TechColumnist » netapp

NetApp OnTap 8.0rc2 Filerview

Tom Lasswell — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:33:32 +0000

Take a look at filerview. Not much different here except the branding. I'll post some other screenies as I go along and explore the new version.

NetApp DS4243 Disk Shelves

Tom Lasswell — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:29:34 +0000

Finally SAS disk shelves from NetApp. Also in a 24 drive configuration.

Update: Looks like these will ship with new systems only starting December (and by new systems, it seems maybe only the FAS-3170s). General availability will come a few months later.

DS4243

Data ONTAP 8.0 7-Mode RC released

Tom Lasswell — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:02:24 +0000

The following models of storage systems are supported:

60xx

31xx (3160

is not supported in RC1)

3070

3040

SA600

SA300

SA310

Exciting. I'm thinking about installing this on a FAS-3070 next week. Hopefully have some screenshots. Since it's generally available on the NOW site you should be able to find it.

My favorite feature so far:

In Data ONTAP 8.0 7-Mode and later releases, Data ONTAP supports a new type of aggregate, the 64-bit aggregate. 64-bit aggregates have a larger maximum size than aggregates created with earlier versions of Data ONTAP. In addition, volumes contained by 64-bit aggregates have a larger maximum size than volumes contained by aggregates created with earlier versions of Data ONTAP.

The maximum size of a 64-bit aggregate and the volumes it contains depends on the model of your storage system. To determine the maximum 64-bit aggregate size for your storage system model, see the System Configuration Guide. The maximum size of a volume contained by a 64-bit aggregate corresponds to the maximum size of its containing aggregate.

The maximum size for legacy aggregates, now called 32-bit aggregates, remains 16 TB.

Supported Systems:

The following models of storage systems are supported:

60xx
31xx (3160 is not supported in RC1)
3070
3040
SA600
SA300
SA310

NetApp VFM Email Alerts

Tom Lasswell — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:52:33 +0000

I spent a few hours doddling around with how to do email alerting with the provided VFM scripts. I finally ended up rewriting things just a little, but below is the basics of how to configure VFM to use email alerting.

A quick note, this most likely applies for the Brocade StorageX product as NetApp rebrands StorageX to work with NetApp filers.

This is going to be fairly short and sweet, not a lot of tricks to doing this.

Browse to C:\Program Files\NetApp\VFM\Examples\Scripts\Replication (or your install location)
Copy PreEmail.bat and PostEmail.bat to C:\scripts
Open PreEmail.bat and modify the line:
%MailUtil% %MailFile% -to %4 -subject "StorageX replication commencing for link '%1'" -q
to
blat %MailFile% -t {your to email address} -s "Replication commensing for '%2'" -f {from email} -server {smtp server} -port 25
Open PostEmail.bat and modify the line:
%MailTool% %MailFile% -to %9 -subject "StorageX replication ended for link '%SXLink%'" -q
to
blat %MailFile% -t {your to email address} -s "Replication ended for '%SXLink%'" -f {from email} -server {smtp server} -port 25
Then go to the VFM console
Edit the properties of your replication job
click Replication Scripting
Add the two files
and you're done

NetApp Buys Data Domain for $1.5B

Tom Lasswell — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:09:11 +0000

An interesting article today on NetApp buying DataDomain. I sent this to my coworkers and it's intersting they are buying a dedupe company when they were just touting their recent success with the penetration of ASIS. Questions now surround, where does ASIS go from here? Will it be the "cheap" version or are they no longer going to give away ASIS with their bundles.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/05/20/netapp-buys-data-domain-for-15b/

NetApp OnTap 8.0

Tom Lasswell — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:20:53 +0000

I'm awaiting the release of OnTap 8.0, but there are several things I'm waiting for that will come after 8.0.

Jeff O'Neal, NetApp's senior director of Data Center Solutions, said Data OnTap 8.0 — which will merge Data OnTap 7G with the Data OnTap GX cluster platform — will be released later this year. "NetApp remains on track to release our first converged operating system in calendar '09," O'Neal told Enterprise Storage Forum.

This is exciting if they can get 8.0 released this year. That means we might be able to look forward to 8.1 coming out sometime 2010. 8.1 should be an even more exciting release from what I've heard through the grape vine. I'm hoping still that 8.0 might have some of the advancements that GX had in the core OS. I'm hoping for tab-complete, a more GX light na-admin, and quite a few other GX like enhancements.
What do you guys think? What have you heard about 8.0?

NetApp GX Monitoring and Cacti

Tom Lasswell — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 06:00:30 +0000

well, quite a long time after I wrote this I'm finally releasing it. Let me know if you have any problems with it, I wanted to do a more detailed write-up but for now, at least I'll get it out there . Click read-more if you're interested in the link to the download.

Useage Instructions:

Please note when setting up this script you should setup the account cacti runs under as a user on your NetApp GX system with a SSH key. Follow these instructions from the NOW site: https://now.netapp.com/Knowledgebase/solutionarea.asp?id=kb43878

Release v1.0.16:
http://www.techcolumnist.com/ontapGX_cacti-v.1.0.16.rar

Initial public release

Release v1.0.17:
http://www.techcolumnist.com/ontapGX_cacti-v.1.0.17.rar

Please note this version has been updated with a change to the code for the aggr function that was not previously working.

OnTap GX Monitoring: Update

Tom Lasswell — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:21:23 +0000

I've gotten a little further. I've refined my perl script so that it gets data from various more reliable sources within GX. It's been crazy busy at work but I should have the solution posted this week. Read on for some screenshots.

Follow this post: http://www.techcolumnist.com/wp/2009/04/04/netapp-gx-monitoring-and-cacti/

CIFS Commands

NFS Success Commands

Volume Read Write

Net Adapter Traffic

Cacti – NetApp OnTap GX Monitoring

Tom Lasswell — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:55:07 +0000

Here's a sneak peak at what I've been up to. Once I've got everything done I'll post the code and a how-to guide.

Follow this post: http://www.techcolumnist.com/wp/2009/04/04/netapp-gx-monitoring-and-cacti/

Easy OnTap Upgrades (NDU)

Tom Lasswell — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 08:58:11 +0000

An easy way to upgrade your filer is to issue the following (always run the upgrade advisor prior to upgrades to ensure you're system is good to go to the version you're looking for).

download ontap from the NOW site
load that file onto a web server (http)
login to your filer from the console (rlm if preferred)
toasterA> software update http://{ipaddress}/{version}_setup_q.exe -r
toasterB> software update http://{ipaddress}/{version}_setup_q.exe -r
*you should update the disk and shelf firmware at this point to speed the cluster failover time*
toasterA> storage download shelf (Wait to complete)
toasterB> storage download shelf (Wait to complete)
toasterB> cf takeover
... wait for reboot (10 min) ...
toasterB> cf giveback
toasterA> cf takeover
... wait for reboot (10 min) ...
toasterA> cf giveback