NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for

VMware vCenter Server Web

Client User Guide
Version 4.1
May 2018 | 215-13142_A0
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NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide ii
Table of Contents
Introduction 1

vCenter Plug-in Overview 1

Network Ports 2

VMware vCenter Prerequisites 4

Getting Started 5

Installing the Plug-in 5

Upgrading the Plug-in 5
Installing the Plug-in for In-House Servers (Dark Sites) 5
Upgrading the Plug-in for In-House Servers (Dark Sites) 5
Deploying a New Management Node 6
Downloading the Plug-in for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP or HTTPS Server 6
Registering the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in in vCenter 6
Modifying vCenter Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP Server 8
Upgrading a Management Node 8
Updating the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Registration for vCSA 9
Updating the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Registration for Windows vCenter 11

Successful Installation 14

How to Use the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in 15

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Configuration Extension Point 15

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Management Extension Point 16
vCenter Linked Mode 16
Cluster Configuration 17
Adding a Cluster 17
Viewing Cluster Details 18
Cluster Details 18

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide iii
 Individual Cluster Details 18
Editing Cluster Profiles 19
Removing a Cluster Profile 19
Enabling Virtual Volumes 20
Enabling Encryption at Rest 20
Disabling Encryption at Rest 20
Shutting Down a Cluster 21
mNode Settings 21
Configuring mNode Settings for QoSSIOC 22
Configuring SIOC Service Credentials 22
Editing mNode Settings for QoSSIOC 23
Clearing mNode Settings for QoSSIOC 23
Viewing QoSSIOC Events 24
QoSSIOC Event Details 24
About the Plug-in 24
Reporting 25
Reporting Overview 25
Viewing Event Logs 26
Event Log 27
Event Types 27
Alerts 28
Alert Error Codes 29
Running Tasks 30
Management 32
Datastore Management 33
Creating a Datastore 33
Viewing the Datastore List 35

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide iv
 Datastore Details 35
Extending a Datastore 36
Cloning a Datastore 36
Sharing a Datastore 38
Performing VAAI UNMAP 40
Deleting a Datastore 40
QoSSIOC Automation 41
Enabling QoSSIOC Automation 42
Disabling QoSSIOC Integration 42
Volume Management 43
Creating a Volume 43
Viewing Volumes Details 44
Volume Details 44
Individual Volume Details 44
Editing a Volume 47
Cloning a Volume 48
Volume Backup and Restore Operations 49
Volume Backup Operations 49
Volume Restore Operations 51
Deleting Volumes 54
Purging Volumes 54
Restoring Deleted Volumes 55
Adding Volumes to an Access Group 55
Removing Volumes from an Access Group 55
Applying a QoS Policy to Multiple Volumes 56
Changing the QoS Policy Association of a Volume 56
User Account Management 57

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide v
 Creating an Account 57
Account Details 57
Editing an Account 58
Deleting an Account 58
Volume Access Groups 58
Creating Access Groups 59
Volume Access Group Details 59
Editing Access Groups 59
Deleting Access Groups 60
Initiators 60
Creating an Initiator 60
Initiator Details 61
Editing an Initiator 61
Deleting Initiators 62
Adding Initiators to a Volume Access Group 62
QoS Policies 62
Creating a QoS Policy 62
QoS Policy Details 63
Editing a QoS Policy 63
Deleting a QoS Policy 63
Data Protection 65
Volume Snapshots 66
Creating a Volume Snapshot 66
Volume Snapshot Details 67
Editing Snapshots 67
Cloning a Volume from a Snapshot 68
Rolling Back a Volume to a Snapshot 69

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide vi
 Volume Snapshot Backup Operations 69
Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to an Amazon S3 Object Store 69
Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to an OpenStack Swift Object Store 70
Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to a SolidFire Cluster 70
Deleting a Snapshot 71
Group Snapshots 72
Creating a Group Snapshot 72
Group Snapshot Details 73
Editing Group Snapshots 73
Cloning Volumes from a Group Snapshot 73
Rolling Back Volumes to a Group Snapshot 74
Deleting a Group Snapshot 75
Snapshot Schedules 75
Creating a Snapshot Schedule 75
Snapshot Schedule Details 76
Editing a Snapshot Schedule 76
Copying a Snapshot Schedule 77
Deleting a Snapshot Schedule 78
Real-Time Replication 78
Configuring Cluster and Volume Pairing for Real-Time Remote Replication 78
Cluster Pairs 78
Cluster Pair and Real-Time Replication 79
Multiple Cluster Pairing 79
Pairing Clusters 80
Cluster Pair Details 81
Deleting a Cluster Pair 82
Volume Pairs 82

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide vii
 Pairing Volumes 83
Assigning a Replication Source and Target to Paired Volumes 86
Volume Pair Details 87
Editing Volume Pairs 89
Deleting Volume Pairs 90
Cluster Management 91
Drives 91
Adding Available Drives to a Cluster 92
Drive Details 92
Removing a Drive 93
Nodes 93
Storage Nodes 93
Fibre Channel Nodes 94
HCI Compute Nodes 94
HCI Storage Nodes 94
Adding a Node to a Cluster 94
Node Details 95
Removing Nodes from a Cluster 96
Restarting Cluster Nodes 96
Shutting Down Cluster Nodes 97
VLAN Management 97
Creating a VLAN 97
Virtual Network Details 98
Editing a Virtual Network 99
Deleting a Virtual Network 99
Virtual Volumes 100
Configuring VVols Functionality 100

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide viii
 Registering the SolidFire VASA Provider 100
Creating a VVol Datastore 101
Viewing Virtual Volumes Details 102
Virtual Volume Details 102
Individual Virtual Volume Details 103
Storage Containers 105
Creating a Storage Container 106
Viewing Storage Container Details 106
Storage Container Details 107
Individual Storage Container Details 107
Deleting a Storage Container 108
Protocol Endpoints 109
Viewing Protocol Endpoint Details 109
Protocol Endpoint Details 109
Individual Protocol Endpoint Details 110

Unregistering the SolidFire Plug-in 112

Removing the SolidFire Plug-in 114

Appendix 1 — Using a CLI for SolidFire Plug-in Registration 115

Troubleshooting 117

Related Documentation 121

Contacting Support 122

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide ix
Introduction

Introduction
The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in is a web-based tool integrated with the VMware vSphere® Web Client user interface (UI). The
Plug-in is an extension and alternative interface for VMware vSphere users who have deployed a NetApp HCI or NetApp SolidFire All-
Flash Storage Array cluster environment. The Plug-in provides a scalable and user-friendly interface to manage and monitor NetApp
HCI or NetApp SolidFire clusters.

The intended audience for the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client User Guide is those who install,
administer, or troubleshoot storage solutions, and VMware admins who need to allocate storage for virtual machines (VMs). Other IT
professionals or software developers may also find this document useful.

vCenter Plug-in Overview

The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in is used to discover, configure, and manage NetApp HCI systems or NetApp SolidFire All-Flash
Array storage system clusters. You can also monitor cluster activity with real-time reporting, including error and alert messaging for
any event that might occur while performing various operations.

You can use the Plug-in user interface to set up, monitor, and allocate storage from cluster capacity to configure datastores and
virtual datastores (for VVols). A cluster appears on the network as a single local group that is represented to hosts and
administrators by virtual IP addresses.
The following images describe the role of the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in with a NetApp HCI system and a SolidFire All-Flash
Array.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 1
Network Ports

Network Ports
You might need to allow the following network ports through your datacenter's edge firewall so that you can manage the system
remotely and allow clients outside of your datacenter to connect to resources. Some ports might not be required, depending on
how you use the system.

NOTE: All ports are TCP unless stated otherwise, and should be open bidirectionally.

The following abbreviations are used in the table:

l MIP: Management IP Address

l SIP: Storage IP Address
l MVIP: Management Virtual IP Address
l SVIP: Storage Virtual IP Address

Source Destination Port Description

iSCSI clients Storage cluster MVIP 443 UI and API access (optional)

iSCSI clients Storage cluster SVIP 3260 Client iSCSI communications

iSCSI clients Storage node SIP 3260 Client iSCSI communications

Management node sfsupport.solidfire.com 22 Reverse SSH tunnel for support access

Management node solidfire.brickftp.com 22 SFTP for log bundle uploads

Management node Storage node MIP 22 SSH access for support

Management Node DNS servers 53 DNS lookup

Management node pubrepo.solidfire.com 80 Access to NetApp repository for Element OS and

management node updates

Management node Storage node MIP 442 UI and API access to storage node

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 2
Network Ports

Source Destination Port Description

Management node monitoring.solidfire.com 443 Storage cluster reporting to Active IQ

Management node Storage cluster MVIP 443 UI and API access to storage cluster

SNMP Server Storage cluster MVIP 161 SNMP Polling

SNMP Server Storage node MIP 161 SNMP Polling

Storage Node MIP DNS servers 53 DNS lookup

Storage node MIP Management node 80 SolidFire Element OS updates

Storage node MIP S3/Swift endpoint 80 HTTP communication to S3/Swift endpoint for
backup and recovery

Storage node MIP Management node 123 NTP

Storage node MIP NTP server 123 NTP

Storage node MIP Management node 162 SNMP Traps

Storage node MIP SNMP Server 162 SNMP Traps

Storage node MIP Remote storage cluster 443 Remote replication cluster pairing communication
MVIP

Storage node MIP Remote storage node MIP 443 Remote replication cluster pairing communication

Storage node MIP S3/Swift endpoint 443 HTTPS communication to S3/Swift endpoint for
backup and recovery

Storage node MIP Remote storage node MIP 2181 Remote replication intercluster communication

Storage node MIP Management node 10514/514 Syslog forwarding. Cluster defaults to port 514 if
no port is specified.

Storage node MIP Syslog server 10514/514 Syslog forwarding. Cluster defaults to port 514 if
no port is specified.

Storage node SIP S3/Swift endpoint 80 HTTP communication to S3/Swift endpoint for
backup and recovery (optional)

Storage node SIP S3/Swift endpoint 443 HTTPS communication to S3/Swift endpoint for
backup and recovery (optional)

Storage node SIP Remote Storage Node SIP 2181 Remote replication intercluster communication

Storage node SIP Storage node SIP 3260 Internode iSCSI

Storage node SIP Remote storage node SIP 4000-4020 Remote replication node-to-node data transfer

System administrator PC Management node 442 HTTPS UI and API access to management node

System administrator PC Storage node MIP 442 UI and API access to storage node

System administrator PC Management node 443 UI and API access to management node

System administrator PC Storage cluster MVIP 443 UI and API access to storage cluster

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 3
VMware vCenter Prerequisites

Source Destination Port Description

System administrator PC Storage node MIP 443 Storage cluster creation, post-deployment UI
access to storage cluster

vCenter Server Storage cluster MVIP 443 vCenter Plug-in API access

vCenter Server Management node 8080/8443 vCenter Plug-in QoSSIOC service. 8080 redirects to
8443.

vCenter Server Storage cluster MVIP 8444 vCenter VASA provider access (VVols only)

vCenter Server Management node 9443 vCenter Plug-in registration. The port can be closed
after registration is complete.

Best Practices: Enable ICMP between the management node, SolidFire nodes, and Cluster MVIP.

NOTE: For vSphere network port requirements, refer to VMware documentation.

VMware vCenter Prerequisites

VMware ESXi Server 6.0 or 6.5 is required to use the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in.

Because datastores are created using the highest VMFS version supported by the selected ESXi host, NetApp recommends that all
cluster members run the same version of vSphere and ESXi to avoid VMFS compatibility issues.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 4
Getting Started

Getting Started
You can deploy version 4.1 of the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in directly in vCenter. The quality of service based on storage I/O
control (QoSSIOC) service as well as other services of the vCenter Plug-in are installed separately on the management node.

NOTE: If you are upgrading to this version from a NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in version 3.0.1 and earlier, you must deploy
a new management node Open Virtual Appliance (OVA). If you are upgrading from version 4.0, you can upgrade your existing
management node.

Installing the Plug-in

For new SolidFire All-Flash Array installations, review the following installation topics:

1. Deploying a New Management Node

2. Registering the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in in vCenter

NOTE: For information about new NetApp HCI installations, see the NetApp HCI Documentation Center.

Upgrading the Plug-in

For existing installations, review the following topics:

1. (For upgrades from Plug-in version v3.0.1 and earlier) Deploying a New Management Node
2. (For upgrades from Plug-in version v4.0) Upgrading a Management Node
3. One of the following:
l Updating the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Registration for vCSA
l Updating the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Registration for Windows vCenter

Installing the Plug-in for In-House Servers (Dark Sites)

For new in-house server (dark site) installations, review the following installation topics:

1. Deploying a New Management Node

2. Registering the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in in vCenter
3. (Optional) Modifying vCenter Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP Server

Upgrading the Plug-in for In-House Servers (Dark Sites)

For existing in-house server (dark site) installations, review the following upgrade topics:

1. (For upgrades from Plug-in version v3.0.1 and earlier) Deploying a New Management Node
2. (For upgrades from Plug-in version v4.0) Upgrading a Management Node
3. (For upgrades from Plug-in version v4.0) Downloading the Plug-in for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP or HTTPS Server
4. One of the following:
l Updating the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Registration for vCSA
l Updating the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Registration for Windows vCenter
5. (Optional) Modifying vCenter Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP Server

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 5
Getting Started

Deploying a New Management Node

You can install the QoSSIOC service and other services of the Plug-in by deploying an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) to create a new
management node (mNode).

Prerequisites

l vCenter Administrator role privileges.

l Permissions to download software from the NetApp Support site.

Procedure

1. Download the OVA for your NetApp HCI or Element OS installation that contains the vCenter Plug-in (VCP) service package
from the NetApp Support site.

NOTE: The OVA must be accessible to the vCenter Server.

2. From vCenter Web Client, create a VM by deploying the OVA.

3. Power on the VM.

NOTE: Allocate a static IP address or use default DHCP.

Downloading the Plug-in for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP or HTTPS Server
You must download the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in ZIP if you intend to update an existing vCenter Plug-in on an in-house (or
dark site) HTTP or HTTPS server.

Prerequisites

l Permissions to download software from the NetApp Support site.

Procedure

1. Download the Plug-in ZIP (solidfire-plugin-[version number]-bin.zip) from the NetApp Support site to an in-house HTTP or
HTTPS server.

Registering the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in in vCenter

You can deploy the NetApp SolidFire plug-in package in the vSphere Web Client by registering the package as an extension on
vCenter Server. Once registered, the Plug-in is available to any vSphere Web Client that connects to your vSphere environment.

You must register the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in on every vCenter Server where you need to use the Plug-in. When a vSphere
Web Client connects to a vCenter Server where your plug-in is not registered, the plug-in is not visible to the client.

NOTE: If you wish to use a command line interface for registration, see Using a CLI for SolidFire Plug-in Registration to register
the Plug-in.

Prerequisites

l You have logged out of the vSphere Web Client.

NOTE: The web client will not recognize updates made during this process if you do not log out.

l You have vCenter Administrator role privileges to register a plug-in.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 6
Getting Started

l You have deployed a management node OVA with NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in version 4.0 or later as described in
Deploying a New Management Node.
l Your management node is powered on with its IP address or DHCP address configured.
l You are using an SSH client or web browser (Chrome 56 and later, Mozilla 52 and later, or Internet Explorer 11 or later) on a
Microsoft® Windows® 64-bit system.
l Your firewall rules allow open network communication between the vCenter and the SolidFire Cluster MVIP on TCP ports
443, 8443, and 9443 (9443 is used for registration and can be closed after registration is complete).

Procedure

1. Enter the IP address for your management node in a browser, including the TCP port for registration: https://[management
node IP]:9443.
The registration UI displays the registration page for the Plug-in.

2. Enter the following:

l The IPv4 or IPv6 address or the FQDN of the vCenter service on which you will register your Plug-in.
l The vCenter Administrator user name.

NOTE: The user name and password credentials you enter must be for an administrator with vCenter
Administrator role privileges.

l The vCenter Administrator password.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 7
Getting Started

l (For in-house servers/dark sites) A custom URL for the Plug-in ZIP.

NOTE: Most installations will use the default path. You can click Custom URL to customize the URL if you are
using an HTTP or HTTPS server (dark site) or have modified the ZIP file name or network settings. See Modifying
vCenter Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP Server for additional configuration steps if you intend to
customize a URL.

3. Click Register.

4. Click Registration Status.

5. Enter the following:
l The IPv4 or IPv6 address or the FQDN of the vCenter service on which you are registering your Plug-in.
l The vCenter Administrator user name.
l The vCenter Administrator password.
6. Click Check Status to verify that the new version of the Plug-in is registered on the vCenter.

7. Log into the vSphere Web Client as a vCenter Administrator.

NOTE: This action completes the installation in the vSphere Web Client. If the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in icons are not
visible from the vSphere main page, see Troubleshooting.

Modifying vCenter Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP Server

You must modify the vCenter Web client properties file if you intend to customize a URL for an in-house (dark site) HTTP server
during vCenter Plug-in registration.

Prerequisites

l Permissions to download software from the NetApp Support site.

Procedure

1. Modify the vCenter webclient.properties file to allow vCenter to download from an HTTP server. Edit the vCenter 6.0 or
vCenter 6.5 file (either /etc/vmware/vsphere-client/webclient.properties or
c:\programdata\vmware\vcenterserver\cfg\vsphere-client\webclient.properties and add allowHttp=true.

NOTE: Once you have completed the registration procedure, you can remove allowHttp=true.

2. Restart the vCenter web services or reboot the vCenter.

Upgrading a Management Node

You can upgrade the QoSSIOC component and other services of the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in by installing the Debian
package on your existing management node.

NOTE: For file names in the following procedure, 4.x.x.x signifies the current version and build number.

Caution: If you are upgrading to this version from a NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in version 3.0.1 and earlier, you must
deploy a new management node Open Virtual Appliance (OVA). If you are upgrading from version 4.0 and higher, follow these
upgrade procedures.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 8
Getting Started

Prerequisites

l Permissions to download software from the NetApp Support site.

Procedure

1. Download the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in Debian package (solidfire-sioc-debian_4.x.x.x_amd64.deb) from the
NetApp Support site.
2. Transfer the package to the management node using a file transfer tool comparable to the following:
l rsync
l FileZilla
l WinSCP
3. From your management node, verify that the vCenter Plug-in is currently installed.
$ dpkg -l solidfire-sioc

4. Install the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in Debian package on your management node.

Caution: Installing the Debian package deletes the custom SIOC user name and password you might have created
using the process described in Configuring SIOC Service Credentials. Save the sioc.conf file in /etc/init before
completing this step.

$ sudo dpkg -i solidfire-sioc-debian_4.x.x.x_amd64.deb

5. To restore custom SIOC credentials:

a. Replace the sioc.conf file in /etc/init with the file you saved in the previous step.
b. Restart the SIOC service.
sudo service sioc restart

Updating the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Registration for vCSA

You can update the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in for a vCenter Server Virtual Appliance (vCSA) from the registration user
interface. The registration UI is available from the IP address for your cluster's management node.

You must change your registration for the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in on every vCenter Server where you need to use the
Plug-in.

NOTE: If you wish to use a command line interface for updating registration, see Using a CLI for SolidFire Plug-in Registration to
update the Plug-in registration.

Prerequisites

l You have logged out of the vSphere Web Client.

NOTE: The web client will not recognize updates made during this process to your NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in
if you do not log out.

l You have vCenter Administrator role privileges to register a plug-in.

l You have deployed a management node OVA with NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in version 4.0 or later as described in
Deploying a New Management Node.
l You have upgraded your management node as described in Upgrading a Management Node.
l Your management node is powered on with its IP address or DHCP address configured.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 9
Getting Started

l You are using an SSH client or web browser (Chrome 56 and later, Mozilla 52 and later, or Internet Explorer 11 or later) on a
Microsoft® Windows® 64-bit system.
l Your firewall rules allow open network communication between the vCenter and the SolidFire Cluster MVIP on TCP ports
443, 8443, and 9443 (9443 is used for registration and can be closed after registration is complete).

Procedure

1. Enter the IP address for your management node in a browser, including the TCP port for registration: https://[management
node IP]:9443.
The registration UI displays the registration page for the Plug-in.

2. Click Registration Status, complete the necessary fields, and click Check Status to verify that the vCenter Plug-in is already
registered and the version number of the current installation.
3. Click Update Plug-in.
4. Confirm or update the following:
l The IPv4 or IPv6 address or the FQDN of the vCenter service on which you will register your Plug-in.
l The vCenter Administrator user name.

NOTE: The user name and password credentials you enter must be for an administrator with vCenter
Administrator role privileges.

l The vCenter Administrator password.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 10
Getting Started

l (For in-house servers/dark sites) A custom URL for the Plug-in ZIP.

NOTE: Most installations will use the default path. You can click Custom URL to customize the URL if you are
using an HTTP or HTTPS server (dark site) or have modified the ZIP file name or network settings. See Modifying
vCenter Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP Server for additional configuration steps if you intend to
customize a URL.

5. Click Update.

6. Click Registration Status, complete the necessary fields, and click Check Status to verify that the updated version of the
Plug-in is registered on the vCenter.
7. (Version 3.0 and earlier only) If you are updating from any NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in version 3.0 or earlier, type the
following commands into a console:
# rm -rf /storage/vsphere-client/netapp-solidfire
# reboot

NOTE: This action removes the version 3.0.0 database prior to the installation of the new NetApp SolidFire vCenter
Plug-in in the vSphere Web Client.

8. Log into the vSphere Web Client as a vCenter Administrator.

NOTE: This action installs the new plug-in updates and creates a new database. If the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in icons
are not visible from the vSphere main page, see Troubleshooting.

9. Verify the version change in the About tab in the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point. For more details, see How
to Use the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in.

NOTE: The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in contains online help content. To ensure that your online help contains
the latest content, clear your browser cache after upgrading your Plug-in.

Updating the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Registration for Windows vCenter

You can update the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in for a vCenter Server on Windows from the registration user interface. The
registration UI is available from the IP address for your cluster's management node.

You must change your registration for the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in on every vCenter Server where you need to use the
Plug-in.

NOTE: If you wish to use a command line interface for updating registration, see Using a CLI for SolidFire Plug-in Registration to
update the Plug-in registration.

Prerequisites

l You have logged out of the vSphere Web Client.

NOTE: The web client will not recognize updates made during this process to your NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in
if you do not log out.

l You have vCenter Administrator role privileges to register a plug-in.

l You have deployed a management node OVA with NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in version 4.0 or later as described in
Deploying a New Management Node.
l You have upgraded your management node as described in Upgrading a Management Node.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 11
Getting Started

l Your management node is powered on with its IP address or DHCP address configured.
l You are using an SSH client or web browser (Chrome 56 and later, Mozilla 52 and later, or Internet Explorer 11 or later) on a
Microsoft® Windows® 64-bit system.
l Your firewall rules allow open network communication between the vCenter and the SolidFire Cluster MVIP on TCP ports
443, 8443, and 9443 (9443 is used for registration and can be closed after registration is complete).

