Below are some best practices for implementation and recommendations to use VAST Data in a vSphere environment.
NOTE: VAST Data is only validated to leverage NFSv3 with vSphere products. Do not use NFSv4.1 unless guided by VAST Data Support.
Assumptions
- DNS-Based VIP Distribution is configured
- vSphere hosts have DNS servers configured
Implementation
1. Add a Dedicated VIP (Virtual IP) Pool
- Sizing the IP Range List with 2 IP Addresses for Every CNode in the cluster
NOTE: There are 4 CNodes in 1 CBox. i.e.: if there are two 2 CBoxes, the VIP Pool should use a range of 16 IP addresses. - Define the Subnet CIDR
- Define the Domain name
- Define the Gateway IP address (if applicable)
- Define the VLAN (if applicable)
2. Add a Dedicated View Policy
- Select Security Flavor of NFS
- Select Group Membership Source of Clients
- Select Path Length Limit of Native Protocol Limit
- Select Allowed Characters of Native Protocol Limit
- OPTIONAL: Select only the VIP Pool created in the first step to limit data access
- In the Host-Based Access tab, define specific vSphere host IP addresses or vSphere host subnets in both the Read/Write and No Squash entries
3. Add a Dedicated View
- Protocols of NFS
- Policy name of what was created in the second step
- Enable Create Directory
- OPTIONAL: Define anNFS Alias as needed
4. Create a New Datastore on any vSphere Host
- In Type, Select NFS
- In NFS version, Select NFS 3
- In Name and configuration:
- Define the Name
- Define the Folder to the path or alias of the View starting with a forward slash "/"
- Define the Server as the Fully Qualified Domain Name
- In Ready to complete, Click Finish
- Right Click on the new Datastore and click Mount Datastore to Additional Hosts...
- Select one host at time and repeat this process for every vSphere Host
- NOTE: Selecting more than one or all hosts during this process may inadvertently connect to a single CNode and not properly align resources for best performance
Recommendations
- Use a dedicated VIP Pool for the vSphere mounts
- This will assist with segmentation of control between workloads
- Using VIP Policies will restrict View access and visibility from non-vSphere client
- Add a Hard Quota on the vSphere datastore directory to limit the usable capacity
- This can be increased on demand at any time
- Be aware of the maximum file size of 128TB
- Use Capacity Estimations to determine the data reduction rate of the vSphere datastore
- Configure Storage I/O Control on the datastore
- Select Disable Storage I/O Control but enable statistics collection
- Check Include I/O statistics for SDRS
- Select Disable Storage I/O Control but enable statistics collection
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