’ state.

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Remove an unknown Disk from a vSAN Cluster

A failed capacity disk was removed from a vSAN 7 cluster before it could be logically detached from the disk group. The result is a remaining unknown disk device in the disk group that cannot be removed in the vSphere Client.

In such cases, esxcli is sometimes the more powerful tool.

We need to connect by SSH to the affected vSAN host.

Collect Information

Let’s check all registred disk devices on the node.

esxcli vsan storage list

A detailed list of all cache and capacity devices of this host will be displayed.

Output of disk devices (shortened)

Among the 24 active disks was the unknown zombie device. The only remaining feature was the vSAN UUID. The UUID can be used to detach the device from the configuration.

Remains of a physically removed disk in the vSAN configuration.

Extraction

The UUID of the missing unknown device was “52b17786-183b-e85f-f7f3-4befb19f67b0”. Using this information, we can remove it from the configuration.

esxcli vsan storage remove --uuid 52b17786-183b-e85f-f7f3-4befb19f67b0

The process takes a few seconds. Checking again with the esxcli vsan storage list command showed that the device was removed.

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vExpert 2023 – Subprogram Nominations

VMware annually grants the vExpert award to individuals who have made a special contribution to the VMware community. This can be either through publications, presentations, blogs, or work in the VMware User Group (VMUG). I am pleased to be part of the vExpert community for the seventh year in a row in 2023.

In addition to the common vExpert, there are subprograms for specialized application branches.

I applied for the three sub-programs vExpertPro, Application-Modernization and Multi-Cloud and was accepted in all three categories.

vExpertPro

The mission of the vExpert PRO program is to create a global network of vExperts willing to find new vExperts in their local communities, support them, and mentor them on their way to becoming vExperts.

For this purpose, vExpertPro exist in many regions of the world. I have been a member of this group since 2021 myself and have been confirmed for another year.

vExpert Multi-Cloud

The multi-cloud area covers large parts of the VMware Compute portfolio. The term cloud includes not only the public cloud, but also local data centers (private cloud) and combinations of both approaches (hybrid cloud). This includes numerous products such as vSphere, vSAN, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), Aria, VMware Cloud on AWS, Site Recovery Manager (SRM) or vCloud Director (VCD).

I submitted my first application for this relatively new vExpert path in 2023 and was accepted. Many thanks to the business unit for the decision.

vExpert Application Modernization

Application Modernization is all about Tanzu and Kubernetes, as well as the ecosystem around these technologies. The background was described in great detail by Keith Lee in his article “Announcing the VMware Application Modernization vExpert Program 2023“.

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VMware vSAN 8 – vSAN on steroids

VMware vSAN was developed about 10 years ago. The year was 2012, when magnetic disks were predominantly used for data storage and flash media was practically worth its weight in gold. It was during this time that the idea behind vSAN was born. Hybrid data storage with spinning disks for bulk data and flash media as cache. Flash devices at this time used the same interfaces and protocols as magnetic disks. As a result, they were not able to unfold their full potential. There was always the bottleneck of the interface.

Today – a more than 10 years later – we have more advanced flash storage with high data density and powerful protocols such as NVMe. The price per TB for flash is now on par with magnetic SAS disks, which has practically replaced magnetic disks. In addition, there are higher possible bandwidths in the network, higher core density in the CPU, and completely new requirements such as ML/AI or containers. The time has come for a new type of vSAN data storage that can fully leverage the potential of new storage technologies.

vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA)

Putting it in a nutshell: The vSAN ESA architecture is an optional data storage architecture. The traditional disk group model will continue to exist – even under vSAN 8.

VMware vSAN ESA is a flexible single-tier architecture. This means that it does not require disk groups and no longer distinguishes between cache and capacity layers. It is optimized for the use of modern NVMe flash storage. All storage devices of a host are gathered in a storage pool.

vSAN ESA Architecture (Source: VMware)

There is no upgrade path from the diskgroup model to ESA. Thus, the new architecture can only be used in greenfield deployments. The vSAN nodes must be explicitly qualified for this. There will be dedicated vSAN ReadyNodes for ESA.

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