Procedure

1. Enter the IP address for your management node in a browser, including the TCP port for registration: https://[management
node IP]:9443.
The registration UI displays the registration page for the Plug-in.

2. Click Registration Status, complete the necessary fields, and click Check Status to verify that the vCenter Plug-in is already
registered and the version number of the current installation.
3. Click Update Plug-in.
4. Confirm or update the following:
l The IPv4 or IPv6 address or the FQDN of the vCenter service on which you will register your Plug-in.
l The vCenter Administrator user name.

NOTE: The user name and password credentials you enter must be for an administrator with vCenter
Administrator role privileges.

l The vCenter Administrator password.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 12
Getting Started

l (For in-house servers/dark sites) A custom URL for the Plug-in ZIP.

NOTE: Most installations will use the default path. You can click Custom URL to customize the URL if you are
using an HTTP or HTTPS server (dark site) or have modified the ZIP file name or network settings. See Modifying
vCenter Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP Server for additional configuration steps if you intend to
customize a URL.

5. Click Update.

6. Delete the folder serenity and all its content:

l For Windows vCenter Server 5.x: C:\programdata\vmware\vSphere Web Client\SerenityDB\serenity

l For Windows vCenter Server 6.0.x: C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\data\vSphere Web

Client\SerenityDB\serenity
7. Purge the deleted content from the Recycle Bin.
8. Reboot vCenter.
9. Log into the vSphere Web Client as a vCenter Administrator.

NOTE: This action completes the installation in the vSphere Web Client. If the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in icons are not
visible from the vSphere main page, see Troubleshooting.

10. Verify the version change in the About tab in the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point. For more details, see How
to Use the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in.

NOTE: The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in contains online help content. To ensure that your online help contains
the latest content, clear your browser cache after upgrading your Plug-in.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 13
Successful Installation

Successful Installation
After successful installation, NetApp SolidFire Configuration and Management extension points appear in the Home tab of the
vSphere Web Client and in the Navigator side panel.

NOTE: See Troubleshooting if the Plug-in extension points are not visible in vSphere.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 14
How to Use the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in

How to Use the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in

The NetApp SolidFire Plug-in enables you to configure, manage, and monitor SolidFire clusters in the VMware vSphere Web Client.

You can make cluster-wide changes using the configuration and management extension points. The NetApp SolidFire
Configuration extension point allows you to add and manage clusters, assign vCenter Servers for Linked Mode, and configure
management node settings for QoSSIOC. The NetApp SolidFire Management extension point gives you a comparable monitoring
and management interface to the Element OS web UI for central, cluster-wide control of your storage system.

NOTE: Your vSphere Web Client may differ slightly from what is shown in the following screenshots depending on the version
of vSphere installed.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Configuration Extension Point

Tab Description

Getting Started Introduces the extension points for the plug-in and the actions that can be performed. You can hide these
pages from each page or restore them from the About tab in the Configuration extension point.

Clusters Add and remove SolidFire clusters, configure cluster features, and view cluster details.

mNode Settings Configure the mNode settings for the QoSSIOC service.

QoSSIOC Events Displays information about all detected QoSSIOC events.

About Displays plug-in version information and provides a service bundle download option.

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How to Use the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in Management Extension Point

Tab Description

Getting Introduces the extension points for the plug-in and the actions that can be performed. You can hide these pages
Started from each page or restore them from the About tab in the Configuration extension point.

Reporting Displays information about cluster components and provides a cluster performance overview. You can also
manage events, alerts, and running tasks from the tab.

Management Create and manage datastores, volumes, user accounts, access groups, and initiators. You can also perform backup
operations, clones, and snapshots. QoS policies are available to be created and managed using Element OS version
10 and later.

Protection Manage individual and group snapshots. You can also create schedules for snapshot creation, pair clusters for real-
time replication, and manage volume pairs.

Cluster Add and manage drives and nodes. You can also create and manage VLANs.

VVols Manage virtual volumes and their associated storage containers, protocol endpoints, and bindings.

vCenter Linked Mode

You can use the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in to manage cluster resources from other vCenter Servers using vCenter Linked
Mode. You can log into any vCenter Server that is part of a Linked Mode group and manage the resources owned by other linked
vCenter Servers from a single interface.

To take advantage of Linked Mode, a NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in must be registered on one linked vCenter Server that is part
of the Linked Mode group. You must also log in one time to the vSphere Web Client for each linked vCenter Server. Logging in
initiates installation of the plug-in on the web client.

NOTE: NetApp recommends that you manage a cluster from a single instance of a Linked Mode vCenter Server.

Hosts that use SolidFire storage are exclusive to a particular vCenter Server and are not shared between members of a Linked Mode
group. Because of this, any storage management tasks for a cluster are limited to the available hosts within a vCenter Server.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 16
Cluster Configuration
The Clusters tab in the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point allows you to add clusters that you can then manage from
the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. You can also manage existing cluster profiles, enable Virtual Volumes (VVols) on
clusters that support the functionality, or shut down a cluster to take it offline.

See the following topics to learn about or perform discovery-related tasks:

Adding a Cluster
Viewing Cluster Details
Cluster Details
Individual Cluster Details
Editing Cluster Profiles
Removing a Cluster Profile
Enabling Virtual Volumes
Enabling Encryption at Rest
Disabling Encryption at Rest
Shutting Down a Cluster

Adding a Cluster
You can add a cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point. After a connection has been established to the
cluster, the cluster can then be managed using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be available and its IP address known.

l Current full Cluster Admin user credentials for the SolidFire cluster.
l Firewall rules allow open network communication between the vCenter and the SolidFire Cluster MVIP on TCP ports 443 and
8443.

NOTE: You must add at least one cluster to use NetApp SolidFire Management extension point functions.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

2. Click Add Cluster.

3. In the Add Cluster dialog, enter the following:

l IP address: Enter the Cluster MVIP address.

l User ID: Enter a cluster administrator user name.

l Password: Enter a cluster administrator password.

l vCenter Server: If you have set up a Linked Mode group, select the vCenter Server you want to access the cluster. If you
are not using Linked Mode, the current vCenter Server is the default.

NOTE: The hosts for a cluster are exclusive to each vCenter Server. Be sure that the vCenter Server you select has
access to the intended hosts. You can remove a cluster, reassign it to another vCenter Server, and add it again if you
decide later to use different hosts.

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 4. Click OK.
When the process completes, the cluster appears in the list of available clusters and can be used in the NetApp SolidFire
Management extension point.

Viewing Cluster Details

You can view a brief summary of details for each available cluster from NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

2. Select the check box for the cluster profile you wish to review.
3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, select Details.

Cluster Details
On the Clusters page of the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point, you can view the following cluster information for all
clusters that have been added to the Plug-in.

Heading Description

Cluster Name The name for the cluster.

vCenter IP Address The IP address of the vCenter Server to which the cluster is assigned.

Unique ID Unique ID for the cluster.

Management Virtual IP The management virtual IP address (MVIP).

Storage Virtual IP The storage virtual IP address (SVIP).

VVols The status of VVols functionality on the cluster.

Individual Cluster Details

On the Clusters page of the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point, you can view the following cluster details when you
select an individual cluster and view its details.

Heading Description

Cluster Name The name for the cluster.

Unique ID Unique ID for the cluster.

vCenter IP Address The IP address of the vCenter Server to which the cluster is assigned.

Management Virtual IP The management virtual IP address (MVIP).

MVIP Node ID The node that holds the master MVIP address.

Storage Virtual IP The storage virtual IP address (SVIP).

SVIP Node ID The node holding the master SVIP address.

Element Version The version of the Element OS that the cluster is running.

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 Heading Description

VASA 2 Status The status of the VASA Provider on SolidFire cluster.

VASA Provider URL The URL of the VASA Provider enabled on the SolidFire cluster, when applicable.

Encryption At Rest Status The status of Encryption at Rest.

Possible values:
Enabling: Encryption at Rest is being enabled.
Enabled: Encryption at Rest is enabled.
Disabling: Encryption at Rest is being disabled.
Disabled: Encryption at Rest is disabled.

Ensemble Nodes IPs of the nodes that are part of the database ensemble.

Editing Cluster Profiles

You can change the Cluster Admin user name and password for a cluster profile from the SolidFire Configuration extension point.

NOTE: You cannot change the IP of a cluster profile once a cluster is added. You also cannot change the assigned Linked
Mode vCenter Server for an added cluster. To change the cluster IP or associated vCenter Server, you must remove the cluster
and add it again.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

2. Select the check box for the cluster profile you wish to edit.
3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Edit.

5. In the Edit Cluster dialog, change any of the following:

l User ID: The cluster administrator user name.

l Password: The cluster administrator password.

6. Click OK.

Removing a Cluster Profile

You can remove the cluster profile of a cluster that you no longer wish to manage from the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in using
the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point.

If you have set up a Linked Mode group and wish to reassign a cluster to another vCenter Server, you can remove the cluster profile
and add it again with a different linked vCenter Server IP.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

2. Select the check box for the cluster profile you wish to remove.
3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Remove.

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 5. Confirm the action.

Enabling Virtual Volumes

You must manually enable vSphere Virtual Volumes (VVols) functionality using the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point.
The SolidFire system comes with VVols functionality disabled by default, and it is not automatically enabled as part of a new
installation or upgrade. Enabling the VVols feature is a one-time configuration task.

Prerequisites

l The SolidFire cluster must be connected to an ESXi 6.0 and later environment that is compatible with VVols.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

2. Select a cluster from the list that you wish to enable.
3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Enable VVols.

CAUTION: Once enabled, VVols functionality cannot be disabled. Enabling vSphere Virtual Volumes functionality
permanently changes Element OS configuration. You should only enable VVols functionality if your cluster is
connected to a VMware ESXi VVols-compatible environment. You can only disable the VVols feature and restore the
default settings by returning the cluster to the factory image.

5. Click Yes to confirm the Virtual Volumes configuration change.

A VASA Enabled dialog appears that indicates that the VASA has been enabled on the SolidFire cluster.

NOTE: When VVols functionality is enabled, the SolidFire cluster starts the VASA Provider, opens port 8444 for VASA
traffic, and creates protocol endpoints that can be discovered by vCenter and all ESXi hosts.

6. Copy the VASA Provider URL from the VASA Enabled dialog. You will use this URL to register the VASA Provider in vCenter.

NOTE: Additional configuration tasks are required for VVols. See Configuring VVols Functionality.

Enabling Encryption at Rest

You can manually enable Encryption at Rest (EAR) functionality using the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

2. Select the check box for the cluster on which you wish to enable Encryption at Rest.
3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Enable EAR.

5. Confirm the action.

Disabling Encryption at Rest

You can manually disable Encryption at Rest (EAR) functionality using the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point.

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 Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

2. Select the check box for the cluster on which you wish to disable Encryption at Rest.
3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Disable EAR.

5. Confirm the action.

Shutting Down a Cluster

You can manually shut down all nodes in a storage cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point.

NOTE: If you wish to restart rather than shut down the cluster, you can select all nodes from Restarting Cluster Nodes and
perform a restart.

Prerequisites

l You have stopped I/O and disconnected all iSCSI sessions.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters.

2. Select the check box for the cluster you wish to shut down.
3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Shutdown.

5. Confirm the action.

mNode Settings
The mNode Settings tab in the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point allows you to configure settings that are used for
the QoSSIOC service. Once you have configured a valid mNode, these settings become the default. You can edit these settings to
update credentials or clear these settings for a new mNode.

For Linked Mode, the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in registers all vCenter Servers using the mNode settings you provide on a
single vCenter Server.

The mNode Status field on the settings page displays the following possible values:

l Up: QoSSIOC is enabled.

l Down: QoSSIOC is not enabled.

l Not Configured: QoSSIOC settings have not been configured.

l Network Down: vCenter cannot communicate with the mNode on the network. The mNode and SIOC service might still be
running.
See the following topics to learn about or perform mNode configuration tasks:

Configuring mNode Settings for QoSSIOC

Configuring SIOC Service Credentials
Editing mNode Settings for QoSSIOC
Clearing mNode Settings for QoSSIOC

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Configuring mNode Settings for QoSSIOC
You can configure the SolidFire management node (mNode) settings using the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point.
These configurations are required to be able to enable and use the QoSSIOC service.

Prerequisites

l Change the default user name and password for the SIOC service before using the mNode Settings page for the Plug-in. For
instructions, see Configuring SIOC Service Credentials.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > mNode Settings.

2. Click Actions.

3. In the resulting menu, select Configure.

4. In the Configure mNode Settings dialog, enter the following:

l mNode IP Address: The IP address of the management node for the cluster that contains the QoSSIOC service.

l mNode Port: The port address for the management node that contains the QoSSIOC service. The default port is 8443.

l mNode User ID: The user ID for the SolidFire QoSSIOC service. The default user ID is admin. See Configuring SIOC Service
Credentials to customize.
l mNode Password: The password for the SolidFire QoSSIOC service. The default password is solidfire. See Configuring SIOC
Service Credentials to customize.
l vCenter User ID: The user name for the vCenter admin with full Administrator role privileges.

l vCenter Password: The password for the vCenter admin with full Administrator role privileges.

5. Click OK.

The mNode Status field displays UP when the Plug-in can successfully communicate with the service.

NOTE: Once you have configured a valid mNode, these settings become the default. The mNode settings revert to
the last known valid mNode settings until you provide settings for another valid mNode. You must clear the settings
for the configured mNode before setting the credentials for a new mNode.

Configuring SIOC Service Credentials

It is highly recommended that you change the default user name and password for the SIOC service before using the mNode
Settings page for the vCenter Plug-in.

Procedure

1. On the management node, create a properties file in /opt/solidfire/sioc/ and name it app.properties.
2. Add the following lines to the file that include a custom user name and password:
security.user.name=<User name>
security.user.password=<Password>

NOTE: The QoSSIOC service user can have a password with the same special character limitations as vCenter. The
password cannot include quotes or escape characters and should be typed out exactly as it will be entered later in
this procedure in NetApp SolidFire Configuration > mNode Settings.

3. Change ownership and hide the file from other users:

chown solidfire:solidfire /opt/solidfire/sioc/app.properties
chmod 700 /opt/solidfire/sioc/app.properties

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 4. Open the sioc.conf file in /etc/init/.
5. Locate the following line:
sudo -u solidfire java -Xmx1024m -Xms256m -jar /opt/solidfire/sioc/solidfire-sioc-<version
number>-boot.jar
6. Append user name and password changes:
sudo -u solidfire java -Xmx1024m -Xms256m -jar /opt/solidfire/sioc/solidfire-sioc-
<version number>-boot.jar --spring.config.location=classpath:/
application.properties,/opt/solidfire/sioc/app.properties
7. Restart the SIOC service.
sudo service sioc restart
8. After approximately one minute, open sioc.log in /var/log/solidfire to verify that the SIOC service started successfully.
2016-06-01 13:02:41,885 46271 [main] INFO com.solidfire.sioc.SiocService - Started
SiocService in 44.951 seconds (JVM running for 47.415)
9. Enter the user ID and password from the app.properties file in the mNode user ID and password fields in NetApp
SolidFire Configuration > mNode Settings.

Editing mNode Settings for QoSSIOC

You can change the management node (mNode) and vCenter credentials of an active SolidFire mNode using the NetApp SolidFire
Configuration extension point.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > mNode Settings.

2. Click Actions.

3. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

4. In the Edit mNode Settings dialog, change any of the following:

l mNode User ID: The user ID for the SolidFire QoSSIOC service. The default user ID is admin. See Configuring SIOC Service
Credentials to customize.
l mNode Password: The password for the SolidFire QoSSIOC service. The default password is solidfire. See Configuring SIOC
Service Credentials to customize.
l vCenter User ID: The user name for the vCenter admin with full Administrator role privileges.

l vCenter Password: The password for the vCenter admin with full Administrator role privileges.

5. Click OK.

The mNode Status field displays UP when the Plug-in can successfully communicate with the service.

NOTE: Once you have configured a valid mNode, these settings become the default. The mNode settings revert to
the last known valid mNode settings until you provide settings for another valid mNode. You must clear the settings
for the configured mNode before setting the credentials for a new mNode.

Clearing mNode Settings for QoSSIOC

You can clear the configuration details of the SolidFire management node (mNode) using the NetApp SolidFire Configuration
extension point. You must clear the settings for the configured mNode before configuring the credentials for a new mNode.
Clearing the mNode settings removes active QoSSIOC from the vCenter, cluster, and datastores.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > mNode Settings.

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 2. Click Actions.

3. In the resulting menu, select Clear.

4. Confirm the action.
The mNode Status field displays Not Configured after the process is complete.

Viewing QoSSIOC Events

You can view QoSSIOC events from the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point. A QoSSIOC event is reported when a VM
that has a datastore with QoS enabled is reconfigured or issued a power or guest event.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be added and running.

l The QoSSIOC service must be configured and running using the mNode Settings page for the Plug-in.
l At least one datastore must have QoSSIOC automation enabled.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Configuration > QoSSIOC Events.

The QoSSIOC Events page displays a list of events.

QoSSIOC Event Details

On the QoSSIOC Events page of the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point, you can view the following information for
QoSSIOC events for each cluster.

Heading Description

Date The date and time of the QoSSIOC event.

Datastore Name The user-defined datastore name.

Cluster IP The IP address of the cluster containing the datastore from which the event originated.

Volume ID The system-generated ID for the associated volume.

Min IOPs The current minimum IOPS QoS setting of the volume.

Max IOPs The current maximum IOPS QoS setting of the volume.

Burst IOPs The current maximum burst QoS setting of the volume.

Burst Time The length of time a burst is allowed.

About the Plug-in

You can find general information about the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in version, build number, and IP address from the
NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point. The About page includes options to download a service bundle and hide or restore
the Getting Started pages that are available from both extension points.

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Reporting
The Reporting tab gives you information about the cluster's components and provides an overview of how the cluster is
performing. Reporting opens up into an overview of the cluster components and resources.

See the following topics to learn about or perform reporting tasks:

Reporting Overview
Viewing Event Logs
Event Log
Event Types
Alerts
Alert Error Codes
Running Tasks

Reporting Overview
On the Reporting > Overview page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view high-level cluster
information, including overall capacity, efficiency, and performance.

Heading Description

Cluster Capacity The capacity remaining for Block Storage, Metadata, and Provisioned space. These
measurements are obtained with the GetClusterCapacity API method. Move the pointer
over the progress bar to see threshold information.

Cluster Information Information specific to the cluster, such as cluster name, the version of Element OS
running on the cluster, MVIP and SVIP addresses, and the number of nodes, 4k IOPS,
volumes, and sessions on the cluster.

l Cluster Name: The name for the cluster.

l Storage IP (SVIP): The storage virtual IP address (SVIP).

l Management IP (MVIP): The management virtual IP address (MVIP)

l SVIP VLAN Tag: The VLAN identifier for the master SVIP address.

l MVIP VLAN Tag: The VLAN identifier for the master MVIP address.

l Node Count: The number of active nodes in the cluster.

l Cluster 4K IOPS: The number of 4096 (4K) blocks that can be read/written by the
cluster in a second.
l Element OS Version: The version of the Element OS that the cluster is running.

l Volume Count: The total number of volumes, excluding virtual volumes, on the
cluster.
l Virtual Volume Count: The total number of virtual volumes on the cluster.

l Volume Snapshot Count: The total number of snapshots on the cluster.

l iSCSI Sessions: The iSCSI sessions that are connected to the cluster.

l Fibre Channel Sessions: The Fibre Channel sessions that are connected to the

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 Heading Description

cluster.

Cluster Efficiency Overall system capacity that is being utilized that takes into account thin provisioning,
deduplication, and compression. The calculated benefit achieved on the cluster is
compared to what the capacity utilization would be without thin provisioning,
deduplication, and compression on a traditional storage device.

Provisioned IOPS A summary of how volume IOPS might be overprovisioned on the cluster. Provisioned
IOPS calculations are determined by the sum of the total minimum IOPS, maximum IOPS,
and burst IOPS for all volumes on the cluster divided by the maximum IOPS rated for the
cluster.

Example:
If there are four volumes in the cluster, each with minIOPS of 500, maxIOPS of
15,000, and burstIOPS of 15,000, the total number of minIOPS would be 2,000,
total maxIOPS would be 60,000, and total burstIOPS would be 60,000. If the
cluster is rated at maxIOPS of 50,000, then the calculations would be the
following:

l Minimum IOPS: 2000/50000 = 0.04x

l Maximum IOPS: 60000/50000 = 1.20x
l Burst IOPS: 60000/50000 = 1.20x

1.00x is the baseline at which provisioned IOPS is equal to the rated IOPS for
the cluster.

Cluster Health The hardware, capacity, and security components of the health of the cluster. Color codes
indicate the following:

l Green: Healthy

l Yellow: Critical

l Red: Error

Viewing Event Logs

You can review event logs for operations performed on the selected cluster along with cluster faults that might occur. Most errors
are resolved automatically by the system. Other faults might require manual intervention.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Reporting.

2. Click on the Event Log sub-tab.

The page displays a list of all events on the cluster.
3. Select an individual event you wish to review.
4. Select Details.
The message displays the cluster event details.

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Event Log
On the Reporting > Event Log page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view information about events
detected in the system.

Heading Description

Event ID Unique ID associated with each event.

Event Type The type of event being logged; for example, API events or clone events.

Message Message associated with the event.

Service ID The ID of the service that reported the event (if applicable). The value is "0" (zero) if the fault is not
associated with a service.

Node The ID of the node that reported the event (if applicable).

Drive ID The ID of the drive that reported the event (if applicable).

Event Time The date and time the event occurred.

Event Types
The system reports multiple types of events; each event is an operation that the system has completed. Events can be routine,
normal events or events that require administrator attention. The Event Type column on the Event Log page indicates in which
part of the system the event occurred.

NOTE: The system does not log read-only API commands in the event log.

The following table describes the types of events that might appear in the event log.

Event Type Description

apiEvent Events initiated by a user through an API or web UI that modify settings.

binAssignmentsEvent Events related to the assignment of data bins. Bins are essentially containers that hold
data and are mapped across the cluster.

binSyncEvent System events related to a reassignment of data among block services.

bsCheckEvent System events related to block service checks.

bsKillEvent System events related to block service terminations.

bulkOpEvent Events related to operations performed on an entire volume, such as a backup, restore,
snapshot, or clone.

cloneEvent Events related to volume cloning.

clusterMasterEvent Events appearing upon cluster initialization or upon configuration changes to the cluster,
such as adding or removing nodes.

dataEvent Events related to reading and writing data.

dbEvent Events related to the global database maintained by ensemble nodes in the cluster.

