Skip to main content

3PAR Management Plug-in & Recovery Manager for vSphere: Install and Configure

After the installation of 18 3PAR systems for my customer, we decided also to install the additional software that comes with
those shiny yellow systems.
First: get the software. This can be found on the HP Software Depot. Or use this direct link.
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager for VMware Software Suite includes three software components that lower the cost and time
required to manage and protect your VMware vSphere environment running on HP 3PAR storage system:
  • HP 3PAR VASA Provider
  • HP 3PAR Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter
  • HP 3PAR Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere (license required)
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere requires a separate license to enable the functionality; however, the complete software suite can be downloaded at no charge and both the management plug-in and VASA provider can be installed and used at no charge.
Installation is straightforward, however there are some specific actions that I will highlight a bit further…
3PARplugin1
3PARplugin2
3PARplugin3
Enter the vSphere vCenter server and its credentials so that the 3PAR plug-in can connect to it.
3PARplugin4
You can leave the default port that will be used by VASA or specifiy another one if this default port might be confliciting with another service or application.
3PARplugin5
Enable the plug-in inside the vSphere Plug-in Manager
3PARplugin6
3PARplugin7
3PARplugin8
3PARplugin9
3PARplugin10
3PARplugin11
3PARplugin12
The host explorer requires a vCenter credential file to allow communication with the 3PAR array.
3PARplugin12b
You need to generate this file from the vCenter server through PowerCLI by following this KB from VMware
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2004016
The file has been stored in C:\Program Files\Certificates in order to add it to the 3PAR Management plug-in
Once the installation is finished we can connect to the plug-in via the Home screen of the vSphere client.
3PARplugin13
Connect once to all 3PAR systems so that they become usable inside the vSphere client. In the screenshot I connected to our F400 3PAR sytem. This is the same for all other systems in the list, independent of the model.
3PARplugin15
Once this is done, you can go to your VMware host and select the HP 3PAR tab at the right window.
A nice overview of datastores hosted on 3PAR are displayed.
3PARplugin16
The Paths button gives an overview of all active paths (best practice – not default!)
3PARplugin17
When clicking on the little blue square in the Provisioning Groups section, you will get more details on the used CPG’s by that volume. In our case we have 3 CPG’s on 3 types of media (SSD – FC – NL) with Adaptive Optimization running on top of these…
3PARplugin18
We do not use Receovery Manager so I cannot provide screenshots of that specific section.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Quick Guide to VCF Automation for VCD Administrators

  Quick Guide to VCF Automation for VCD Administrators VMware Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9) has been  released  and with it comes brand new Cloud Management Platform –  VCF Automation (VCFA)  which supercedes both Aria Automation and VMware Cloud Director (VCD). This blog post is intended for those people that know VCD quite well and want to understand how is VCFA similar or different to help them quickly orient in the new direction. It should be emphasized that VCFA is a new solution and not just rebranding of an old one. However it reuses a lot of components from its predecessors. The provider part of VCFA called Tenenat Manager is based on VCD code and the UI and APIs will be familiar to VCD admins, while the tenant part inherist a lot from Aria Automation and especially for VCD end-users will look brand new. Deployment and Architecture VCFA is generaly deployed from VCF Operations Fleet Management (former Aria Suite LCM embeded in VCF Ops. Fleet Management...
  Issue with Aria Automation Custom form Multi Value Picker and Data Grid https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleNumber=345960 Products VMware Aria Suite Issue/Introduction Symptoms: Getting  error " Expected Type String but was Object ", w hen trying to use Complex Types in MultiValue Picker on the Aria for Automation Custom Form. Environment VMware vRealize Automation 8.x Cause This issue has been identified where the problem appears when a single column Multi Value Picker or Data Grid is used. Resolution This is a known issue. There is a workaround.  Workaround: As a workaround, try adding one empty column in the Multivalue picker without filling the options. So we can add one more column without filling the value which will be hidden(there is a button in the designer page that will hide the column). This way the end user will receive the same view.  

Step-by-Step Explanation of Ballooning, Compression & Swapping in VMware

 ðŸ”¹ Step-by-Step Explanation of Ballooning, Compression & Swapping in VMware ⸻ 1️⃣ Memory Ballooning (vmmemctl) Ballooning is the first memory reclamation technique used when ESXi detects memory pressure. ➤ Step-by-Step: How Ballooning Works  1. VMware Tools installs the balloon driver (vmmemctl) inside the guest OS.  2. ESXi detects low free memory on the host.  3. ESXi inflates the balloon in selected VMs.  4. Balloon driver occupies guest memory, making the OS think RAM is full.  5. Guest OS frees idle / unused pages (because it believes memory is needed).  6. ESXi reclaims those freed pages and makes them available to other VMs. Why Ballooning Happens?  • Host free memory is very low.  • ESXi wants the VM to release unused pages before resorting to swapping. Example  • Host memory: 64 GB  • VMs used: 62 GB  • Free: 2 GB → ESXi triggers ballooning  • VM1 (8 GB RAM): Balloon inflates to 2 GB → OS frees 2 GB → ESXi re...