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 Event Type Description

driveEvent Events related to drive operations.

encryptionAtRestEvent Events related to the process of encryption on a cluster.

ensembleEvent Events related to increasing or decreasing the number of nodes in an ensemble.

fibreChannelEvent Events related to the configuration of and connections to the Fibre Channel nodes.

gcEvent Events related to processes run every 60 minutes to reclaim storage on block drives. This
process is also known as garbage collection.

ieEvent Internal system error.

installEvent Automatic software installation events. Software is being automatically installed on a

pending node.

iSCSIEvent Events related to iSCSI issues in the system.

limitEvent Events related to the number of volumes or virtual volumes in an account or in the cluster
nearing the maximum allowed.

networkEvent Events related to the status of virtual networking.

platformHardwareEvent Events related to issues detected on hardware devices.

remoteClusterEvent Events related to remote cluster pairing.

schedulerEvent Events related to scheduled snapshots.

serviceEvent Events related to system service status.

statEvent Events related to system statistics.

sliceEvent Events related to the Slice Server, such as removing a metadata drive or volume.

snmpTrapEvent Events related to SNMP traps.

tsEvent Events related to the system transport service.

unexpectedException Events related to unexpected system exceptions.

vasaProviderEvent Events related to a VASA (vSphere APIs for Storage Awareness) Provider.

Alerts
Alerts are cluster faults or errors and are reported as they occur. Alerts can be information, warnings, or errors and are a good
indicator of how well the cluster is running. Most errors resolve themselves automatically; however, some might require manual
intervention.

On the Reporting > Alerts page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view information about individual
system alerts.

After the system resolves an alert, all information about the alert including the date it was resolved is moved to the Resolved view.

The following table describes the columns on the page.

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 Heading Description

ID Unique ID for a cluster alert.

Severity warning: A minor issue that might soon require attention. System upgrades are still allowed at this
severity level.
error: A failure that might cause performance degradation or loss of high availability (HA). Errors
generally should not affect service otherwise.
critical: A serious failure that affects service. The system is unable to serve API or client I/O requests.
Operating in this state could lead to potential loss of data.
bestPractice: A recommended system configuration best practice is not being used.

Type node: Fault affecting an entire node.

drive: Fault affecting an individual drive.
cluster: Fault affecting the entire cluster.
service: Fault affecting a service on the cluster.
volume: Fault affecting a volume on the cluster.

Node Node ID for the node that this fault refers to. Included for node and drive faults, otherwise set to -
(dash).

Drive ID Drive ID for the drive that this fault refers to. Included for drive faults, otherwise set to - (dash).

Error Code A descriptive code that indicates what caused the fault.

Details Detailed description of the fault.

Time This heading is only visible in Active filter view. The date and time the fault was logged.

Resolution Date This heading is only visible in Resolved filter view. The date and time the fault was resolved.

Alert Error Codes

The system reports error codes with each alert on the Alerts page. Error codes help you determine what component of the system
experienced the alert, and you can learn more about why the alert was generated using the information in the Details column. The
following table outlines the different types of system alerts.

Alert Type Description

BlockServiceTooFull A block service is using too much space and running low on capacity.

BlockServiceUnhealthy The SolidFire Application cannot communicate with a Block Service. If this condition
persists, the system relocates the data to another drive. Once the system relocates
the data, you should reboot the unhealthy node to restore communication.

ClusterCannotSync There is an out of space condition and data on the offline block storage drives
cannot be synced to drives that are still active.

ClusterFull Stage 3 Cluster Full: Add additional capacity or free up capacity as soon as possible.
Stage 4 Cluster Full: Due to high capacity consumption Helix data protection will not
recover if a node fails. Creating new Volumes or Snapshots is not permitted until
additional capacity is available. Add additional capacity or free up capacity
immediately.

ClusterIOPSAreOverProvisioned The sum of all minimum QoS IOPS is greater than the expected IOPS of the cluster.

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 Alert Type Description

The system cannot maintain minimum QoS in this condition. IOPS may need to be
adjusted.

DisconnectedClusterPair Paired clusters have become disconnected. Reestablish communication between the
clusters.

DriveWearFault A drive might need attention due to wear.

EnsembleDegraded Power or network connectivity has been lost to one or more of the ensemble nodes.
Restore network connectivity or power to the affected node.

Exception A non-routine fault has been detected. This fault will not be cleared. Call NetApp
SolidFire Support to resolve the exception fault.

FailedSpaceTooFull A Slice Service is using space reserved for failed writes. Contact NetApp SolidFire
Support.

FibreChannelAccessDegraded A Fibre Channel node has stopped responding to the storage nodes in the cluster.

FibreChannelAccessUnavailable All Fibre Channel nodes have become disconnected.

InconsistentMtus Bond1G mismatch: Inconsistent MTUs detected on Bond1G interfaces. MTU to

nodeID mapping: <mapping of MTUs to nodes>.
Bond10G mismatch: Inconsistent MTUs detected on Bond10G interfaces. MTU to
nodeID mapping: <mapping of MTUs to nodes> .

InvalidConfiguredFibreChannelNodeCount There is only one Fibre Channel node configured in a cluster. For proper Fibre
Channel operation, at least two Fibre Channel nodes must be configured in a cluster.

NodeHardwareFault The system has detected a hardware misconfiguration or a component that is not
functioning as expected.

notUsingLACPBondMode LACP bonding mode is not configured. NetApp strongly recommends using
LACP bonding when deploying SF-Series 19210 and newer nodes; clients might
experience timeouts if LACP is not configured.

ProvisionedSpaceTooFull The overall provisioned capacity of the cluster is too full.

SliceServiceUnhealthy The SolidFire Application cannot communicate with a metadata service.

SliceServiceTooFull A Slice Service is using too much space and running low on capacity.

Upgrade The software on one or more nodes is being upgraded.

UnbalancedMixedNodes The storage on the mix of nodes in a cluster has become unbalanced in a way that
might degrade performance.

VolumeDegraded Secondary volumes have not finished replicating and syncing.

Running Tasks
On the Reporting > Running Tasks page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view information about
running tasks in the cluster that are reported by ListSyncJobs and ListBulkVolumeJobs API methods.

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Heading Description

Task Type The type of sync job or bulk volume job.

Possible values:
block
clone
read
remote
slice
write

Node Specifies the ID of the node onto which the clone is being written. This ID is only present if
the task type is clone.

Description List of objects describing sync processes or an array of information for each bulk volume
job currently running in the system.

Current Progress Number of bytes the clone has processed in the source volume. This information is only
present if the task type is clone or slice.

Elapsed Time The time elapsed, in seconds, since the job started.

Remaining Time Estimated time, in seconds, to complete the operation.

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Management
The Management tab enables you to create and manage datastores, volumes, accounts, access groups, initiators, and volume QoS
policies.

See the following topics to learn about or perform management tasks:

Datastore Management
Creating a Datastore
Viewing the Datastore List
Datastore Details
Extending a Datastore
Cloning a Datastore
Sharing a Datastore
Performing VAAI UNMAP
Deleting a Datastore
QoSSIOC Automation
Enabling QoSSIOC Automation
Disabling QoSSIOC Integration
Volume Management
Creating a Volume
Viewing Volumes Details
Volume Details
Individual Volume Details
Editing a Volume
Cloning a Volume
Volume Backup and Restore Operations
Volume Backup Operations
Volume Restore Operations
Deleting Volumes
Purging Volumes
Restoring Deleted Volumes
Adding Volumes to an Access Group
Removing Volumes from an Access Group
Applying a QoS Policy to Multiple Volumes
Changing the QoS Policy Association of a Volume
User Account Management
Creating an Account
Account Details
Editing an Account
Deleting an Account
Volume Access Groups
Creating Access Groups
Volume Access Group Details
Editing Access Groups

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 Deleting Access Groups
Initiators
Creating an Initiator
Initiator Details
Editing an Initiator
Deleting Initiators
Adding Initiators to a Volume Access Group
QoS Policies
Creating a QoS Policy
QoS Policy Details
Editing a QoS Policy
Deleting a QoS Policy

Datastore Management
The NetApp SolidFire Plug-in enables you to manage datastores that are created on SolidFire volumes. You can create, extend,
clone, share, or delete datastores. You can also use VAAI UNMAP to allow a cluster to reclaim freed block space from thinly
provisioned VMFS datastores. Datastore operations can be monitored for completion using task monitoring in vSphere.

NOTE: To create and manage datastores, you must first create at least one user account in Management > Accounts. If you
want to use QoSSIOC service with datastores, you must first configure settings in the mNode Settings page in the NetApp
Configuration extension point.

Creating a Datastore
You can create a datastore using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Because datastores are created using the highest VMFS version supported by the selected ESXi host, NetApp recommends that all
cluster members run the same version of vSphere and ESXi to avoid VMFS compatibility issues.

NOTE: If you want to use QoSSIOC service with datastores, you must first configure settings in the mNode Settings page in
the NetApp Configuration extension point.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be added and running.

NOTE: If you are using vCenter Linked Mode, be sure that you have added your cluster with the correct vCenter
Server IP.

l If two or more clusters are added, the cluster you intend to use for the task must be selected.
l At least one user account must be created.
l At least one host must be connected to the vCenter Server.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. From the Datastore page, click Create Datastore.

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 3. In the Create Datastore dialog , enter a name for the datastore.

TIP: Use a unique name for each datastore in a data center.

4. Click Next.
5. Select the required host for the datastore.

NOTE: You need at least one connected host before you can create a new datastore. If you are using vCenter Linked
Mode, only hosts available to the vCenter Server to which the cluster is assigned are available to select.

6. Click Next.

7. In the Configure Volume pane, select an existing volume and proceed to the next step, or create a new volume for the new
datastore:
a. Enter a name for the volume that backs the datastore.
b. Select a user account from the account drop-down list.

NOTE: You need at least one existing user account before you can create a new volume.

c. Enter the total size of the volume you want to create.

NOTE: Default volume size selection is in GB. Volumes can be created with GB or GiB:
l 1GB = 1 000 000 000 bytes
l 1GiB = 1 073 741 824 bytes

NOTE: By default, 512 byte emulation is set to ON for all the new volumes.

d. In the Quality of Service area, do one of the following:

l Under Policy, select an existing QoS policy, if available.

l Under Custom Settings, set customized minimum, maximum, and burst values for IOPS or use the default
QoS values.

Caution: Datastore QoSSIOC settings, once enabled, will override any QoS settings at the volume level.

Caution: Volumes that have a Max or Burst IOPS value greater than 20,000 IOPS might require high queue depth
or multiple sessions to achieve this level of IOPS on a single volume.

8. Click Next.
9. Configure authorization type for host access by selecting one of the following:
l Use Access Group

l Use CHAP

NOTE: Use volume access group to explicitly limit which initiators can see volumes. Use CHAP for secure secret-based
access with no limits on initiators.

10. Click Next.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 34
 11. If you selected Use Access Group, configure the volume access group information for the selected host. You can select an
available volume access group or you can create and configure a new access group with the available protocol (iSCSI or
Fibre Channel) and a corresponding, unassigned initiator (IQN or WWPN).
12. Click Next.

13. If you want to enable QoSSIOC automation, click the Enable QoS & SIOC check box to select it and then configure the
QoSSIOC settings.

NOTE: If the QoSSIOC service is not available, you must first configure settings in the mNode Settings page in the
NetApp Configuration extension point.

a. Select Enable QoS & SIOC.

b. Configure the Burst Factor.

NOTE: The burst factor is a multiple of the IOPS limit (SIOC) setting for the VMDK. If you change the default,
make sure to use a burst factor value that will not exceed the maximum burst limit for a SolidFire volume when
the burst factor value is multiplied by the IOPS limit for any VMDK.

c. (Optional) Select Override Default QoS and configure the settings.

NOTE: If the Override Default QoS setting is disabled for the datastore, the Shares and Limit IOPS values are
automatically set based on the default SIOC settings of each VM.

TIP: Do not customize the SIOC share limit without also customizing the SIOC IOPS limit.

14. Click Next.

15. Confirm the selections and click Finish.

16. You can use task monitoring in vSphere to view the progress of the SolidFire task. Click refresh if needed until the datastore
appears in the list.

Viewing the Datastore List

Available datastores are displayed in the Datastores tab in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

The Datastores page appears and shows all current datastores on SolidFire and ESXi.

NOTE: Datastores spanning multiple volumes (mixed datastores) are not listed.

NOTE: Datastore views will only show datastores that are available on ESXi hosts from the selected SolidFire cluster.

Datastore Details

On the Management > Datastores page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following
information for all datastores on the cluster.

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 Heading Description

Name The name assigned to the datastore.

Host Name(s) The address of the host device.

Status Indicates if the datastore is currently connected to vSphere.

Type The VMware file system datastore type.

Volume Name The name assigned to the associated volume.

Volume NAA Globally unique SCSI device identifier for the associated volume in NAA IEEE Registered Extended
format.

Total Capacity (GB) Total formatted capacity of the datastore.

Free Capacity (GB) Space that is available for the datastore.

QoSSIOC Automation Indicates whether or not QoSSIOC automation is enabled. Possible values:
Enabled: QoSSIOC is enabled.
Disabled: QoSSIOC is not enabled.
Max Exceeded: Volume Max QoS has exceeded the limit value specified.

Extending a Datastore
You can extend a datastore to increase volume size using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. Extending the
datastore also extends the VMFS volume related to that datastore.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. From the Datastores page, select the check box for the datastore you wish to extend.

3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Extend.

5. In the New Datastore Size field, type the required size for the new datastore and select GB or GiB.

NOTE: Extending the datastore will consume the entire volume's size. The new datastore size cannot exceed the
unprovisioned space available on the selected cluster or the maximum volume size the cluster allows.

6. Click OK.
7. Click refresh if needed until the updated datastore appears in the list.

Cloning a Datastore
The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in provides the functionality to clone datastores, which includes mounting the new datastore to
the desired ESXi server or cluster. You can name the datastore clone and configure its QoSSIOC, volume, host, and authorization
type settings.

You can clone datastores using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be added and running.

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 NOTE: If you are using vCenter Linked Mode, be sure that you have added your cluster with the correct vCenter
Server IP.

l If two or more clusters are added, the cluster you intend to use for the task must be selected.
l Available unprovisioned space must be equal to or more than the source volume size.
l At least one host must be connected to vCenter server.
l At least one user account must be created.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. From the Datastores page, select the check box for the datastore you wish to clone.

3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Clone.

NOTE: If you attempt to clone a datastore that contains virtual machines with attached disks not located on the
selected datastore, copies of the virtual machines on the cloned datastore will not be added to the virtual machine
inventory.

5. Enter a datastore name.

6. Click Next.
7. Select the required host for the datastore.

NOTE: You need at least one connected host before you can create a clone datastore. If you are using vCenter
Linked Mode, only hosts available to the vCenter Server to which the cluster is assigned are available to select.

8. Click Next.

9. In the Configure Volume pane, do the following:

NOTE: Volume size for the clone datastore matches the size of the volume backing the source datastore. By default,
512 byte emulation is set to ON for all the new volumes.

a. Enter a name for the new SolidFire volume that backs the clone datastore.
b. Select a user account from account drop-down list.

NOTE: You need at least one existing user account before you can create a new volume.

c. In the Quality of Service area, do one of the following:

l Under Policy, select an existing QoS policy, if available.

l Under Custom Settings, set customized minimum, maximum, and burst values for IOPS or use the default
QoS values.

Caution: Datastore QoSSIOC settings, once enabled, will override any QoS settings at the volume level.

Caution: Volumes that have a Max or Burst IOPS value greater than 20,000 IOPS might require high queue depth
or multiple sessions to achieve this level of IOPS on a single volume.

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 10. Click Next.
11. Configure authorization type for host access by selecting one of the following:
l Use Access Group

l Use CHAP

NOTE: Use volume access group to explicitly limit which initiators can see volumes. Use CHAP for secure secret-based
access with no limits on initiators.

12. Click Next.

13. If you selected Use Access Group, configure the volume access group information for the selected host. You can select an
available volume access group or you can create and configure a new access group with the available protocol (iSCSI or
Fibre Channel) and corresponding initiator (IQN or WWPN).
14. Click Next.

15. If you want to enable QoSSIOC automation, click the Enable QoS & SIOC check box to select it and then configure the
QoSSIOC settings.

NOTE: If the QoSSIOC service is not available, you must first configure settings in the mNode Settings page in the
NetApp Configuration extension point.

a. Select Enable QoS & SIOC.

b. Configure the Burst Factor.

NOTE: The burst factor is a multiple of the IOPS limit (SIOC) setting for the VMDK. If you change the default,
make sure to use a burst factor value that will not exceed the maximum burst limit for a SolidFire volume when
the burst factor value is multiplied by the IOPS limit for any VMDK.

c. (Optional) Select Override Default QoS and configure the settings.

NOTE: If the Override Default QoS setting is disabled for the datastore, the Shares and Limit IOPS values are
automatically set based on the default SIOC settings of each VM.

TIP: Do not customize the SIOC share limit without also customizing the SIOC IOPS limit.

16. Click Next.

17. Confirm the selections and click Finish.

18. Click refresh if needed if the datastore clone does not appear in the list.

Sharing a Datastore
You can share a datastore with one or more hosts using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

NOTE: Datastores can be shared only among hosts within the same data center.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be added and running.

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 NOTE: If you are using vCenter Linked Mode, be sure that you have added your cluster with the correct vCenter
Server IP.

l If two or more clusters are added, the cluster you intend to use for the task must be selected.
l There must be more than one host under the selected data center.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. From the Datastores page, select the check box for the datastore you wish to share.

3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Share.

5. Configure authorization type for host access by selecting one of the following:
l Use Access Group

l Use CHAP

NOTE: Use volume access group to explicitly limit which initiators can see volumes. Use CHAP for secure secret-based
access with no limits on initiators.

6. Click Next.
7. Do one of the following:

NOTE: If you are using vCenter Linked Mode, only hosts available to the vCenter Server to which the cluster is
assigned are available to select.

If Then

Use Volume Access Group is 1. Do one of the following to configure an access group:
selected:
NOTE: Volume access groups that are already associated with
the datastore and the datastore's volume are displayed on the
right. Additional hosts, if available, can be selected and added
to an access group on the right.

l Retain the selected volume access group, if one is already selected,

and proceed to the next step.
l Select one or more volume access groups from the list and click
Add.

l If no volume access group is available, click Create Access Group

and enter a name for the new access group.
2. Click Next.

Use CHAP is selected: 1. Select one or more hosts from the list.
2. Click Next.

8. Confirm the selections and click Finish.

9. Click refresh to update the datastore list after the share datastore task is complete to verify hosts for the datastore.

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Performing VAAI UNMAP
The VAAI UNMAP feature allows a cluster to reclaim freed block space from thinly provisioned VMFS5 datastores.

NOTE: For a larger discussion of VAAI and cloning, see this article from VMware.

Prerequisites

1. Ensure that the datastore you are using for the task is VMFS5 or earlier. VAAI UNMAP is unavailable for VMFS6 because ESXi
performs the task automatically.
2. Ensure that the ESXi host system settings are enabled for VAAI UNMAP (esxcli system settings advanced list -o
/VMFS3/EnableBlockDelete). The integer value must be set to 1 to enable.
3. If the ESXi host system settings are not enabled for VAAI UNMAP, set the integer value to 1 with the command esxcli
system settings advanced set -i 1 -o /VMFS3/EnableBlockDelete.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. From the Datastores page, select the check box for the datastore on which you wish to use VAAI UNMAP.

3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click VAAI Unmap.

5. Select a host by name or IP.
6. Enter the host user name and password.
7. Confirm the selections and click OK.

Deleting a Datastore
You can delete a datastore using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. This operation permanently deletes all the files
associated with the VMs on the datastore that you want to delete.

NOTE: The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in will not delete datastores that contain registered VMs.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. From the Datastores page, select the check box for the datastore you wish to delete.

3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Delete.

5. (Optional) If you want to delete the SolidFire volume that is associated with the datastore, select the Delete associated
volume check box.

NOTE: You can also choose to retain the volume and later associate it with another datastore.

6. Click Yes.

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QoSSIOC Automation
The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in allows, as an optional setting, automatic quality of service (QoS) based on storage I/O control
(SIOC) settings of all VMs on a datastore. This QoS and SIOC integration (QoSSIOC), which can be enabled for datastores in the user
interface, runs a scan of all SIOC settings on all associated VMs. The QoSSIOC service uses the sum of all SIOC reservations or shares
and the sum of IOPS limits to determine minimum and maximum QoS for the underlying volume of each datastore. A configurable
burst factor is also available.

Option Description

Enable QoS & Enables the automatic monitoring of SIOC values for each VMDK on a datastore and sets QoS values for the
SIOC underlying volume according to those values.

Burst Factor Multiplier of the sum of SIOC IOPS limit values from each VDMK that determines the burst IOPS contribution for
the underlying volume.

Override Enables the use of Shares and Limit IOPS values. These values can be used when SIOC settings for each VM are
Default QoS set to default.

Shares The contribution of minimum IOPS from each VDMK if the SIOC settings are set to default.

Limit IOPS The contribution of maximum IOPS from each VDMK if the SIOC settings are set to default.

When SIOC settings for a VMDK are at the default shares level of Normal and the default IOPS limit of Unlimited, the Shares and
Limit IOPS values contribute toward the total QoS for the underlying volume. If the SIOC settings for the VMDK are not at default
levels, SIOC shares contribute to Min QoS and SIOC IOPS limit values contribute to Max QoS for the underlying volume.

NOTE: It is possible to set a reservation value through vSphere API. If a reservation value is set for a VMDK, shares are ignored
and the reservation value is used instead.

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Enabling QoSSIOC Automation
You can enable QoSSIOC automation and customize virtual machine disk (VMDK) performance levels using the NetApp SolidFire
Management extension point.

NOTE: If you upgrade versions of vCenter, check your datastore QoSSIOC settings to verify that they are set as desired.

Prerequisites

l You have configured the QoSSIOC service settings in the mNode Settings page in the NetApp SolidFire Configuration
extension point.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the status button in the QoSSIOC Automation column for the selected datastore.

TIP: Ensure that the datastore does not have QoSSIOC integration enabled on another vCenter to prevent
unexpected changes in QoS.

3. Select Enable QoS & SIOC.

4. Configure the Burst Factor.

NOTE: The burst factor is a multiple of the IOPS limit (SIOC) setting for the VMDK. If you change the default, make
sure to use a burst factor value that will not exceed the maximum burst limit for a SolidFire volume when the burst
factor value is multiplied by the IOPS limit for any VMDK.

5. (Optional) Select Override Default QoS and configure the settings.

NOTE: If the Override Default QoS setting is disabled for the datastore, the Shares and Limit IOPS values are
automatically set based on the default SIOC settings of each VM.

TIP: Do not customize the SIOC share limit without also customizing the SIOC IOPS limit.

6. Click OK.

NOTE: When you enable the QoSSIOC Automation for a datastore, the button changes from Disabled to Enabled.

Disabling QoSSIOC Integration

You can disable QoSSIOC integration using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the button in the QoSSIOC Automation column for the selected datastore.

3. Clear the Enable QoS & SIOC check box to disable the integration.

NOTE: Clearing the Enable QoS & SIOC check box automatically disables the Override Default QoS option.

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 4. Click OK.

Volume Management
Storage is provisioned in the SolidFire system as volumes. Volumes are block devices accessed over the network using iSCSI or Fibre
Channel clients.

The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in enables you to create, view, edit, delete, clone, backup or restore volumes for user accounts.
You can also manage each volume on a cluster, and add or remove volumes in volume access groups.

Creating a Volume
You can create a new volume and associate the volume with a given account (every volume must be associated with an account).
This association gives the account access to the volume through the iSCSI initiators using the CHAP credentials. You can also specify
QoS settings for a volume during creation.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be added and running.

l If two or more clusters are added, the cluster you intend to use for the task must be selected.
l A user account has been created.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, click Create Volume.

4. Enter a name for the volume.
5. Enter the total size of the volume you want to create.

NOTE: Default volume size selection is in GB. Volumes can be created with GB or GiB:
l 1GB = 1 000 000 000 bytes
l 1GiB = 1 073 741 824 bytes

NOTE: By default, 512 byte emulation is set to ON for all the new volumes. VMware requires 512e for disk resources.
If 512e is not enabled, a VMFS cannot be created.

6. Select a user account from the Account drop-down list.

7. In the Quality of Service area, do one of the following:

l Under Policy, select an existing QoS policy, if available.

l Under Custom Settings, set customized minimum, maximum, and burst values for IOPS or use the default QoS
values.

Caution: Datastore QoSSIOC settings, once enabled, will override any QoS settings at the volume level.

Caution: Volumes that have a Max or Burst IOPS value greater than 20,000 IOPS might require high queue depth or
multiple sessions to achieve this level of IOPS on a single volume.

8. Click OK.

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Viewing Volumes Details
You can review general information for all active volumes on the cluster in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. You
can also see details for each active volume, including efficiency, performance, QoS, as well as associated snapshots.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab. General information about active volumes is displayed.
3. Select the check box for the individual volume you wish to review.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select View details.

Volume Details

On the Management > Volumes page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following information
in the list of active volumes.

NOTE: VMware requires 512e for disk resources. If 512e is not enabled, a VMFS cannot be created.

Heading Description

Volume ID The system-generated ID for the volume.

Volume Name The name assigned to the volume.

Account The name of the account assigned to the volume.

Access Groups The name of the volume access group to which the volume belongs.

Access The type of access assigned to the volume when it was created.

Possible values:

l Read/Write: All reads and writes are accepted.

l Read Only: All read activity allowed; no writes allowed.

l Locked: Only Administrator access is allowed.

l ReplicationTarget: Designated as a target volume in a replicated volume pair.

Size (GB) The total size in GB of the volume.

Snapshots The number of snapshots created for the volume.

QoS Policy The name of the user-defined QoS policy.

512e Identifies if 512e is enabled on a volume. The value can be either Yes or No.

Individual Volume Details

On the Management > Volumes page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following active
volume information when you select an individual volume and view its details.

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Section Heading Description

General Name The name assigned to the volume.

Details

Volume ID The system-generated ID for the volume.

IQN The iSCSI Qualified Name of the volume.

Account ID The unique account ID of the associated account.

Account The name of the account assigned to the volume.

Access Groups The name of the volume access group to which the volume belongs.

Size The total size in bytes of the volume.

SCSI EUI Globally unique SCSI device identifier for the volume in EUI-64 based 16-byte format.
Device ID

SCSI NAA The globally unique SCSI device identifier for the protocol endpoint in NAA IEEE Registered
Device ID Extended Format.

Efficiency Compression The compression efficiency score for the volume.

Deduplication The deduplication efficiency score for the volume.

Thin The thin provisioning efficiency score for the volume.

Provisioning

Last Updated The date and time of the last efficiency score.

Performance Account ID The unique account ID of the associated account.

Actual IOPS Current actual IOPS to the volume in the last 500 milliseconds.

Async Delay The length of time since the volume was last synced with the remote cluster.

Average IOP Average size in bytes of recent I/O to the volume in the last 500 milliseconds.
Size

Burst IOPS The total number of IOP credits available to the user. When volumes are not using up to the Max
Size IOPS, credits are accrued.

Client Queue The number of outstanding read and write operations to the volume.
Depth

Last Updated The date and time of the last performance update.

Latency USec The average time, in microseconds, to complete operations to the volume in the last 500
milliseconds. A "0" (zero) value means there is no I/O to the volume.

Non-zero Total number of 4KiB blocks with data after the last garbage collection operation has completed.
Blocks

Performance The percentage of cluster IOPS being consumed. For example, a 250K IOP cluster running at 100K
Utilization IOPS would show 40% consumption.

Read Bytes The total cumulative bytes read from the volume since the creation of the volume.

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Section Heading Description

Read Latency The average time, in microseconds, to complete read operations to the volume in the last 500
USec milliseconds.

Read The total read operations to the volume since the creation of the volume.
Operations

Thin The thin provisioning efficiency score for the volume.

Provisioning

Throttle A floating value between 0 and 1 that represents how much the system is throttling clients below
their maxIOPS because of re-replication of data, transient errors and snapshots taken.

Total Latency The time, in microseconds, to complete read and write operations to a volume.
USec

Unaligned For 512e volumes, the number of read operations that were not on a 4k sector boundary. High
Reads numbers of unaligned reads may indicate improper partition alignment.

Unaligned For 512e volumes, the number of write operations that were not on a 4k sector boundary. High
Writes numbers of unaligned writes may indicate improper partition alignment.

Used Capacity Percentage of used capacity.

Volume ID The system-generated ID for the volume.

Vol Access The volume access group IDs that are associated with the volume.
Groups

Volume A percentage value that describes how much the client is using the volume.
Utilization Values:
0: Client is not using the volume.
100: Client is using their max.
>100: Client is using their burst.

Write Bytes The total cumulative bytes written to the volume since the creation of the volume.

Write Latency The average time, in microseconds, to complete write operations to a volume in the last 500
USec milliseconds.

Write The total cumulative write operations to the volume since the creation of the volume.
Operations

Zero Blocks Total number of 4KiB blocks without data after the last round of garbage collection operation
has completed.

Quality of Policy The name of the QoS policy assigned to the volume.
Service

I/O Size The size of the IOPS in KB.

Min IOPS The minimum number of sustained inputs and outputs per second (IOPS) that the SolidFire
cluster provides to a volume. The Min IOPS configured for a volume is the guaranteed level of
performance for a volume. Performance does not drop below this level.

Max IOPS The maximum number of sustained IOPS that the SolidFire cluster provides to a volume. When
cluster IOPS levels are critically high, this level of IOPS performance is not exceeded.

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 Section Heading Description

Burst IOPS The maximum number of IOPS allowed in a short burst scenario. If a volume has been running
below the Max IOPS, burst credits are accumulated. When performance levels become very high
and are pushed to maximum levels, short bursts of IOPS are allowed on the volume.

Max The maximum bandwidth permitted by the system to process larger block sizes.
Bandwidth

Snapshots Snapshot ID System generated ID for the snapshot.

Snapshot User-defined name for the snapshot.

Name

Create Date The date and time at which the snapshot was created.

Expiration The day and time the snapshot will be deleted.

Date

Size User-defined size of the snapshot in GB.

Editing a Volume
You can change volume attributes such as QoS values, volume size, and the unit of measurement in which byte values are
calculated. You can also change access levels and which account can access the volume. You can also modify account access for
replication usage or to restrict access to the volume.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to edit.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Edit.

6. (Optional) In the Volume Size field, enter a different volume size in GB or GiB.

NOTE: You can increase, but not decrease, the size of the volume. If you are adjusting volume size for replication,
you should first increase the size of the volume assigned as the replication target. Then you can resize the source
volume. The target volume can be greater or equal in size to the source volume, but it cannot be smaller.

7. (Optional) Select a different user account.

8. (Optional) Select a different account access level of one of the following:
l Read/Write
l Read Only
l Locked
l Replication Target
9. In the Quality of Service area, do one of the following:
l Under Policy, select an existing QoS policy, if available.

l Under Custom Settings, set customized minimum, maximum, and burst values for IOPS or use the default QoS
values.

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 Best Practice: When you change IOPS values, NetApp recommends increments in tens or hundreds. Input values
require valid whole numbers.

Configure volumes with an extremely high burst value. This allows the system to process occasional large block
sequential workloads more quickly, while still constraining the sustained IOPS for a volume.

Caution: Datastore QoSSIOC settings, once enabled, will override any QoS settings at the volume level.

Caution: Volumes that have a Max or Burst IOPS value greater than 20,000 IOPS might require high queue depth or
multiple sessions to achieve this level of IOPS on a single volume.

10. Click OK.

Cloning a Volume
You can create a clone of a volume to make a point-in-time copy of the data. When you clone a volume, the system creates a
snapshot of the volume and then creates a copy of the data referenced by the snapshot. This is an asynchronous process, and the
amount of time the process requires depends on the size of the volume you are cloning and the current cluster load.

The cluster supports up to two running clone requests per volume at a time and up to 8 active volume clone operations at a time.
Requests beyond these limits are queued for later processing.

NOTE: Cloned volumes do not inherit volume access group membership from the source volume.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be added and running.

l If two or more clusters are added, the cluster you intend to use for the task must be selected.
l At least one volume must be created.
l A user account has been created.
l Available unprovisioned space must be equal to or more than the volume size.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to clone.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Clone.

6. In the Clone Volume dialog, enter a volume name for the newly cloned volume.
7. Select a size in GB or GIB for the cloned volume.

NOTE: Default volume size selection is in GB. Volumes can be created with GB or GiB:
l 1GB = 1 000 000 000 bytes
l 1GiB = 1 073 741 824 bytes

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 NOTE: Increasing the volume size of a clone results in a new volume with additional free space at the end of the
volume. Depending on how you use the volume, you may need to extend partitions or create new partitions in the
free space to make use of it.

8. Select an account to associate with the newly cloned volume.

9. Select the one of the following access types for the newly cloned volume:
l Read/Write
l Read Only
l Locked
10. Adjust 512e settings, if required.

NOTE: By default, 512 byte emulation is enabled for all new volumes.

NOTE: VMware requires 512e for disk resources. If 512e is not enabled, a VMFS cannot be created and volume details
are grayed out.

11. Click OK.

NOTE: The time to complete a cloning operation is affected by volume size and current cluster load. Click refresh if
the cloned volume does not appear in the volume list.

Volume Backup and Restore Operations

You can configure the system to back up and restore the contents of a volume to and from an object store container that is external
to SolidFire storage. You can also back up and restore data to and from remote SolidFire storage systems.

NOTE: You can run a maximum of two backup or restore processes at a time on a volume.

Volume Backup Operations

You can back up SolidFire volumes to SolidFire storage, as well as secondary object stores that are compatible with Amazon S3 or
OpenStack® Swift.

Backing Up a Volume to an Amazon S3 Object Store

You can back up SolidFire volumes to external object stores that are compatible with Amazon S3.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to back up.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Back Up to.

6. In the dialog under Back up volume to, select Amazon S3.

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 7. Select an option under with the following data format:
l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

8. Enter a host name to use to access the object store in the Host name field.

9. Enter an access key ID for the account in the Access key ID field.

10. Enter the secret access key for the account in the Secret access key field.

11. Enter the S3 bucket in which to store the backup in the Amazon S3 bucket field.

12. (Optional) Enter a prefix for the backup volume name in the Prefix field.

13. (Optional) Enter a nametag to append to the prefix in the Nametag field.

14. Click OK.

Backing Up a Volume to an OpenStack Swift Object Store

You can back up SolidFire volumes to external object stores that are compatible with OpenStack Swift.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to back up.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Back Up to.

6. In the dialog under Back up volume to, select OpenStack Swift.

7. Select an option under with the following data format:

l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

8. Enter a URL to use to access the object store in the URL field.

9. Enter a user name for the account in the User name field.

10. Enter the authentication key for the account in the Authentication key field.

11. Enter the container in which to store the backup in the Container field.

12. (Optional) Enter a prefix for the backup volume name in the Prefix field.

13. (Optional) Enter a nametag to append to the prefix in the Nametag field.

14. Click OK.

Backing Up a Volume to a SolidFire Cluster

You can back up volumes residing on a SolidFire cluster to a remote SolidFire cluster. When backing up or restoring from one cluster
to another, the system generates a key to be used as authentication between the clusters. This bulk volume write key allows the
source cluster to authenticate with the destination cluster, providing security when writing to the destination volume. As part of the
backup or restore process, you need to generate a bulk volume write key from the destination volume before starting the
operation.

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 Procedure

1. On the destination cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the destination volume.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Restore from.

6. In the dialog under Restore from, select NetApp SolidFire.

7. Select an option under with the following data format:

l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

8. Click Generate Key to generate a bulk volume write key for the destination volume.

9. Copy the bulk volume write key to your clipboard to apply to later steps on the source cluster.
10. On the source cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

11. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

12. From the Active view, select the check box for the destination volume.

13. Click Actions.

14. In the resulting menu, click Back Up to.

15. In the dialog under Back up volume to, select NetApp SolidFire.

16. Select the same option as the destination cluster under with the following data format:

17. Enter the management virtual IP address of the destination volume's cluster in the Remote cluster MVIP field.

18. Enter the cluster administrator user name for the destination cluster in the Remote cluster user name field.

19. Enter the cluster administrator password for the destination cluster in the Remote cluster user password field.

20. In the Bulk volume write key field, paste the key you generated on the destination cluster.

21. Click OK.

Volume Restore Operations

When you restore a volume from a backup on an object store such as OpenStack® Swift or Amazon S3, you need manifest
information from the original backup process. If you are restoring a SolidFire volume that was backed up on a SolidFire storage
system, the manifest information is not required. You can find the required manifest information for restoring from Swift and S3 in
Reporting > Event Log.

Restoring a Volume from Backup on an Amazon S3 Object Store

Follow these instructions to restore a volume from a backup on an Amazon S3 object store.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Reporting.

2. Click the Event Log sub-tab.

3. Select the backup event that created the backup you need to restore.

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 4. Click the Details button for the event.

5. In the resulting menu, click View Details.

6. Copy the manifest information to your clipboard.
7. Click Management > Volumes.

8. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to restore.

9. Click Actions.

10. In the resulting menu, click Restore from.

11. In the Restore Volume dialog under Restore from, select Amazon S3.

12. Select an option under with the following data format:

l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

13. Enter a host name to use to access the object store in the Host name field.

14. Enter an access key ID for the account in the Access key ID field.

15. Enter the secret access key for the account in the Secret access key field.

16. Enter the S3 bucket in which to store the backup in the Amazon S3 bucket field.

17. Paste the manifest information into the Manifest field.

18. Click OK.

Restoring a Volume from Backup on an OpenStack Swift Object Store

Follow these instructions to restore a volume from a backup on an OpenStack Swift object store.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Reporting.

2. Click the Event Log sub-tab.

3. Select the backup event that created the backup you need to restore.
4. Click the Details button for the event.

5. In the resulting menu, click View Details.

6. Copy the manifest information to your clipboard.
7. Click Management > Volumes.

8. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to restore.

9. Click Actions.

10. In the resulting menu, click Restore from.

11. In the Restore Volume dialog under Restore from, select OpenStack Swift.

12. Select an option under with the following data format:

l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

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 13. Enter a URL to use to access the object store in the URL field.

14. Enter a user name for the account in the User name field.

15. Enter the authentication key for the account in the Authentication key field.

16. Enter the name of the container in which the backup is stored in the Container field.

17. Paste the manifest information into the Manifest field.

18. Click OK.

Restoring a Volume from Backup on a SolidFire Cluster

Follow these instructions to restore a volume from a backup on a SolidFire cluster. When backing up or restoring from one cluster
to another, the system generates a key to be used as authentication between the clusters. This bulk volume write key allows the
source cluster to authenticate with the destination cluster, providing security when writing to the destination volume. As part of the
backup or restore process, you need to generate a bulk volume write key from the destination volume before starting the
operation.

Procedure

1. On the destination cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to restore.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Restore from.

6. In the Restore Volume dialog under Restore from, select NetApp SolidFire.

7. Select an option under with the following data format:

l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

8. Click Generate Key to generate a bulk volume write key for the destination volume.
9. Copy the bulk volume write key to your clipboard to apply to later steps on the source cluster.
10. On the source cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

11. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

12. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to use for the restore.

13. Click Actions.

14. In the resulting menu, click Backup to.

15. In the dialog under Back up volume to, select NetApp SolidFire.

16. Select the option that matches the backup under With the following data format.

17. Enter the management virtual IP address of the destination volume's cluster in the Remote cluster MVIP field.

18. Enter the cluster administrator user name for the destination cluster in the Remote cluster user name field.

19. Enter the cluster administrator password for the destination cluster in the Remote cluster user password field.

20. In the Bulk volume write key field, paste the key you generated on the destination cluster.

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 21. Click OK.

Deleting Volumes
You can delete one or more volumes from a SolidFire cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

The system does not immediately purge a deleted volume. A deleted volume can be restored for approximately eight hours. You
can restore a volume before the system purges it or manually purge the volume from the Deleted view in Management > Volumes.
When you restore a volume, it comes back online and iSCSI connections are restored.

Caution: If a volume used to create a snapshot is deleted, its associated snapshots are listed in the Inactive view on the
Protection > Snapshots page. When the deleted source volumes are purged, the snapshots in Inactive view are also removed
from the system.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. To delete one or more volumes:
a. From the Active view, select the check box for each volume you wish to delete.

b. Click Actions.

c. In the resulting menu, click Delete.

NOTE: The Plug-in does not allow a volume with a datastore to be deleted.

d. Confirm the action.

The system moves the volume from the Active view to the Deleted view in the Volumes page.

Purging Volumes
You can manually purge volumes after you have deleted them. The system automatically purges deleted volumes eight hours after
deletion. However, if you want to purge a volume before the scheduled purge time, you can perform a manual purge using the
following steps.

Caution: When a volume is purged, it is immediately and permanently removed from the system. All data in the volume is
lost.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. Select the view filter and select Deleted from the drop-down list.
4. Select one or more volumes you wish to purge.
5. Click Purge.
6. Confirm the action.

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Restoring Deleted Volumes
You can restore a volume in the SolidFire system if it has been deleted but not yet purged. The system automatically purges a
volume approximately eight hours after it has been deleted. If the system has purged the volume, you cannot restore it.

NOTE: If a volume is deleted and then restored, ESXi will not detect the restored volume (and datastore if it exists). Remove
the static target from the ESXi iSCSI adapter and rescan the adapter.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. Select the view filter and select Deleted from the drop-down list.
4. Select one or more volumes you wish to restore.
5. Click Restore.

6. Select the view filter and select Active from the drop-down list.
7. Verify that the volume or volumes and all connections are restored.

Adding Volumes to an Access Group

You can add volumes to a volume access group. Each volume can belong to more than one volume access group; you can see the
groups that each volume belongs to from the Active volumes view.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be added and running.

l If two or more clusters are added, the cluster you intend to use for the task must be selected.
l At least one access group exists.
l At least one active volume exists.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for each volume you wish to add to an access group.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Add to Access Group.

6. Confirm the details in the dialog that opens, and select a volume access group from the drop-down list.
7. Click OK.

Removing Volumes from an Access Group

You can remove volumes from an access group. When you remove a volume from an access group, the group no longer has access
to that volume.

Caution: Removing a volume from an access group can disrupt host access to the volume.

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 Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for each volume you wish to remove from an access group.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Remove from Access Group.

6. Confirm the details in the dialog that opens, and select the volume access group that you wish to longer have access to the
volume.
7. Click OK.

Applying a QoS Policy to Multiple Volumes

You can apply an existing QoS policy to multiple volumes. Use this process when you want to bulk apply a policy to one or more
volumes.

Prerequisite

l The QoS policy you want to bulk apply exists. See Creating a QoS Policy for more information.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for each volume to which you wish to apply a QoS policy.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Apply QoS Policy.

6. In the dialog, select the QoS policy from the drop-down list to apply to the selected volumes.
7. Click Ok.

Changing the QoS Policy Association of a Volume

You can remove a QoS policy association from a volume or select a different QoS policy or custom QoS using the NetApp SolidFire
Management extension point.

Prerequisites

l The volume you want to modify is associated with a QoS policy.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for a volume that contains a QoS policy you wish to modify.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

6. In the dialog under Quality of Service, select a new QoS policy or custom settings to apply to the volume.

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 7. If you chose Custom Settings, modify the Min IOPS, Max IOPS, and Burst IOPS values.

NOTE: You can also click Reset Default QoS to restore default IOPS values.

8. Click Ok.

User Account Management

User accounts are used to control access to the storage resources on a SolidFire storage network. At least one user account is
required before a volume can be created. When you create a volume, it is assigned to an account. If you have created a virtual
volume, the account is the storage container. The account contains the CHAP authentication required to access the volumes
assigned to it. An account can have up to two thousand volumes assigned to it, but a volume can belong to only one account.

User accounts can be managed from NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Creating an Account
You can create an account to allow access to volumes. After you create an account, you can assign up to 2000 volumes to the
account. Each account name in the system must be unique.

Prerequisites

l At least one cluster must be added and running.

l If two or more clusters are added, the cluster you intend to use for the task must be selected.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Accounts sub-tab.

3. Click Create Account.

4. Enter a user name.
5. In the CHAP Settings section:
a. Enter the initiator secret for CHAP node session authentication.
b. Enter the target secret for CHAP node session authentication.

NOTE: Initiator and target secrets must differ. If these fields are left blank, the system generates the authentication
credentials.

6. Click OK.

Account Details
On the Management > Accounts page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following
information in the list of accounts.

Heading Description

Account ID System-generated ID for the account.

User name The name given to the account when it was created.

Number of Volumes The number of active volumes assigned to the account.

Status The status of the account.

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Editing an Account
You can edit an account to change the status or the CHAP secrets.

NOTE: Changing CHAP settings can cause lost connectivity between a host and its associated volumes.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Accounts sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the account you wish to edit.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Edit.

6. (Optional) Under Edit Account, edit the access status of the account.

Caution: Changing the Access to Locked terminates all iSCSI connections to the account, and the account is no
longer accessible. Volumes associated with the account are maintained; however, the volumes are not iSCSI-
discoverable.

7. (Optional) Edit the initiator secret or target secret credentials used for node session authentication.

NOTE: If you do not change the credentials, they remain the same. If you make the credentials fields blank, the
system generates new passwords.

8. Click OK.

Deleting an Account
You can delete accounts using the SolidFire Management extension point after volumes associations with the account have been
removed.

Prerequisites

Delete and purge any volumes associated with the account or reassign the volumes to another account.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Accounts sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the account you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Delete.

6. Confirm the action.

Volume Access Groups

A volume access group is a collection of volumes that users can access using either iSCSI initiators or Fibre Channel initiators.

You can create access groups by mapping iSCSI initiator IQNs or Fibre Channel WWPNs in a collection of volumes. Each IQN that you
add to an access group can access each volume in the group without requiring CHAP authentication. Each WWPN that you add to an
access group enables Fibre Channel network access to the volumes in the access group.

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 NOTE: Volume access groups have the following system limits:

l A maximum of 64 IQNs or WWPNs are allowed in an access group.

l An access group can be made up of a maximum of 2000 volumes.
l An IQN or WWPN can belong to only one access group.
l A single volume can belong to a maximum of four access groups.

Volume access groups can be managed from the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Creating Access Groups

You can create volume access groups with one or multiple initiators. Mapping Fibre Channel (WWPN) or iSCSI (IQN) client initiators
to the volumes in a volume access group enables secure data I/O between a network and a SolidFire volume.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Access Groups sub-tab.

3. Click Create Access Group.

4. Enter a name for the volume access group.
5. Select an unassigned IQN or WWPN from the Select an Initiator drop-down list and click Add Initiator.

NOTE: Initiators may be added or deleted after the volume access group has been created.

6. Click OK.

Volume Access Group Details

On the Management > Access Groups page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following
information in the list of volume access groups.

Heading Description

ID System-generated ID for the volume access group.

Name The name given to the volume access group when it was created.

Active Volumes The number of active volumes in the volume access group.

Initiators The number of initiators connected to the volume access group.

Editing Access Groups

You can edit volume access group names or add or remove initiators from the SolidFire Management extension point.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Access Groups sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the volume access group you wish to edit.

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 4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

6. (Optional) Modify the access group name.
7. (Optional) Add or remove initiators.

NOTE: If you are removing an initiator, click the trash icon to remove it. When you remove the initiator, it can no
longer access the volumes in that volume access group. Normal account access to the volume is not disrupted.

8. Click OK.

Deleting Access Groups

You can delete volume access groups using the SolidFire Management extension point. You do not need to delete initiator IDs or
disassociate volumes from the volume access group prior to deleting the group. After you delete the access group, group access to
the volumes is discontinued.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Access Groups sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the volume access group you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Delete.

6. Confirm the action.

Initiators
Initiators enable external clients access to volumes in a cluster, serving as the entry point for communication between clients and
volumes. You can create and delete initiators, and give them friendly aliases to simplify administration and volume access. When
you add an initiator to a volume access group, that initiator enables access to all volumes in the group.

You can view initiators on the Management > Initiators page from the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Creating an Initiator
You can create iSCSI or Fibre Channel initiators and optionally assign them aliases.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Initiators sub-tab.

3. Click Create Initiator.

4. To create a single initiator:
a. Select Create a Single Initiator.

b. Enter the IQN or WWPN for the initiator in the IQN/WWPN field.
l The accepted format of an initiator IQN: iqn.yyyy-mm where y and m are digits, followed by text which must
only contain digits, lower-case alphabetic characters, a period (.), colon (:) or dash (-).

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 Example format:
iqn.2010-01.com.solidfire:c2r9.fc0.2100000e1e09bb8b

l The accepted format of a Fibre Channel initiator WWPN is: Aa:bB:CC:dd:11:22:33:44, or AabBCCdd11223344.

Example format:
5f:47:ac:c0:5c:74:d4:02

c. Enter a friendly name for the initiator in the Alias field.

5. To create multiple initiators:
a. Select Create Multiple Initiators.
b. Do one of the following:
l Click Scan Hosts to scan vSphere hosts for initiator values not defined in the SolidFire cluster.

l Enter a list of IQNs or WWPNs in the text box, and click Add Initiators.

c. (Optional) Under the Alias heading, click the field for each entry to add an alias.
d. (Optional) Remove an initiator from the list, as required.
6. Click OK.

Initiator Details
On the Management > Initiators page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following
information in the list of initiators.

Heading Description

ID The system-generated ID for the initiator.

Name The name given to the initiator when it was created.

Alias The friendly name given to the initiator, if any.

Access Group The volume access group to which the initiator is assigned.

Editing an Initiator
You can change the alias of an existing initiator or add an alias if one does not already exist.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Initiators sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the initiator you wish to edit.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Edit.

6. Enter a new alias for the initiator in the Alias field.

7. Click OK.

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Deleting Initiators
You can delete an initiator once it is no longer needed. When you delete an initiator, the system removes it from any associated
volume access group. Any connections using the initiator remain valid until the connection is reset.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Initiators sub-tab.

3. Select the check boxes for the initiators you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Delete.

6. Confirm the action.

Adding Initiators to a Volume Access Group

You can add initiators to an access group to allow access to volumes in the volume access group without requiring CHAP
authentication. When you add an initiator to a volume access group, the initiator has access to all volumes in that volume access
group.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Initiators sub-tab.

3. Select the check boxes for the initiators you wish to add to an access group.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Add to Access Group.

6. In the Add to Access Group dialog, choose an access group from the drop-down list.

7. Click OK.

QoS Policies
A QoS (Quality of Service) policy enables you to create and save a standardized quality of service setting that can be applied to
many volumes. You can create, edit, and delete QoS policies.

NOTE: If the selected cluster is running Element OS 9.x, the QoS Policy functions are not available.

Creating a QoS Policy

You can create QoS policies and apply them when creating volumes.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the QoS Policies sub-tab.

3. Click Create QoS Policy.

4. Enter the Policy Name.

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 5. Enter the Min IOPS, Max IOPS, and Burst IOPS values.

6. Click OK.

QoS Policy Details

On the Management > QoS Policies page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following
information.

Heading Description

ID The system-generated ID for the QoS policy.

Name The user-defined name for the QoS policy.

Min IOPS The minimum number of IOPS guaranteed for the volume.

Max IOPS The maximum number of IOPS allowed for the volume.

Burst IOPS The maximum number of IOPS allowed over a short period of time for the volume. Default = 15,000.

Volumes Shows the number of volumes using the policy. This number links to a table of volumes that have the
policy applied.

Editing a QoS Policy

You can change the name of an existing QoS policy or edit the values associated with the policy.

NOTE: Changing a QoS policy affects all volumes associated with the policy.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the QoS Policies sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the QoS policy you wish to edit.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

6. In the Edit QoS Policy dialog, modify the following properties as needed:
l Policy Name
l Min IOPS
l Max IOPS
l Burst IOPS

NOTE: You can also click Reset Default QoS to restore default IOPS values.

7. Click Ok.

Deleting a QoS Policy

You can delete a QoS policy if it is no longer needed. When you delete a QoS policy, all volumes associated with the policy maintain
the QoS settings but become unassociated with a policy.

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Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the QoS Policies sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the QoS policy you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Delete.

6. Confirm the action.

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Data Protection
From the Protection tab, you can perform tasks that ensure that copies of your data are created and stored where you need them.

See the following topics to learn about or perform data protection tasks:

Volume Snapshots
Creating a Volume Snapshot
Volume Snapshot Details
Editing Snapshots
Cloning a Volume from a Snapshot
Rolling Back a Volume to a Snapshot
Volume Snapshot Backup Operations
Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to an Amazon S3 Object Store
Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to an OpenStack Swift Object Store
Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to a SolidFire Cluster
Deleting a Snapshot
Group Snapshots
Creating a Group Snapshot
Group Snapshot Details
Editing Group Snapshots
Cloning Volumes from a Group Snapshot
Rolling Back Volumes to a Group Snapshot
Deleting a Group Snapshot
Snapshot Schedules
Creating a Snapshot Schedule
Snapshot Schedule Details
Editing a Snapshot Schedule
Copying a Snapshot Schedule
Deleting a Snapshot Schedule
Real-Time Replication
Configuring Cluster and Volume Pairing for Real-Time Remote Replication
Cluster Pairs
Cluster Pair and Real-Time Replication
Multiple Cluster Pairing
Pairing Clusters
Cluster Pair Details
Deleting a Cluster Pair
Volume Pairs
Pairing Volumes
Assigning a Replication Source and Target to Paired Volumes
Volume Pair Details
Editing Volume Pairs
Deleting Volume Pairs

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Volume Snapshots
A volume snapshot is a point-in-time copy of a volume. Creating a volume snapshot takes only a small amount of system resources
and space; this makes snapshot creation faster than cloning. You can use snapshots to roll a volume back to the state it was in at
the time the snapshot was created. However, because snapshots are simply replicas of volume metadata, you cannot mount or
write to them.

You can replicate snapshots to a remote SolidFire cluster and use them as a backup copy for the volume. This enables you to roll
back a volume to a specific point in time by using the replicated snapshot; you can also create a clone of a volume from a replicated
snapshot.

You can create volume snapshots from the NetApp SolidFire Management > Management > Volumes page. You can manage these
volume snapshots from the NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection > Snapshots page.

Creating a Volume Snapshot

You can create a snapshot of the active volume to preserve the volume image at any point in time. You can create the snapshot
immediately or create a schedule to automate future snapshots of the volume. You can create up to 32 snapshots for a single
volume.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to use for the snapshot.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Create Snapshot.

6. (Optional) In the Create Snapshot dialog, enter a name for the snapshot.

NOTE: If you do not enter a name, the system creates a snapshot default name using the date and time the
snapshot was created.

7. (Optional) Select the Include snapshot in replication when paired check box to ensure that the snapshot is replicated when
the parent volume is paired.
8. Select one of the following as the retention period for the snapshot:
l Keep forever: Retains the snapshot on the system indefinitely.

l Set retention period: Determine a length of time (days, hours, or minutes) for the system to retain the snapshot.

NOTE: When you set a retention period, you select a period that begins at the current time (retention is not
calculated from the snapshot creation time).

9. To take a single, immediate snapshot, select Take snapshot now.

10. To schedule the snapshot to run at a future time:
a. Select Create snapshot schedule.
b. Enter a schedule name.
c. Select a schedule type from the list and configure the schedule details.
d. (Optional) Select the Recurrent Schedule check box to repeat the scheduled snapshot periodically.

11. Click OK.

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Volume Snapshot Details
On the Protection > Snapshots page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following information
in the list of volume snapshots. You can also filter snapshots by view. Views include the following options:

l Individual: Volume snapshots that are not members of a group snapshot.

l Members: Volume snapshots that are members of a group snapshot.

l Inactive: Volume snapshots that were created from volumes that have been deleted but not yet purged.

Heading Description

ID System generated ID for the snapshot.

Snapshot UUID The unique ID of the snapshot.

Name User-defined name or system default name for the snapshot.

Size User-defined size of the snapshot.

Volume ID ID of the volume from which the snapshot was created.

Volume Name User defined name of the volume.

Account Account associated with the volume.

Volume Size Size of the volume from which the snapshot was created.

Create Date The date and time at which the snapshot was created.

Expiration Date The day and time the snapshot will be deleted as defined by the retention period.

Group Snapshot ID The group ID the snapshot belongs to if grouped together with other volume snapshots.

Remote Replication Identifies whether or not the snapshot is enabled for replication to a remote SolidFire cluster.
Possible Values:
True: The snapshot is enabled for remote replication.
False: The snapshot is not enabled for remote replication.

Remote Status Displays the status of the snapshot on the remote SolidFire cluster.
Possible Values:
Present: The snapshot exists on a remote cluster.
Not Present: The snapshot does not exist on a remote cluster.
Syncing: The target cluster is currently replicating the snapshot.
Deleted: The target replicated the snapshot and then deleted it.

Editing Snapshots
You can change replication settings or the retention period for a snapshot. The retention period you specify begins when you enter
the new interval. When you set a retention period, you can select a period that begins at the current time (retention is not
calculated from the snapshot creation time). You can specify intervals in minutes, hours, and days.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

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 2. From the Snapshots sub-tab, select one of two views:
l Individual: Volume snapshots that are not members of a group snapshot.

l Members: Volume snapshots that are members of a group snapshot.

3. Select the check box for the volume snapshot you wish to edit.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

6. (Optional) Select the include snapshot in replication when paired check box to ensure that the snapshot is captured in
replication when the parent volume is paired.
7. (Optional) Select one of the following as the retention period for the snapshot:
l Keep forever: Retains the snapshot on the system indefinitely.

l Set retention period: Determine a length of time (days, hours, or minutes) for the system to retain the snapshot.

NOTE: When you set a retention period, you select a period that begins at the current time (retention is not
calculated from the snapshot creation time).

8. Click OK.

Cloning a Volume from a Snapshot

You can create a new volume from a snapshot of a volume. When you do this, the system uses the snapshot information to clone a
new volume using the data contained on the volume at the time the snapshot was created. This process also stores information
about other snapshots of the volume in the new created volume.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. From the Snapshots sub-tab, select one of two views:

l Individual: Volume snapshots that are not members of a group snapshot.

l Members: Volume snapshots that are members of a group snapshot.

3. Select the check box for the volume snapshot you wish to clone as a volume.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Clone Volume from Snapshot.

6. In the Clone Volume from Snapshot dialog, enter a volume name.

7. Enter the total size and select either GB or GiB for the new volume.
8. Select an access type for the volume:
l Read Only: Only read operations are allowed.

l Read / Write: Reads and writes are allowed.

l Locked: No reads or writes are allowed.

l Replication Target: Designated as a target volume in a replicated volume pair.

9. Select a user account from the list to associate with the new volume.
10. Click OK.

11. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

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 12. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

13. From the Active view, confirm that the new volume is listed.

NOTE: Click refresh if needed until the new volume appears in the list.

Rolling Back a Volume to a Snapshot

You can roll back a volume to a snapshot at any time. This undoes any changes made to the volume since the snapshot was
created.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. From the Snapshots sub-tab, select one of two views:

l Individual: Volume snapshots that are not members of a group snapshot.

l Members: Volume snapshots that are members of a group snapshot.

3. Select the check box for the volume snapshot you wish to use for the volume rollback.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Rollback Volume to Snapshot.

6. (Optional) To save the current state of the volume before rolling back to the snapshot:
a. In the Rollback to Snapshot dialog, select Save volume's current state as a snapshot.
b. Enter a name for the new snapshot.
7. Click OK.

Volume Snapshot Backup Operations

You can use the integrated backup feature to back up a volume snapshot. You can back up snapshots from a SolidFire cluster to an
external object store or to another SolidFire cluster. When you back up a snapshot to an external object store, you must have a
connection to the object store that allows read/write operations.

Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to an Amazon S3 Object Store

You can back up SolidFire snapshots to external object stores that are compatible with Amazon S3.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. From the Snapshots sub-tab, select the check box for the volume snapshot you wish to back up.

3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Backup to.

5. In the dialog under Back up volume to, select Amazon S3.

6. Select an option under with the following data format:

l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

7. Enter a host name to use to access the object store in the Host name field.

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 8. Enter an access key ID for the account in the Access key ID field.

9. Enter the secret access key for the account in the Secret access key field.

10. Enter the S3 bucket in which to store the backup in the Amazon S3 Bucket field.

11. (Optional) Enter a prefix for the backup name in the Prefix field.

12. (Optional) Enter a nametag to append to the prefix in the Nametag field.

13. Click OK.

Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to an OpenStack Swift Object Store

You can back up SolidFire snapshots to secondary object stores that are compatible with OpenStack Swift.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. From the Snapshots sub-tab, select the check box for the volume snapshot you wish to back up.

3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Backup to.

5. In the dialog under Back up volume to, select OpenStack Swift.

6. Select an option under with the following data format:

l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

7. Enter a URL to use to access the object store.

8. Enter a User name for the account.

9. Enter the Authentication key for the account.

10. Enter the Container in which to store the backup.

11. (Optional) Enter a prefix for the backup name in the Prefix field.

12. (Optional) Enter a Nametag.

13. Click OK.

Backing Up a Volume Snapshot to a SolidFire Cluster

You can back up a volume snapshot residing on a SolidFire cluster to a remote SolidFire cluster. When backing up or restoring from
one cluster to another, the system generates a key to be used as authentication between the clusters. This bulk volume write key
allows the source cluster to authenticate with the destination cluster, providing security when writing to the destination volume. As
part of the backup or restore process, you need to generate a bulk volume write key from the destination volume before starting
the operation.

Prerequisites

l You must create a volume on the destination cluster of equal or greater size to the snapshot you are using for the backup.

Procedure

1. On the destination cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. From the Volumes sub-tab, select the check box for the destination volume.

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 3. Click Actions.

4. In the resulting menu, click Restore from.

5. In the dialog under Restore from, select NetApp SolidFire.

6. Select an option under with the following data format:

l Native: A compressed format readable only by SolidFire storage systems.

l Uncompressed: An uncompressed format compatible with other systems.

7. Click Generate Key to generate a bulk volume write key for the destination volume.
8. Copy the bulk volume write key to your clipboard to apply to later steps on the source cluster.
9. On the source cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.
10. Select the check box for the snapshot you are using for the backup.
11. Click Actions.

12. In the resulting menu, click Backup to.

13. In the dialog under Back up volume to, select NetApp SolidFire.

14. Select the same option as the destination cluster under with the following data format:

15. Enter the management virtual IP address of the destination volume's cluster in the Remote cluster MVIP field.

16. Enter the remote cluster user name in the Remote cluster user name field.

17. Enter the remote cluster password in the Remote cluster user password field.

18. In the Bulk volume write key field, paste the key you generated on the destination cluster earlier.

19. Click OK.

Deleting a Snapshot
You can delete a volume snapshot from a SolidFire cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. When you
delete a snapshot, the system immediately removes it.

You can delete snapshots that are being replicated from the source cluster. If a snapshot is syncing to the target cluster when you
delete it, the sync replication completes and the snapshot is deleted from the source cluster. The snapshot is not deleted from the
target cluster.

You can also delete snapshots that have been replicated to the target from the target cluster. The deleted snapshot is kept in a list
of deleted snapshots on the target until the system detects that you have deleted the snapshot on the source cluster. Once the
target has detected that you have deleted the source snapshot, the target stops replication of the snapshot.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. From the Snapshots sub-tab, select one of two views:

l Individual: A list of volume snapshots that are not part of a group snapshot.

l Inactive: A list of volume snapshots that were created from volumes that have been deleted but not yet purged.

NOTE: You cannot delete individual members of a group snapshot from the Snapshots sub-tab. You must
instead delete the group snapshot. During group snapshot deletion, you are given the option to convert
members of a group snapshot to individual (group snapshot unaffiliated) snapshots.

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 3. Select the check box for the volume snapshot you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Delete.

6. Confirm the action.

Group Snapshots
You can create a group snapshot of a related set of volumes to preserve a point-in-time copy of the metadata for each volume. You
can use the group snapshot as a backup or rollback to restore the state of the group of volumes to a desired point in time.

Creating a Group Snapshot

You can create a snapshot of a group of volumes immediately or create a schedule to automate future snapshots of the group of
volumes. A single group snapshot can consistently snapshot up to 32 volumes at one time.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for each volume you wish to use for the snapshot.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Create Group Snapshot.

6. (Optional) In the Create Group Snapshot dialog, enter a name for the group snapshot.

NOTE: If you do not enter a name, the system creates a group snapshot default name using the date and time the
snapshot was created.

7. (Optional) Select the Include snapshot in replication when paired check box to ensure that the snapshot is replicated when
a parent volume is paired.
8. Select one of the following as the retention period for the snapshot:
l Keep forever: Retains the snapshot on the system indefinitely.

l Set retention period: Determine a length of time (days, hours, or minutes) for the system to retain the snapshot.

NOTE: When you set a retention period, you select a period that begins at the current time (retention is not
calculated from the snapshot creation time).

9. To take a single, immediate snapshot, select Take group snapshot now.

10. To schedule the snapshot to run at a future time:
a. Select Create snapshot schedule.
b. Enter a schedule name.
c. Select a schedule type from the list and configure the schedule details.
d. (Optional) Select the Recurrent Schedule check box to repeat the scheduled snapshot periodically.

11. Click OK.

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Group Snapshot Details
On the Protection > Group Snapshots page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following
information in the list of group volume snapshots.

Heading Description

Snapshot Group ID System-generated ID for the group snapshot.

Unique ID The unique ID of the group snapshot.

Snapshot Group Name User-defined name or system default name for the group snapshot.

Create Date The date and time at which the group snapshot was created.

Status The current status of the snapshot.

Possible values:
Preparing: The snapshot is being prepared for use and is not yet writable.
Done: This snapshot has finished preparation and is now usable.
Active: The snapshot is the active branch.

Number of Volumes The number of volumes in the group snapshot.

Editing Group Snapshots

You can change replication settings or the retention period for a group snapshot. The retention period you specify begins when
you enter the new interval. When you set a retention period, you can select a period that begins at the current time (retention is not
calculated from the snapshot creation time). You can specify intervals in minutes, hours, and days.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Group Snapshots sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the group snapshot you wish to edit.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

6. (Optional) Select the Include snapshot in replication when paired check box to ensure that the snapshot is replicated when
the parent volume is paired.
7. (Optional) Select one of the following as the retention period for the snapshot:
l Keep forever: Retains the snapshot on the system indefinitely.

l Set retention period: Determine a length of time (days, hours, or minutes) for the system to retain the snapshot.

NOTE: When you set a retention period, you select a period that begins at the current time (retention is not
calculated from the snapshot creation time).

8. Click OK.

Cloning Volumes from a Group Snapshot

You can clone a group of volumes from a point-in-time group snapshot. Once you create the volumes, you can use them like any
other volume in the system.

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 Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Group Snapshots sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the group snapshot you wish to use for the volume clones.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Clone Volumes from Group Snapshot.

6. (Optional) In the Clone Volumes From Group Snapshot dialog, enter a new volume name prefix.

NOTE: The prefix distinguishes the new clone volumes from existing volumes. The prefix is applied to all volumes
created from the group snapshot.

7. (Optional) Select a different account to which the clone will belong. If you do not select an account, the system assigns the
new volumes to the current volume account.
8. (Optional) Select a different access method for the volumes in the clone. If you do not select an access method, the system
uses the current volume access.
l Read/Write: All reads and writes are accepted.

l Read Only: All read activity allowed; no writes allowed.

l Locked: Only Administrator access allowed.

l Replication Target: Designated as a target volume in a replicated volume pair.

9. Click OK.

NOTE: Volume size and current cluster load affect the time needed to complete a cloning operation.

Rolling Back Volumes to a Group Snapshot

You can roll back a group of active volumes to a group snapshot. This restores all the associated volumes in a group snapshot to
their state at the time the group snapshot was created. This procedure also restores volume sizes to the size recorded in the original
snapshot. If the system has purged a volume, all snapshots of that volume were also deleted at the time of the purge; the system
does not restore any deleted volume snapshots.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Group Snapshots sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the group snapshot you wish to use for the volume clones.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Rollback Volumes to Group Snapshot.

6. (Optional) To save the current state of the volumes before rolling back to the snapshot:
a. In the Rollback To Snapshot dialog, select Save volumes' current state as a group snapshot.
b. Enter a name for the new group snapshot.
7. Click OK.

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Deleting a Group Snapshot
You can delete a group snapshot from the system. When you delete the group snapshot, you can choose whether all snapshots
associated with the group are deleted or retained as individual snapshots.

NOTE: If you delete a volume or snapshot that is a member of a group snapshot, you can no longer roll back to the group
snapshot. However, you can roll back each volume individually.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Group Snapshots sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the group snapshot you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Delete.

6. Do one of the following in the confirmation dialog:
l Select Delete group snapshot and all group snapshot members to delete the group snapshot and all member
snapshots.
l Select Retain group snapshot members as individual snapshots to delete the group snapshot but keep all member
snapshots.
7. Confirm the action.

Snapshot Schedules
You can schedule a snapshot of a volume to automatically occur at specified date and time intervals. You can schedule either single
volume snapshots or group snapshots to run automatically.

NOTE: Schedules are created using UTC+0 time. You may need to adjust the actual time a snapshot will run based on your
time zone.

When you create snapshot schedules, you can store the resulting snapshots on a remote SolidFire storage system if the volume is
being replicated.

Creating a Snapshot Schedule

You can schedule a snapshot of a volume or volumes to automatically occur at specified intervals. When you configure a snapshot
schedule, you can choose from time intervals based on days of the week or days of the month. You can also specify the days,
hours, and minutes before the next snapshot occurs.

If you schedule a snapshot to run at a time period that is not divisible by 5 minutes, the snapshot will run at the next time period
that is divisible by 5 minutes. For example, if you schedule a snapshot to run at 12:42:00 UTC, it will run at 12:45:00 UTC. You cannot
schedule a snapshot to run at intervals of less than 5 minutes.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Schedules sub-tab.

3. Click Create Schedule.

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 4. In the Create Schedule dialog in the Volume IDs CSV field, enter a single volume ID or a comma-separated list of volume IDs
to include in the snapshot operation.
5. Enter a new schedule name.
6. Select a schedule type from the list and configure the schedule details.
7. (Optional) Select Recurring Schedule to repeat the snapshot schedule indefinitely.

8. (Optional) Enter a name for the new snapshot in the New Snapshot Name field.

NOTE: If you do not enter a name, the system creates a snapshot default name using the date and time the
snapshot was created.

9. (Optional) Select the Include snapshot in replication when paired check box to ensure that the snapshot is replicated when
the parent volume is paired.
10. Select one of the following as the retention period for the snapshot:
l Keep forever: Retains the snapshot on the system indefinitely.

l Set retention period: Determine a length of time (days, hours, or minutes) for the system to retain the snapshot.

NOTE: When you set a retention period, you select a period that begins at the current time (retention is not
calculated from the snapshot creation time).

11. Click OK.

Snapshot Schedule Details

On the Protection > Schedules page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following information
in the list of snapshot schedules.

Heading Description

ID System-generated ID for the schedule.

Type Indicates the type of schedule. Snapshot is currently the only type supported.

Name The name given to the schedule when it was created.

Frequency The frequency at which the schedule is run. The frequency can be set in hours and minutes, days of the
week, or days of the month.

Recurring Indicates if the schedule is to run only once or at regular intervals.

Paused Identifies whether or not the schedule has been manually paused.

Volume IDs Displays the ID of the volume the schedule will use when the schedule is run.

Last Run Displays the last time the schedule was run.

Last Run Status Displays the outcome of the last schedule execution. Can be either Success or Failure.

Editing a Snapshot Schedule

You can modify existing snapshot schedules. After modification, the next time the schedule runs it uses the updated attributes. Any
snapshots created by the original schedule remain on the storage system.

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 Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Schedules sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the snapshot schedule you wish to edit.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

6. In the Volume IDs CSV field, modify the single volume ID or comma-separated list of volume IDs currently included in the
snapshot operation.
7. (Optional) To pause an active schedule or resume a paused schedule, select the Manually Pause Schedule check box.

8. Enter a different name for the schedule in the New Schedule Name field, if desired.
9. Change the current schedule type to one of the following, if desired:
a. Days of Week: Select one of more days of the week and a time of day to create a snapshot.

b. Days of Month: Select one of more days of the month and a time of day to create a snapshot.

c. Time Interval: Select an interval for the schedule to run based on number of days, hours and minutes between
snapshots.
10. (Optional) Select Recurrent Schedule to repeat the snapshot schedule indefinitely.

11. (Optional) Enter or modify the name for the snapshots defined by the schedule in the New Snapshot Name field.

NOTE: If you leave the field blank, the system uses the time and date of the snapshot's creation as the name.

12. (Optional) Select the Include snapshots in replication when paired check box to ensure that the snapshot are captured in
replication when the parent volume is paired.
13. (Optional) Select one of the following as the retention period for the snapshot:
l Keep forever: Retains the snapshot on the system indefinitely.

l Set retention period: Determine a length of time (days, hours, or minutes) for the system to retain the snapshot.

NOTE: When you set a retention period, you select a period that begins at the current time (retention is not
calculated from the snapshot creation time).

14. Click OK.

Copying a Snapshot Schedule

You can make a copy of a snapshot schedule and assign it to new volumes or use it for other purposes.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Schedules sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the snapshot schedule you wish to copy.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Copy.

The Copy Schedule dialog appears, populated with the current attributes of the schedule.

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 6. (Optional) Enter a name and update attributes for the copy of the schedule.
7. Click OK.

Deleting a Snapshot Schedule

You can delete a snapshot schedule. Once you delete the schedule, it does not run any future scheduled snapshots. Any snapshots
that were created by the schedule remain on the storage system.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Schedules sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the snapshot schedule you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Delete.

6. Confirm the action.

Real-Time Replication
You can use the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in to pair SolidFire clusters and volumes for real-time replication. NetApp SolidFire
Real-Time Replication technology enables the quick creation of remote copies of volume data. Each SolidFire cluster can be paired
with up to four other clusters. Data from volumes can be synchronously or asynchronously replicated from either cluster in a cluster
pair for failover and failback.

Configuring Cluster and Volume Pairing for Real-Time Remote Replication

You must first pair two SolidFire clusters and then pair volumes on each cluster to take advantage of real-time remote replication.

Prerequisites

l You have added at least one cluster to the Plug-in.

l All node IP addresses on both management and storage networks for paired clusters are routed to each other.
l MTU of all paired nodes must be the same and be supported end-to-end between clusters.
l The difference between Element OS software versions on the clusters is no greater than one major version. If the difference
is greater, one of the clusters must be upgraded to perform data replication.

NOTE: WAN Accelerator appliances have not been qualified by NetApp for use when replicating data. These
appliances can interfere with compression and deduplication if deployed between two clusters that are replicating
data. Be sure to fully qualify the effects of any WAN Accelerator appliance before you deploy it in a production
environment.

Procedure

1. Create a cluster pair. See Cluster Pairs.

2. Create a volume pair. See Volume Pairs.

Cluster Pairs
You must pair two clusters as a first step to using Real-Time Replication functionality. After you pair and connect two clusters, you
can configure active volumes on one cluster to be continuously replicated to a second cluster, providing continuous data
protection (CDP).

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Cluster Pair and Real-Time Replication

The following diagram shows real-time replication (remote replication) for a cluster pair.

Multiple Cluster Pairing

You can pair one cluster with up to four other clusters for replicating volumes. You can also pair clusters within the cluster group
with each other.

The following diagram shows a simple pairing configuration of five SolidFire clusters. Clusters B, C, D, and E are all paired with SF
Cluster A. However, the other clusters within the configuration can also be paired. For example, Cluster B could potentially pair with
Clusters D, E, and F. The cluster pairing limit is reached when each cluster is paired with four other clusters.

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Pairing Clusters

You can pair a source and target cluster using the MVIP of the target cluster if there is Cluster Admin access to both clusters. If
Cluster Admin access is only available on one cluster in a cluster pair, a pairing key can be used on the target cluster to complete the
cluster pairing.

Prerequisites

l Cluster Admin privileges to one or both clusters being paired.

l Less than 2000 ms of round-trip latency between clusters.
l The difference between Element OS software versions on the clusters is no greater than one major version.
l All node IPs on paired clusters are routed to each other.

NOTE: Cluster pairing requires full connectivity between nodes on the management network. Replication requires
connectivity between the individual nodes on the storage cluster network.

Procedure

1. Select one of the following methods to pair clusters:

l Pairing Clusters Using MVIP: Use this method if there is Cluster Admin access to both clusters. This method uses the
MVIP of the remote cluster to pair two clusters.
l Pairing Clusters with a Pairing Key: Use this method if there is Cluster Admin access to only one of the clusters. This
method generates a pairing key that can be used on the target cluster to complete the cluster pairing.

Pairing Clusters Using MVIP

You can pair two clusters for real-time replication by using the MVIP of one cluster to establish a connection with the other cluster.
Cluster Admin access on both of clusters is required to use this method. The Cluster Admin user name and password is used to
authenticate cluster access before the clusters can be paired. If the MVIP is not known, or access to the cluster is not available, you
can pair the cluster by generating a pairing key and use the key to pair the two clusters. For more details, see Pairing Clusters with a
Pairing Key.

Procedure

1. On the local cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Cluster Pairs sub-tab.

3. Click Start Cluster Pairing.

4. In the Start Cluster Pairing dialog, select one of the following:

l Registered Cluster: Select this method if the remote cluster of the pairing is controlled by a NetApp SolidFire
vCenter Plug-in.
l Credentialed Cluster: Select this method if the remote cluster has known credentials that are outside of the NetApp
SolidFire vCenter Plug-in configuration.
5. If you selected Registered Cluster, select a cluster from the list of available clusters and click Pair.

6. If you selected Credentialed Cluster, do the following:

a. Enter the remote cluster MVIP address.
b. Enter a cluster administrator user name.
c. Enter a cluster administrator password.
d. Click Start Pairing.

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 7. After the task completes and returns you to the Cluster Pairs page, verify that the cluster pair is connected.

8. (Optional) On the remote cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection > Cluster Pairs or use the Element OS
web UI to verify that the cluster pair is connected.

Pairing Clusters with a Pairing Key

If you have Cluster Admin access to a local cluster but not the remote cluster, you can pair the clusters using a pairing key. A pairing
key is generated on a local cluster and then sent securely to a Cluster Admin at a remote site to establish a connection and complete
the cluster pairing for Real-Time Replication.

Procedure

1. On the local cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Cluster Pairs sub-tab.

3. Click Start Cluster Pairing.

4. In the Start Cluster Pairing dialog, select Inaccessible Cluster.

5. Click Generate Key.

NOTE: This action generates a text key for pairing and creates an unconfigured cluster pair on the local cluster. If you
do not complete the procedure, you will need to manually delete the cluster pair.

6. Copy the cluster pairing key to your clipboard.

7. Click Close.
8. Make the pairing key accessible to the Cluster Admin at the remote cluster site.

NOTE: The cluster pairing key contains a version of the MVIP, user name, password, and database information to
permit volume connections for remote replication. This key should be treated in a secure manner and not stored in a
way that would allow accidental or unsecured access to the user name or password.

Caution: Do not modify any of the characters in the pairing key. The key becomes invalid if it is modified.

9. On the remote cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

10. Click the Cluster Pairs sub-tab.

11. Click Complete Cluster Pairing.

NOTE: Wait for the loading spinner to disappear before proceeding to the next step.

12. Paste the pairing key from the local cluster in the Cluster Pairing Key field

13. Click Pair Cluster.

14. After the task completes and returns you to the Cluster Pair page, verify that the cluster pair is connected.

15. On the remote cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection > Cluster Pairs or use the Element OS web UI to
verify that the cluster pair is connected.

Cluster Pair Details

On the Protection > Cluster Pairs page, you can view the following information for clusters that have been paired or are in the
process of being paired.

The system displays pairing and progress messages in the Status column.

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 Heading Description

ID A system-generated ID given to each cluster pair.

Remote Cluster Name The name of the other cluster in the pair.

Remote MVIP The management virtual IP address of the other cluster in the pair.

Status Replication status of the remote cluster.

Replicating Volumes The number of volumes contained by the cluster that are paired for replication.

UUID A unique ID given to each cluster in the pair.

Deleting a Cluster Pair

To completely remove a cluster pairing relationship, you must remove cluster pairs from both the local and remote clusters.

Procedure

1. From either cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Cluster Pairs sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the cluster pair you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Delete.

6. Confirm the action.

NOTE: This action deletes only the cluster pair end on the local cluster. You need to manually delete the cluster pair
end from the remote cluster to fully remove the pairing relationship.

7. Perform the steps again from the remote cluster in the cluster pairing.

Volume Pairs
You can pair two volumes for real-time replication that are stored on different clusters in a connected cluster pair. After you pair
two clusters, you can configure active volumes on one cluster to be continuously replicated to a second cluster, providing
continuous data protection (CDP). You can also assign either volume to be the source or target of the replication.

The following diagram shows volume pair connections between two clusters in a cluster pair. Volume pairings are always one-to-
one. Once a volume is paired with a volume on another cluster, you cannot pair it again with any other volume.

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Pairing Volumes

After you have established a connection between clusters in a cluster pair, you can pair a volume on one cluster with a volume on
the other cluster in the pair. Once a volume pairing relationship is established, you must identify which volume is the replication
target.

Prerequisites

l You have established a connection between clusters in a cluster pair.

l You have Cluster admin privileges to one or both clusters being paired.

Procedure

1. Select one of the following methods to pair volumes:

l Pairing Volumes Using Known Credentials: Use this method if there is Cluster Admin access to both clusters on which
volumes are to be paired. This method uses the volume ID of the volume on the remote cluster to initiate a
connection.
l Pairing Volumes Using a Pairing Key: Use this method if there is Cluster Admin access to only the source cluster. This
method generates a pairing key that can be used on the remote cluster to complete the volume pair.

NOTE: The volume pairing key contains an encrypted version of the volume information and may contain
sensitive information. Only share this key in a secure manner.

2. If you did not identify a replication source and target during the pairing process, you must complete the following before
the volumes can start replicating data:
l Assigning a Replication Source and Target to Paired Volumes: Use this method to assign replication source and target
volumes in a volume pairing.

Pairing Volumes Using Known Credentials

You can pair a local volume with another volume on a remote cluster if you have Cluster Admin credentials for the remote cluster.

Prerequisites

l Ensure that the clusters containing the volumes are paired.

l Create a new volume on the remote cluster.

NOTE: NetApp highly recommends that the target volume contain no data and have the exact characteristics of the
source volume, such as size, 512e setting, and QoS configuration. The target volume may be greater or equal in size
to the source volume, but it cannot be smaller.

l Know the remote Volume ID.

l If you intend for the local volume to be the source, ensure that the access mode of the volume is set to Read/Write.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to pair.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Volume Pairing

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 6. In the Volume Pairing dialog, select one of the following:
l Volume Selection: Select this method if the remote cluster for the target volume is controlled by a NetApp SolidFire
vCenter Plug-in.
l Volume ID: Select this method if the remote cluster for the target volume has known credentials that are outside of
the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in configuration.
7. Select a Replication Mode from the drop-down list.
l Real-time (Synchronous): Writes are acknowledged to the client once they are committed on both the source and
target clusters.
l Real-time (Asynchronous): Writes are acknowledged to the client once they are committed on the source cluster.

l Snapshots Only: Only snapshots created on the source cluster are replicated. Active writes from the source volume
are not replicated.
8. Select a paired cluster from the drop-down list.
9. If you selected Volume Selection, do the following:
a. (Optional) Click the set remote volume to Replication Target option if you wish to set the remote volume as the
target in the volume pairing. The local volume, if set to read/write, becomes the source in the pair.

Caution If you assign an existing volume as the replication target, the data on that volume will be overwritten.
NetApp recommends that you use a new volume as the replication target.

NOTE: You can also assign replication source and target later in the pairing process from Volumes > Actions
> Edit. See Assigning a Replication Source and Target to Paired Volumes. You must assign a source and target to
complete the pairing.

b. Select a volume from the list of available volumes.

10. If you selected Volume ID, do the following:
a. Enter a cluster administrator user ID.
b. Enter a cluster administrator password.
c. Enter a volume ID.
11. Click Pair.

NOTE: After you confirm the pairing, the two clusters begin the process of connecting the volumes. During the
pairing process, you can see progress messages in the Volume Status column on the Volume Pairs page. See Volume
Pairing Messages or Volume Pairing Warnings for more information.

Caution: If you have not yet assigned a volume to be the replication target, the pairing configuration is not
complete. The volume pair displays PausedMisconfigured until the volume pair source and target are assigned. See
Assigning a Replication Source and Target to Paired Volumes.

12. Go to Protection > Volume Pairs on either cluster.

13. Verify the status of the volume pairing.

Pairing Volumes Using a Pairing Key

If you do not have Cluster Admin credentials for a remote cluster, you can pair a volume with another volume on a remote cluster
using a pairing key.

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Prerequisites

l Ensure that the clusters containing the volumes are paired.

NOTE: NetApp recommends that you set the source volume to Read/Write and the target volume to Replication Target.
NetApp also highly recommends that the target volume contain no data and have the exact characteristics of the source
volume, such as size, 512e setting, and QoS configuration. If you assign an existing volume as the replication target, the data
on that volume will be overwritten. The target volume may be greater or equal in size to the source volume, but it cannot be
smaller.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

2. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

3. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to pair.

4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Volume Pairing

6. In the Volume Pairing dialog, select Inaccessible Cluster.

7. Select a Replication Mode from the list.

l Real-time (Synchronous): Writes are acknowledged to the client once they are committed on both the source and
target clusters.
l Real-time (Asynchronous): Writes are acknowledged to the client once they are committed on the source cluster.

l Snapshots Only: Only snapshots created on the source cluster are replicated. Active writes from the source volume
are not replicated.
8. Click Generate Key.

NOTE: This action generates a text key for pairing and creates an unconfigured volume pair on the local cluster. If
you do not complete the procedure, you will need to manually delete the volume pair.

9. Copy the pairing key to your clipboard.

10. Click Close.
11. Make the pairing key accessible to the Cluster Admin at the remote cluster site.

NOTE: The volume pairing key should be treated in a secure manner and not stored in a way that would allow
accidental or unsecured access.

Caution: Do not modify any of the characters in the pairing key. The key becomes invalid if it is modified.

12. On the remote cluster, go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

13. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

14. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to pair.

15. Click Actions.

16. In the resulting menu, click Volume Pairing.

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 17. In the Volume Pairing dialog, select Complete Cluster Pairing.

18. Paste the pairing key from the other cluster into the Pairing Key box.

19. Click Complete Pairing.

NOTE: After you confirm the pairing, the two clusters begin the process of connecting the volumes. During the
pairing process, you can see progress messages in the Volume Status column of the Volume Pairs window. See
Volume Pairing Messages or Volume Pairing Warnings for more information.

Caution: If you have not yet assigned a volume to be the replication target, the pairing configuration is not
complete. The volume pair displays PausedMisconfigured until the volume pair source and target are assigned. See
Assigning a Replication Source and Target to Paired Volumes. You must assign a source and target to complete the
volume pairing.

20. Go to Protection > Volume Pairs on either cluster.

21. Verify the status of the volume pairing.

NOTE: Volumes that are paired using a pairing key appear after the pairing process has been completed at the
remote location.

Assigning a Replication Source and Target to Paired Volumes

After volumes are paired, you must assign a source volume and its replication target volume. A replication source or target can be
either volume in a volume pair. You can also use this procedure to redirect data sent to a source volume to a remote target volume
should the source volume become unavailable.

A replication source volume has read/write account access. A replication target volume can only be accessed by the replication
source as read/write.

NOTE: NetApp highly recommends that the target volume contain no data and have the exact characteristics of the source
volume, such as size, 512e setting, and QoS configuration. The target volume may be greater or equal in size to the source
volume, but it cannot be smaller.

Prerequisites

l You have access to the clusters containing the source and target volumes.

Procedure

1. From the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, select the cluster containing the paired volume that you wish to
use as the replication source.
2. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

3. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

4. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to edit.

5. Click Actions.

6. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

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 7. In the Access drop-down, select Read/Write.

Caution: If you are reversing source and target assignment, this action will cause the volume pair to display
PausedMisconfigured until a new replication target is assigned. Changing access pauses volume replication and
causes the transmission of data to cease. Be sure that you have coordinated these changes at both sites.

8. Click Ok.
9. From the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, select the cluster containing the paired volume that you wish to
use as the replication target.
10. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Management.

11. Click the Volumes sub-tab.

12. From the Active view, select the check box for the volume you wish to edit.

13. Click Actions.

14. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

15. In the Access drop-down, select Replication Target.

Caution: If you assign an existing volume as the replication target, the data on that volume will be overwritten.
NetApp recommends that you use a new volume as the replication target.

16. Click Ok.

Volume Pair Details

On the Protection > Volume Pairs page, you can view the following information for volumes that have been paired or are in the
process of being paired.

The system displays pairing and progress messages in the Volume Status column. See Volume Pairing Messages and Volume Pairing
Warnings for more descriptions.

Heading Description

Local Volume ID System-generated ID for the volume.

Local Volume Name The name given to the volume when it was created. Volume names can be up to 223 characters and
contain a-z, 0-9, and dash (-).

Account Name of the account assigned to the volume.

Volume Status Replication status of the volume.

Snapshot Status Status of the snapshot volume.

Mode Indicates the client write replication method. Possible values:

l Asynchronous

l Snapshot-Only

l Synchronous

Access The access mode of the local half of the volume pairing.

Direction Indicates the direction of the volume data:

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 Heading Description

l The icon indicates data is being written to a target outside the cluster.

l The icon indicates data is being written to the local volume from an outside source.

Remote Cluster Name of the remote cluster on which the volume resides.

Remote Volume ID Volume ID of the volume on the remote cluster.

Remote Volume Name Name given to the remote volume when it was created.

Volume Pairing Messages

On the Protection > Volume Pairs page, you can view the following messages during the initial pairing process. These messages are
displayed in the Volume Status column.

Status Message Source Target Description

PausedDisconnected Yes Yes Source replication or sync RPCs timed out. Connection to the remote cluster
has been lost. Check network connections to the cluster.

ResumingConnected* Yes Yes The remote replication sync is now active. Beginning the sync process and
waiting for data.

ResumingRRSync* Yes Yes A single helix copy of the volume metadata is being made to the paired
cluster.

ResumingLocalSync* Yes Yes A double helix copy of the volume metadata is being made to the paired
cluster.

ResumingDataTransfer* Yes Yes Data transfer has been resumed.

Active Yes Yes Volumes are paired and data is being sent from the source to the target
volume and the data is in sync.

Idle Yes Yes No replication activity is occuring.

*This process is driven by the target volume and might not display on the source volume.

Volume Pairing Warnings

On the Protection > Volume Pairs page, you can view the following messages after you pair volumes in the Volume Status column.

Status Message Source Target Description

PausedClusterFull Yes No Because the target cluster is full, source replication and bulk
data transfer cannot proceed.

PausedExceededMaxSnapshotCount Yes Yes The target volume already has the maximum number of
snapshots and cannot replicate additional snapshots.

PausedManual Yes Yes Local volume has been manually paused. It must be unpaused
before replication resumes.

PausedManualRemote Yes Yes Remote volume is in manual paused mode. Manual

intervention required to unpause the remote volume before

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 Status Message Source Target Description

replication resumes.

PausedMisconfigured Yes Yes Waiting for an active source and target. Manual intervention
required to resume replication.

PausedQoS Yes No Target QoS could not sustain incoming IO. Replication auto-
resumes.

PausedSlowLink Yes No Slow link detected and stopped replication. Replication auto-
resumes.

PausedVolumeSizeMismatch Yes Yes Target volume is smaller than the source volume.

PausedXCopy Yes No A scsi XCOPY command is being issued to a source volume. The
command must complete before replication can resume.

StoppedMisconfigured Yes Yes A permanent configuration error has been detected. The remote
volume has been purged or unpaired. No corrective action is
possible; a new pairing must be established.

Editing Volume Pairs

You can edit volume pair properties to make changes to the replication mode of the volume pair relationship or manually pause
replication.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Volume Pairs sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the volume pair you wish to edit.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Edit.

6. In the Edit Volume Pair pane, do any of the following:

Caution: Pausing or resuming volume replication manually will cause the transmission of data to cease or resume.
Changing the mode of replication will cause the mode to change immediately. Be sure that you have coordinated
these changes at both sites.

l Select a new replication mode:

l Real-time (Synchronous): Writes are acknowledged to the client once they are committed on both the
source and target clusters.
l Real-time (Asynchronous): Writes are acknowledged to the client once they are committed on the source
cluster.
l Snapshots Only: Only snapshots created on the source cluster are replicated. Active writes from the source
volume are not replicated.
l Manually pause or start the replication process.
7. Click Save Changes.

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Deleting Volume Pairs

You can delete a volume pair if you wish to remove a pair association between two volumes.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Protection.

2. Click the Volume Pairs sub-tab.

3. Select the check box for the volume pair you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Delete.

6. Confirm the message.

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Cluster Management
From the Cluster tab in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view and change cluster-wide settings and
perform cluster-specific tasks.

See the following topics to learn about or perform cluster-related tasks:

Drives
Adding Available Drives to a Cluster
Drive Details
Removing a Drive
Nodes
Storage Nodes
Fibre Channel Nodes
HCI Compute Nodes
HCI Storage Nodes
Adding a Node to a Cluster
Node Details
Removing Nodes from a Cluster
Restarting Cluster Nodes
Shutting Down Cluster Nodes
VLAN Management
Creating a VLAN
Virtual Network Details
Editing a Virtual Network
Deleting a Virtual Network

Drives
Each node contains one or more physical drives that are used to store a portion of the data for the cluster. The cluster utilizes the
capacity and performance of the drive after the drive has been successfully added to a cluster.

A storage node contains two types of drives:

l Volume Metadata Drives: These drives store compressed information that defines each volume, clone, or snapshot within a
cluster. The total metadata drive capacity in the system determines the maximum amount of storage that can be
provisioned as volumes. The maximum amount of storage that can be provisioned is independent from how much data is
actually stored on the cluster’s block drives. Volume metadata drives store data redundantly across a cluster using SolidFire
Double Helix data protection.

NOTE: Some system event log and error messages refer to volume metadata drives as slice drives.

l Block Drives: These drives store the compressed, de-duplicated data blocks for server application volumes. Block drives
make up a majority of the storage capacity of the system. The majority of read requests for data already stored on the
SolidFire cluster, as well as requests to write data, occur on the block drives. The total block drive capacity in the system
determines the maximum amount of data that can be stored, taking into account the effects of compression, thin
provisioning, and deduplication.

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Adding Available Drives to a Cluster
You can add drives to a cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. When you add a node to the cluster or
install new drives in an existing node, the drives automatically register as Available. You must add the drives to the cluster before
each drive can participate in the cluster.

Drives are not displayed in the Available list when the following conditions exist:

l Drives are in an Active, Removing, Erasing, or a Failed state.

l The node of which the drive is a part is in a Pending state.

NOTE: Drive sizes must be compatible within a node. For example, if a 2405 node drive needs to be replaced, it must be
replaced with a drive compatible with a 2405 node system. A drive from a 4805 or 9605 node cannot be used to replace a drive
in a 2405 node. This is true for all node models in the SolidFire family of nodes. The SolidFire system does not recognize an
incompatible drive, and it is never made available to the system.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. From the Drives sub-tab, select Available from the drop-down list to view the list of available drives.
3. To add one or more drives:
l Select the check box for each drive you wish to add.
l Click Add Drives.
4. Review the details of the drives you are intending to add and confirm the action.

Drive Details
On the Cluster > Drives page in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view a list of the active drives in the
cluster from the Active view. You can change the view by selecting Available, Removing, Erasing, Failed and All options using the
drop-down filter.

When you first initialize a cluster, the active drives list is empty. You can add drives that are unassigned to a cluster and listed in the
Available tab after a new cluster is created. The following table describes the elements shown in the list of active drives.

Heading Description

Drive ID Sequential number assigned to the drive.

Drive State The status of the drive.

Possible Values:
Active: A drive that is in use by the cluster.
Available: An available drive that can be added to the cluster.
Removing: A drive is in the process of being removed. Any data previously on the drive is being
migrated to other drives in the cluster.
Erasing: A drive is in the process of being secure erased. Any data on that drive is permanently
removed.
Failed: A drive that has failed. Any data that was previously on the drive has been migrated to
other drives in the cluster. The system puts a drive in a failed state if the self-diagnostics of the
drive tells the node it has failed or if communications to the drive stop for 5.5 minutes or longer.

Node ID Assigned node number when the node is added to the cluster.

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 Heading Description

Node Name Name of the node where the drive resides.

Slot Slot number where the drive is physically located.

Capacity (GB) Size of the drive in GB.

Serial Serial number of the SSD.

Wear Remaining Wear-level indicator.

Type Drive type can be block or metadata.

Removing a Drive
You can remove a drive from a cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. You might do this when reducing
cluster capacity or preparing to replace drives nearing the end of their service life. Removing a drive takes the drive offline. Any data
on the drive is removed and migrated to other drives in the cluster before the drive is removed from the cluster. The data migration
to other active drives in the system can take a few minutes to an hour depending on capacity utilization and active I/O on the
cluster.

When you remove a drive in a Failed state, the drive is not returned to Available or Active states. Instead, the drive is unavailable
for use in the cluster.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. Select All from the drop-down list to view the complete list of drives.
3. To remove one or more drives:
a. Select the check box for each drive you wish to remove.
b. Click Remove Drives.
4. Confirm the action.

NOTE: If there is not enough capacity to remove active drives prior to removing a node, an error message appears
when you confirm the drive removal.

Nodes
SF-series nodes are the hardware that is grouped into a SolidFire cluster to be accessed as block storage. There are two fundamental
types of SF-series node: storage and Fibre Channel.

For NetApp HCI nodes, which comprise a NetApp HCI system, there are two types: compute node and storage node. Because each
compute node runs VMware ESXi, HCI compute node management is done outside the vCenter Plug-in in vSphere.

Storage Nodes
A SolidFire storage node is a collection of drives that communicate with each other through the CIPI Bond10G network interface.
Drives in the node contain block and metadata space for data storage and data management. You can create a cluster with new
storage nodes, or add storage nodes to an existing cluster to increase storage capacity and performance.

Storage nodes have the following characteristics:

l Each node has a unique name. If a node name is not specified by an administrator, it defaults to SF-XXXX where XXXX is four
random characters generated by the system.

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 l Each node has its own high-performance non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) write cache to improve overall system
performance and reduce write latency.
l Each node is connected to two networks with two independent links for redundancy and performance. Each node requires an IP
address on each network.
l You can add or remove nodes from the cluster at any time without interrupting service.

Fibre Channel Nodes

SolidFire Fibre Channel nodes provide connectivity to a Fibre Channel switch, which you can connect to Fibre Channel clients. Fibre
Channel nodes act as a protocol converter between the Fibre Channel and iSCSI protocols; this enables you to add Fibre Channel
connectivity to any new or existing SolidFire cluster.

Fibre Channel nodes have the following characteristics:

l Fibre Channel switches manage the state of the fabric, providing optimized interconnections.
l The traffic between two ports flows through the switches only; it is not transmitted to any other port.
l Failure of a port is isolated and does not affect operation of other ports.
l Multiple pairs of ports can communicate simultaneously in a fabric.
Fibre Channel nodes are added in pairs, and operate in active-active mode (all Fibre Channel nodes actively process traffic for the
cluster). At least two Fibre Channel nodes are required for Fibre Channel connectivity in a SolidFire cluster. Clusters running Element
OS version 9.0 and later support up to four Fibre Channel nodes.

HCI Compute Nodes

NetApp HCI compute nodes are node hardware that provide the resources, such as CPU, memory, and networking, that are needed
for virtualization in the NetApp HCI system. Because each server runs VMware ESXi, HCI compute node management (adding or
removing hosts) must be done within the Hosts and Clusters menu in vSphere.

The NetApp HCI system requires a minimum of two compute nodes in the system.

HCI Storage Nodes

NetApp HCI storage nodes are hardware that provide the storage resources for a NetApp HCI system. Drives in the node contain
block and metadata space for data storage and data management. Each node contains a factory image of the SolidFire Element OS.
NetApp HCI storage nodes can be managed using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

A NetApp HCI system requires a minimum of four storage nodes in the cluster.

Adding a Node to a Cluster

You can add nodes when a cluster is created or when more storage is needed.

Nodes require initial configuration when they are first powered on. When the node has been set up and configured, it registers
itself on the cluster identified when the node was configured and appears in the list of pending nodes on the Cluster > Nodes page
of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Nodes of smaller or larger capacities can be added to an existing cluster.

SolidFire Fibre Channel nodes are added using the same procedure as a SolidFire storage node. They can be added when a cluster is
created or added later.

Prerequisites

l The node you are adding has been set up, powered on, and configured.

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 l Both the major or minor version numbers of the software on each node in a cluster must match for the software to be
compatible. For example, Element OS version 8.0 is not compatible with version 8.1.

NOTE: If the node you are adding has a different major or minor version of Element OS than the version running on
the cluster, the cluster asynchronously updates the node to the version of Element OS running on the cluster master.
Once the node is updated, it automatically adds itself to the cluster. During this asynchronous process, the node will
be in a pendingActive state.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. Click the Nodes sub-tab.

3. Select Pending from the drop-down list to view the list of nodes.
4. To add one or more nodes:
l Select the check box for each node you wish to add.
l Click Add Node.
5. Review the details of the nodes you are intending to add and confirm the action.
When the action is complete, the node appears in the list of active nodes for the cluster.

Node Details
On the Cluster > Nodes page in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view a list of the active nodes in the
cluster from the Active view. You can change the view by selecting Pending, PendingActive, and All options using the drop-down
filter.

Heading Description

Node ID System-generated ID for the node.

Node Name The system-generated or administrator-assigned node name.

Node State The status of the node.

Possible Values:
Active: The node is an active member of a cluster and may not be added to another cluster.
Pending: The node is pending for a specific named cluster and can be added.
PendingActive: The node is currently being returned to the factory software image, and is not
yet an active member of a cluster. When complete, it will transition to the Active state.

Available 4k IOPS Displays the IOPS configured for the node.

Node Role Identifies what role the node has in the cluster. This can be Cluster Master, Ensemble Node, or
Fibre Channel node.

Node Type Displays the model type of the node.

Active Drives Number of active drives in the node.

Management IP Management IP (MIP) address assigned to node for 1GbE or 10GbE network admin tasks.

Storage IP Storage IP (SIP) address assigned to the node used for iSCSI network discovery and all data
network traffic.

Management VLAN ID The virtual ID for the management local area network.

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 Heading Description

Storage VLAN The virtual ID for the storage local area network.

Version Version of SolidFire Element OS software running on each node.

Removing Nodes from a Cluster

You can remove nodes from a cluster without service interruption when their storage is no longer needed or they require
maintenance.

NOTE: At least two Fibre Channel nodes are required for Fibre Channel connectivity in a SolidFire cluster. If only one Fibre
Channel node is connected, the system triggers alerts in the Event Log until you add another Fibre Channel node to the
cluster, even though all Fibre Channel network traffic continues to operate with only one Fibre Channel node.

Prerequisites

Remove all of the drives in the node from the cluster before proceeding. You cannot remove a node until the RemoveDrives
process has completed and all data has been migrated away from the node.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. Click the Nodes sub-tab.

3. To remove one or more nodes:
a. From Active view, select the check box for each node you wish to remove.

b. Click Actions.

c. Select Remove.
4. Confirm the action.
Any nodes removed from a cluster appear in the list of Pending nodes.

Restarting Cluster Nodes

You can restart one or more nodes in a cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. To restart the cluster, you
can select all cluster nodes and perform a restart.

Caution: This method restarts all networking services on a node, causing temporary loss of networking connectivity.

Prerequisites

l You have stopped I/O and disconnected all iSCSI sessions if you are restarting more than one node simultaneously.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. Click the Nodes sub-tab.

3. From Active view, select the check box for each node you wish to restart.

4. Click Actions.

5. Select Restart.

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 6. Confirm the action.

Shutting Down Cluster Nodes

You can shut down one or more nodes in a cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. To shut down the
cluster, you can select all cluster nodes and perform a simultaneous shutdown.

Prerequisites

l You have stopped I/O and disconnected all iSCSI sessions if you are shutting down more than one node simultaneously.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. Click the Nodes sub-tab.

3. From Active view, select the check box for each node you wish to shut down.

4. Click Actions.

5. Select Shutdown.
6. Confirm the action.

NOTE: If a node has been down longer than 5.5 minutes under any type of shutdown condition, the Element OS
software determines that the node is not coming back to join the cluster. Double Helix data protection begins the
task of writing single replicated blocks to another node to replicate the data. Depending on the length of time a
node is shut down, its drives might need to be added back to the cluster after the node is brought back online.

VLAN Management
Virtual networking in SolidFire storage allows traffic between multiple clients that are on separate logical networks to be connected
to one SolidFire cluster. To implement virtual networking, SolidFire uses VLAN backing technology.

The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in enables you to manage VLANs for the selected cluster. You can create, view, edit, and delete
VLANs. VLAN management options are available only from the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Creating a VLAN
You can add a new virtual network to a cluster configuration to enable a multi-tenant environment connection to a SolidFire
cluster. When a virtual network is added, an interface for each node is created and each will require a virtual network IP address.
The number of IP addresses specified when creating a new virtual network must be equal to or greater than the number of nodes in
the cluster. Virtual network addresses are bulk provisioned by and assigned to individual nodes automatically. Virtual network
addresses do not need to be assigned to nodes manually.

Caution: Using VLANs with Fibre Channel nodes as cluster members is not supported.

Caution: The following criteria should be considered for this configuration:

l VRF can only be enabled at the time of creating a VLAN. If you want to switch back to non-VRF, you must delete and
recreate the VLAN.
l VLANs that are not VRF-enabled require initiators to be in the same subnet as the SVIP.
l VLANs that are VRF-enabled do not require initiators to be in the same subnet as the SVIP, and routing is supported.

Prerequisites

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 l ESXi hosts have a single iSCSI software adapter.
l Hosts or switches are configured for the VLAN.
l You have identified the block of IP addresses that will be assigned to the virtual networks on the SolidFire nodes.
l You have identified a storage network IP (SVIP) address that will be used as an endpoint for all SolidFire storage traffic.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. Click the Network sub-tab

3. Click Create VLAN.

4. In the Create VLAN dialog, enter a name for the VLAN.

5. Enter an integer for the VLAN tag.
6. Enter the Storage Virtual IP (SVIP) address for the SolidFire storage cluster.
7. Adjust the netmask, as needed. The default is 255.255.255.0.
8. (Optional) Enter a description for the VLAN.
9. (Optional) Select the Enable Virtual Routing and Forwarding check box.

NOTE: Virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) allows multiple instances of a routing table to exist in a router and work
simultaneously. This functionality is available for storage networks only.

a. (Optional) Enter an IP address of a gateway of the virtual network.

10. Select the hosts that you want to include in the VLAN.

NOTE: If you are using vCenter Linked Mode, only hosts available to the vCenter Server to which the cluster is
assigned are available to select.

11. Configure the IP address blocks for the storage nodes:

NOTE: A minimum of one IP address block must be created.

a. Click Create Block.

b. Enter the starting address for the IP range.

c. Enter the number of IP addresses to include in the address block.

NOTE: The total number of IP addresses must match the number of nodes in the SolidFire storage cluster.

d. Click outside the entry to accept the values.

12. Click OK to create the VLAN.

Virtual Network Details

On the Cluster > Network page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following information for
VLANs.

Heading Description

ID Unique ID of the VLAN network, which is assigned by the SolidFire system.

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 Heading Description

VLAN Name Unique user-assigned name for the VLAN network.

VLAN Tag VLAN tag assigned when the virtual network was created.

SVIP Storage virtual IP address assigned to the virtual network.

IPs Used The range of virtual network IP addresses used for the virtual network.

Editing a Virtual Network

You can change VLAN attributes, such as VLAN name, netmask, and size of the IP address blocks. The VLAN Tag and SVIP cannot be
modified for a VLAN. The gateway attribute can only be modified for VRF VLANs.

NOTE: If any iSCSI, remote replication, or other network sessions exist, the modification might fail.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. Click the Network sub-tab

3. Select the check box for the VLAN you wish to edit.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Edit.

6. In the resulting menu, enter the new attributes for the VLAN.
7. Click Add a Block to add a non-continuous block of IP addresses for the virtual network.

8. Click OK.

Deleting a Virtual Network

You can permanently delete a VLAN object and its block of IPs. Address blocks that were assigned to the VLAN are disassociated with
the virtual network and can be reassigned to another virtual network.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > Cluster.

2. Click the Network sub-tab

3. Select the check box for the VLAN you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, click Delete.

6. Confirm the action.

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Virtual Volumes
You can view information and perform tasks for virtual volumes and their associated storage containers, protocol endpoints,
bindings, and hosts from the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. Virtual Volume functionality must first be enabled to
be available on the cluster.

See the following topics to learn about or perform VVols-related tasks:

Configuring VVols Functionality

Registering the SolidFire VASA Provider
Creating a VVol Datastore
Viewing Virtual Volumes Details
Virtual Volume Details
Individual Virtual Volume Details
Storage Containers
Creating a Storage Container
Viewing Storage Container Details
Storage Container Details
Individual Storage Container Details
Deleting a Storage Container
Protocol Endpoints
Viewing Protocol Endpoint Details
Protocol Endpoint Details
Individual Protocol Endpoint Details

Configuring VVols Functionality

You must perform the following initial configuration steps to use virtual volumes (VVols) in the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in.

Prerequisites

l The SolidFire cluster must be connected to an ESXi 6.0 or later environment that is compatible with VVols.

Procedure

1. Enable the virtual volumes feature on the SolidFire cluster using the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point. See
Enabling Virtual Volumes.
2. Register the VASA provider with vCenter. See Registering the SolidFire VASA Provider.
3. Create a storage container and associated VVol datastore using the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. See
Creating a Storage Container.
4. If you elected not to create a datastore when you created a storage container, create a VVol datastore in vCenter and
associate it with the storage container. See Creating a VVol Datastore.

Registering the SolidFire VASA Provider

You must register the SolidFire VASA Provider with vCenter so that vCenter is aware of VVol functionality on the cluster. Registering
the VASA provider with vCenter is a one-time configuration task.

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 NOTE: This procedure describes the steps available in version 6.5 of vSphere. Your vCenter user interface may differ slightly
from what is described depending on the version of vSphere installed. For additional help, see VMware vCenter
documentation.

Prerequisites

l You have enabled the VVols feature on the cluster.

l vCenter version 6.x.
l ESXi hosts version 6.x.

CAUTION: Do not register a SolidFire VASA provider to more than one vCenter instance. The SolidFire VASA provider can
only be registered to a single vCenter due to limitations with how vCenter handles SSL. A single vCenter can have multiple
SolidFire clusters, but a SolidFire cluster cannot be shared between two instances of vCenter.

Procedure

1. From vCenter Home view, select Hosts and Clusters.

2. Select a vCenter server to register the SolidFire VASA Provider.
3. Select Configure > Storage Providers.

4. From Storage Providers, click the Add icon.

The New Storage Provider dialog appears.

5. Enter the following:
a. VASA Provider name.
b. VASA Provider URL.

NOTE: The VASA Provider URL is provided to you when you enable VVols in the vCenter Plug-in. It is also
available in NetApp SolidFire Configuration > Clusters if you click Actions for the cluster you are enabling and
click Details.

c. Administrative account user name for the SolidFire cluster.

d. Administrative account password for the SolidFire cluster.
e. Click OK to add the VASA provider.

6. Press Yes to install the SolidFire SSL cert when prompted.

The SolidFire VASA provider should now be registered with a status of Connected.

NOTE: Refresh the storage provider, if necessary, to show the current status of the provider after registering the
provider for the first time. You can also verify that the provider is enabled in NetApp SolidFire Configuration >
Clusters. Click Actions for the cluster you are enabling and click Details.

Creating a VVol Datastore

You must create a virtual volume datastore that represents the storage container on the SolidFire cluster in vCenter. You can create
a VVol datastore using the Create Storage Container wizard or by using this process. You must create at least one VVol datastore to
begin provisioning VVol-backed virtual machines.

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 Prerequisites

l A SolidFire cluster with the VVols functionality enabled.

l An existing storage container in the virtual environment.
l The VASA provider must be registered with vCenter.

NOTE: You might need to rescan SolidFire storage in vCenter to discover storage containers.

Procedure

1. From the Navigator view in vCenter, right-click a storage cluster and select Storage > Datastores > New Datastore.

2. In the New Datastore dialog, specify the location of the new datastore and click Next.

3. Select VVol as the type of datastore to create.

4. Provide a name for the datastore in the Datastore name field.

5. Select the SolidFire storage container from the Backing Storage Container list.

NOTE: You do not need to manually create protocol endpoint (PE) LUNs. They are automatically mapped to the ESXi
hosts when the datastore is created.

6. Click Next.

7. Click Finish to create the VVol datastore.

Viewing Virtual Volumes Details

You can review general information for all active virtual volumes on the cluster in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension
point. You can also view details specific to each virtual volume, including efficiency, performance, and QoS as well as associated
snapshots, parent virtual machine, bindings, and task status.

Prerequisites

l You have completed the steps in Configuring VVols Functionality.

l You have created at least one virtual volume.
l You have powered on VMs so virtual volume details are available to view.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > VVols.

2. From the Virtual Volumes tab, you can search for a specific virtual volume.
3. Select the check box for the virtual volume you wish to review.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Details.

Virtual Volume Details

On the VVols > Virtual Volumes page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following virtual
volume information for all active virtual volumes on the cluster.

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 Heading Description

Virtual Machine ID The UUID of the virtual machine.

Name The name assigned to the virtual volume.

Type The virtual volume type: Config, Data, Memory, Swap, or Other.

Container The UUID of the storage container that owns the virtual volume.

Volume ID The ID of the underlying volume.

Virtual Volume ID The UUID of the virtual volume.

Individual Virtual Volume Details

On the VVols > Virtual Volumes page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following virtual
volume information when you select an individual virtual volume and view its details.

Section Heading Description

General Details Name The name assigned to the virtual volume.

Volume ID The ID of the underlying volume.

Virtual Volume ID The UUID of the virtual volume.

Virtual Volume Type The virtual volume type: Config, Data, Memory, Swap, or Other.

Status The status of VVol task.

Storage Container The UUID of the storage container that owns the virtual volume.

Size Size of the volume in GB or GiB.

Access The read/write permissions assigned to the virtual volume.

Efficiency Compression The compression efficiency score for the volume.

Deduplication The deduplication efficiency score for the volume.

Thin Provisioning The thin provisioning efficiency score for the volume.

Last Updated The date and time of the last efficiency score.

Performance Account ID The unique account ID of the associated account.

Actual IOPS Current actual IOPS to the volume in the last 500 milliseconds.

Async Delay The length of time since the volume was last synced with the remote cluster.

Average IOP Size Average size in bytes of recent I/O to the volume in the last 500 milliseconds.

Burst IOPS Size The total number of IOP credits available to the user. When volumes are not using up to
the Max IOPS, credits are accrued.

Client Queue Depth The number of outstanding read and write operations to the volume.

Last Updated The date and time of the last performance update.

Latency USec The average time, in microseconds, to complete operations to the volume in the last 500
milliseconds. A "0" (zero) value means there is no I/O to the volume.

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Section Heading Description

Non-Zero Blocks Total number of 4KiB blocks with data after the last garbage collection operation has
completed.

Performance The percentage of cluster IOPS being consumed. For example, a 250K IOP cluster running
Utilization at 100K IOPS would show 40% consumption.

Read Bytes The total cumulative bytes read from the volume since the creation of the volume.

Read Latency USec The average time, in microseconds, to complete read operations to the volume in the last
500 milliseconds.

Read Operations The total read operations to the volume since the creation of the volume.

Thin Provisioning The thin provisioning efficiency score for the volume.

Throttle A floating value between 0 and 1 that represents how much the system is throttling
clients below their maxIOPS because of re-replication of data, transient errors and
snapshots taken.

Total Latency USec The time, in microseconds, to complete read and write operations to a volume.

Unaligned Reads For 512e volumes, the number of read operations that were not on a 4k sector boundary.
High numbers of unaligned reads may indicate improper partition alignment.

Unaligned Writes For 512e volumes, the number of write operations that were not on a 4k sector
boundary. High numbers of unaligned writes may indicate improper partition alignment.

Volume ID The system-generated ID for the volume.

Volume Size Size of the volume in bytes.

Volume Utilization A percentage value that describes how much the client is using the volume.
Values:
0: Client is not using the volume.
100: Client is using their max.
>100: Client is using their burst.

Write Bytes The total cumulative bytes written to the volume since the creation of the volume.

Write Latency USec The average time, in microseconds, to complete write operations to a volume in the last
500 milliseconds.

Write Operations The total cumulative write operations to the volume since the creation of the volume.

Zero Blocks Total number of 4KiB blocks without data after the last round of garbage collection
operation has completed.

Used Capacity Percentage of used capacity.

Quality of I/O Size The size of the IOPS in KB.

Service

Min IOPS The minimum number of sustained inputs and outputs per second (IOPS) that the
SolidFire cluster provides to a volume. The Min IOPS configured for a volume is the
guaranteed level of performance for a volume. Performance does not drop below this
level.

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 Section Heading Description

Max IOPS The maximum number of sustained IOPS that the SolidFire cluster provides to a volume.
When cluster IOPS levels are critically high, this level of IOPS performance is not exceeded.

Burst IOPS The maximum number of IOPS allowed in a short burst scenario. If a volume has been
running below the Max IOPS, burst credits are accumulated. When performance levels
become very high and are pushed to maximum levels, short bursts of IOPS are allowed
on the volume.

Max Bandwidth The maximum bandwidth permitted by the system to process larger block sizes.

Virtual Machine Virtual Machine ID The UUID of the virtual machine.

VM Name The name of the virtual machine.

Guest OS Type Operating system associated with the virtual volume.

Virtual Volumes List of virtual volumes UUIDs and VM names.

Bindings Host The UUID for the ESXi host that hosts virtual volumes and is known to the cluster.

Protocol Endpoint Protocol endpoint IDs that correspond to each node in the SolidFire cluster.
ID

PE Type Indicates the protocol endpoint type (SCSI is the only available protocol for Element OS).

Tasks Operation The type of operation the task is performing.

Values:
unknown: The task operation is unknown.
prepare: The task is preparing a virtual volume.
snapshot: The task is creating a snapshot of a virtual volume.
rollback: The task is rolling back a virtual volume to a snapshot.
clone: The task is creating a clone of the virtual volume.
fastClone: The task is creating a fast clone of a virtual volume.
copyDiffs: The task is copying differing blocks to a virtual volume.

Status The current status of the virtual volume task:

Values:
Error: The task has failed and returned an error.
Queued: The task is waiting to be run.
Running: The task is currently running.
Success: The task has completed successfully.

Task ID The unique ID of the task.

Storage Containers
Storage containers are logical constructs that map to SolidFire accounts and are used for reporting and resource allocation. They
pool raw storage capacity or aggregate storage capabilities that the storage system can provide to virtual volumes. A VVol datastore
that is created in vSphere is mapped to an individual storage container. A single storage container has all available resources from
the SolidFire cluster by default. If more granular governance for multi-tenancy is required, multiple storage containers can be
created.

Storage containers function like traditional accounts and can contain both virtual volumes and traditional volumes. A maximum of
four storage containers per cluster is supported. A minimum of one storage container is required to use VVols functionality.

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 On the VVols > Storage Containers page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can create, delete, and view
details about storage containers. You can discover storage containers in vCenter during VVols creation.

Creating a Storage Container

You can create storage containers from the VVols tab in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point. You must create at least
one storage container to begin provisioning VVol-backed virtual machines.

Prerequisites

l You have enabled VVols functionality for the cluster.

l You have registered the VASA Provider for SolidFire virtual volumes with vCenter.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > VVols.

2. Click the Storage Containers sub-tab.

3. Click Create Storage Container.

4. Enter storage container information in the Create a New Storage Container dialog:
a. Enter a name for the storage container.
b. Configure initiator and target secrets for CHAP.

Best Practices: Leave the CHAP Settings fields blank to automatically generate secrets.

c. [Optional] Enter a name for the datastore. The Create a datastore check box is selected by default.

NOTE: A VVol datastore is required to use the storage container in vSphere. If you choose not to create a
datastore, you must create one later using the vSphere New Datastore wizard.

d. Select one or more hosts for the datastore.

NOTE: If you are using vCenter Linked Mode, only hosts available to the vCenter Server to which the cluster is
assigned are available to select.

e. Click OK.

5. Verify that the new storage container appears in the list in the Storage Containers sub-tab.

NOTE: Because a SolidFire account ID is created automatically and assigned to the storage container, it is not
necessary to manually create an account.

6. (Optional) If you selected Create a datastore, verify that the associated datastore has also been created on the selected
host in vCenter.

Viewing Storage Container Details

You can review information for all active storage containers on the cluster in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.
You can also view details for each storage container, including efficiency and performance metrics and associated virtual volumes.

Prerequisites

l You have enabled VVols functionality for the cluster.

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 l At least one storage container is available to select.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > VVols.

2. Click the Storage Containers tab.

3. Select the check box for the storage container you wish to review.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Details.

Storage Container Details

On the VVols > Storage Containers page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following
information for all active storage containers on the cluster.

Heading Description

Account ID The ID of the SolidFire account associated with the storage container.

Name The name of the storage container.

Status The status of the storage container.

Possible values:
Active: The storage container is in use.
Locked: The storage container is locked.

Volume Count The number of active volumes associated with the storage container account.

Individual Storage Container Details

On the VVols > Storage Containers page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following storage
container information when you select an individual storage container and view its details.

Section Heading Description

General Details Account ID The ID of the cluster account associated with the storage container.

Storage Container ID The UUID of the virtual volume storage container.

Storage Container The name of the associated storage container.

Name

Datastore Name The name of the associated datastore.

Status The status of the storage container.

Possible values:
Active: The storage container is in use.
Locked: The storage container is locked.

Protocol Endpoint Type Indicates the protocol endpoint type (SCSI is the only available protocol for
Element OS).

Initiator Secret The unique CHAP secret for the initiator.

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 Section Heading Description

Target Secret The unique CHAP secret for the target.

Number of Volumes The number of volumes associated with the storage container account.

Efficiency Compression The compression efficiency score for volumes in the account.

Deduplication The deduplication efficiency score for volumes in the account.

Thin Provisioning The thin provisioning efficiency score for volumes in the account.

Missing Volumes The volumes that could not be queried for efficiency data.

Last Updated The date and time of the last efficiency score.

Performance Metrics Read Bytes The total cumulative bytes read from all volumes in the account.

Read Operations The total read operations to all volumes in the account since the creation of
the account.

Write Bytes The total cumulative bytes written to all volumes in the account.

Write Operations The total cumulative write operations to all volume in the account since the
creation of the account.

Unaligned Reads For all 512e volumes in the account (virtual volumes are 512e by default), the
number of read operations that were not on a 4k sector boundary. High
numbers of unaligned reads may indicate improper partition alignment.

Unaligned Writes For all 512e volumes in the account (virtual volumes are 512e by default), the
number of write operations that were not on a 4k sector boundary. High
numbers of unaligned writes may indicate improper partition alignment.

Non-Zero Blocks Total number of 4KiB blocks with data after the last garbage collection
operation has completed.

Zero Blocks Total number of 4KiB blocks without data after the last round of garbage
collection operation has completed.

Last Updated The date and time of the last performance update.

Virtual Volumes Volume ID The ID of the underlying volume.

Virtual Volume ID The UUID of the virtual volume.

Name The name of the virtual volume.

Status Status of the VVol task.

Deleting a Storage Container

You can delete storage containers from the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Prerequisites

l An existing storage container is available to delete.

l All volumes have been removed from the storage container.

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 Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > VVols.

2. Click the Storage Containers tab.

3. Select the check box for the storage container you wish to delete.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Delete.

6. Confirm the action.
7. Refresh the list of storage containers in the Storage Containers sub-tab to confirm that the storage container has been
removed.

Protocol Endpoints
VMware ESXi hosts use logical I/O proxies known as protocol endpoints to communicate with virtual volumes. ESXi hosts bind
virtual volumes to protocol endpoints to perform I/O operations. When a virtual machine on the host performs an I/O operation,
the associated protocol endpoint directs I/O to the virtual volume with which it is paired.

Protocol endpoints in a SolidFire cluster function as SCSI administrative logical units. Each protocol endpoint is created
automatically by the SolidFire cluster. For every node in a SolidFire cluster, a corresponding protocol endpoint is created. For
example, a four-node cluster will have four protocol endpoints.

iSCSI is the only supported protocol for Element OS. Fibre Channel protocol is not supported.

Protocol endpoints cannot be deleted or modified by a user, are not associated with an account, and cannot be added to a volume
access group.

On the VVols > Protocol Endpoints page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can review protocol endpoint
information.

Viewing Protocol Endpoint Details

You can review information for all protocol endpoints on the cluster in the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point.

Procedure

1. Go to NetApp SolidFire Management > VVols.

2. Click the Protocol Endpoints tab.

The page displays information for all protocol endpoints on the cluster.
3. Select the check box for the protocol endpoint you wish to review.
4. Click Actions.

5. In the resulting menu, select Details.

Protocol Endpoint Details

On the VVols > Protocol Endpoint page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following
information for all protocol endpoints on the cluster.

Heading Description

Primary Provider The ID of the primary protocol endpoint provider.

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 Heading Description

Secondary Provider The ID of the secondary protocol endpoint provider.

Protocol Endpoint ID The UUID of the protocol endpoint.

Status The status of the protocol endpoint.

Possible values:
Active: The protocol endpoint is in use.
Start: The protocol endpoint is starting.
Failover: The protocol endpoint has failed over.
Reserved: The protocol endpoint is reserved.

Provider Type The type of the protocol endpoint's provider.

Possible values:
Primary
Secondary

SCSI NAA Device ID The globally unique SCSI device identifier for the protocol endpoint in NAA IEEE Registered Extended
Format.

Individual Protocol Endpoint Details

On the VVols > Protocol Endpoint page of the NetApp SolidFire Management extension point, you can view the following protocol
endpoint information when you select an individual protocol endpoint and view its details.

NOTE: Virtual Volume details are only available when VMs are powered on.

Heading Description

Primary Provider ID The ID of the primary protocol endpoint provider.

Secondary Provider ID The ID of the secondary protocol endpoint provider.

Protocol Endpoint ID The UUID of the protocol endpoint.

Status The status of the protocol endpoint.

Possible values:
Active: The protocol endpoint is in use.
Start: The protocol endpoint is starting.
Failover: The protocol endpoint has failed over.
Reserved: The protocol endpoint is reserved.

Provider Type The type of the protocol endpoint's provider.

Possible values:
Primary
Secondary

SCSI NAA Device ID The globally unique SCSI device identifier for the protocol endpoint in NAA IEEE Registered Extended
Format.

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Section Heading Description

Hosts Host Name The name of the ESXi host.

Host Address The IP address or DNS name for the ESXi host.

Initiator Initiator IQNs for the virtual volume host.

Virtual Volume Host ID The UUID for the ESXi host that hosts virtual volumes and is
known to the cluster.

Virtual Volumes Volume ID The ID of the underlying volume.

Virtual Volume ID The UUID of the virtual volume.

Name The name of the virtual machine.

Status Status of the VVol task.

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Unregistering the SolidFire Plug-in

Unregistering the SolidFire Plug-in

You can unregister the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in using one of the procedures described for your installation. Unregistering
the Plug-in has the same effect as disabling it but does not remove all associated files and folders. See Removing the SolidFire Plug-
in for additional information.

Prerequisites

l vCenter Administrator role privileges to unregister a plug-in.

l IP address of the management node.
l URL and credentials for the vCenter from which you are unregistering the Plug-in.

Procedure

1. To unregister the Plug-in, follow the procedure for your installed version:

If Then

Version 2.6.1 or earlier 1. In a web browser, enter the URL for the registration utility or locate it in the
program directory:
l https://<FDVA or management node IP>:8443

l /opt/solidfire/vcp/bin/vcp-reg.sh

2. In the vCenter Plugin Register/Unregister window, click Unregister.

Version 2.7+ l Use the vCenter Managed Object Browser (MOB) interface in your Web browser to
manually unregister.
1. Enter the MOB URL: https://[vcenter]/mobcontent.

2. Click Extension Manager > Unregister Extension.

3. Enter com.solidfire.

4. Click Invoke Method.

l Unregister using PowerCLI:
Connect-VIServer -Server $vcenter -User administrator@vsphere.local
-Password xxxxXXx -Force -ErrorAction Stop -SaveCredentials
$em = Get-View ExtensionManager
$em.ExtensionList | ft -property Key
$em.UnregisterExtension("com.solidfire")
$em.UpdateViewData()
$em.ExtensionList | ft -property Key
Disconnect-VIServer * -Confirm:$false

Version 3.0 or later l Unregister the Plug-in using the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in registration
utility:
1. Enter the IP address for your management node in a browser, including the
TCP port for registration: https://[management node IP]:9443.

2. Click Unregister Plug-in.

3. Enter the following:
l The IP address or FQDN server name of the vCenter service on
which you have registered your Plug-in.

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Unregistering the SolidFire Plug-in

If Then

l The vCenter Administrator user name.

l The vCenter Administrator password.
4. Click Unregister.
l Unregister the Plug-in using a CLI:
1. Open an SSH client.
2. Log on to the management node as a sudo user.
$ ssh [user id]@[mNode ip]

NOTE: Use the first user ID that was created for the management node.

3. Change the current directory:

cd /opt/solidfire
4. Enter the following to see usage and sample commands:
[mNode admin ID]:/opt/solidfire$ sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -h
5. Execute the vcp-reg.bash script using super-user privileges. Append -z to
unregister:
sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -v [vCenter IP] -A [vCenter Admin
ID] -P [Admin password] -z

NOTE: Do not use parentheses " " options. Use escape \ before
special characters.

NOTE: Unregistering a plug-in package on vCenter Server does not delete the plug-in package files that are installed
locally. To remove all Plug-in files, see Removing the SolidFire Plug-in.

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Removing the SolidFire Plug-in

Removing the SolidFire Plug-in

For SolidFire vCenter Plug-in versions 2.5 and later, complete the following procedure to manually remove files from vCenter
Server.

Prerequisites

l You have unregistered the existing Plug-in. See Unregistering the SolidFire Plug-in.

Procedure

1. Stop the VMware vSphere Web Client service:

l Windows: See the Services list on vCenter Server.
l vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA): Use the following commands:
service control --stop
vsphere-client service-control --stop vsphere-ui.
2. Remove SolidFire folders and files from the following locations:
l Windows: Use Windows Explorer and search for "SolidFire" in C:\Program Data\VMware and C:\Program
Files\VMware.
l vCSA: Use the command find / -name "*solidfire*".
3. Start the VMware vSphere Web Client service:
l Windows: See the Services list on vCenter Server.
l vCSA: Use the following commands:
service control --start
vsphere-client service-control --start vsphere-ui.

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Appendix 1 — Using a CLI for SolidFire Plug-in Registration

Appendix 1 — Using a CLI for SolidFire Plug-in Registration

You can use a CLI on a Windows vCenter or VM to register or change the registration of the SolidFire vCenter Plug-in.

Prerequisites

l You have logged out of the vSphere Web Client.

NOTE: The web client will not recognize updates made during this process if you do not log out.

l You have vCenter Administrator role privileges to register a plug-in.

l You have deployed a management node OVA with NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in version 4.0 or later as described in
Deploying a New Management Node.
l Your management node is powered on with its IP address or DHCP address configured.
l You are using an SSH client on a Microsoft® Windows® 64-bit system.
l Your firewall rules allow open network communication between the vCenter and the SolidFire Cluster MVIP on TCP ports
443, 8443, and 9443 (9443 is used for registration and can be closed after registration is complete).

Procedure

1. Open an SSH client.

NOTE: Do not use parentheses (" ") options. Use the escape (\) before special characters.

2. Log on to the management node as a sudo user.

$ ssh [user id]@[mNode ip]

NOTE: Use the first user ID that was created for the management node.

3. Change the current directory:

cd /opt/solidfire
4. Enter the following to see usage and sample commands:.
[mNode admin ID]:/opt/solidfire$ sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -h

5. Execute the vcp-reg.bash script using super-user privileges. Append -r to register or -u to update:

NOTE: Most installations will use the default path. You can customize the URL if you are using an in-house (dark
site) HTTP or HTTPS server or have modified the ZIP file name or network settings. Append -r to register and -Z to
create a custom zip URL.

NOTE: The user name and password credentials you enter must be those for an administrator with vCenter
Administrator role privileges.

l sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -v [vCenter IP] -A [vCenter Admin ID] -P [Admin password] -r

l sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -v [vCenter IP] -A [vCenter Admin ID] -P [Admin password] -u
l sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -v [vCenter IP] -A [vCenter Admin ID] -P [Admin password] -r -Z [https://
[customized path]/[customized name of bin.zip]

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Appendix 1 — Using a CLI for SolidFire Plug-in Registration

NOTE: See Modifying vCenter Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP Server for additional configuration steps if you
customize a URL.

6. (Optional) Verify registration status:

sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -v [vCenter IP] -A [vCenter Admin ID] -P [Admin password] -s
7. Log into vSphere Web Client as a vCenter Administrator.

NOTE: If the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in icons are not visible from the vSphere main page, see Troubleshooting.

8. (For upgrades) Verify the version change in the About tab in the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point. For more
details, see How to Use the NetApp SolidFire Plug-in.

NOTE: The NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in contains online help content. To ensure that your online help contains
the latest content, clear your browser cache after upgrading your Plug-in.

Example

The following is an example of a successful registration:

admin@SF-1381:/opt/solidfire$ sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -v 10.117.XX.XXX -A administrator\@vsphere.local -P
lala3F\!re -s

***************** WARNING WARNING WARNING *****************

* The integrity of the information stored in your keystore *
* has NOT been verified! In order to verify its integrity, *
* you must provide your keystore password. *
***************** WARNING WARNING WARNING *****************

Plug-in is Not Registered

admin@SF-1381:/opt/solidfire$ sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -v 10.117.XX.XXX -A administrator\@vsphere.local -P
lala3F\!re -r

***************** WARNING WARNING WARNING *****************

* The integrity of the information stored in your keystore *
* has NOT been verified! In order to verify its integrity, *
* you must provide your keystore password. *
***************** WARNING WARNING WARNING *****************

Registered Plugin with using key com.solidfire.

admin@SF-1381:/opt/solidfire$ sudo ./vcp-reg.bash -v 10.117.XX.XXX -A administrator\@vsphere.local -P
lala3F\!re -s

***************** WARNING WARNING WARNING *****************

* The integrity of the information stored in your keystore *
* has NOT been verified! In order to verify its integrity, *
* you must provide your keystore password. *
***************** WARNING WARNING WARNING *****************

Plug-in with key com.solidfire version 4.0.0 is Registered against 10.117.XX.XXX

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Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting
The following items are issues that can occur when using the NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in. Information about related known
issues can be found in the release notes for the vCenter Plug-in.

Issue Resolution/Workaround

Any vCenter Task

The following exception appears: Log in to vCenter Server and type the following commands into
org.springframework.transaction. a console to reboot:
CannotCreateTransactionException: Could not
open JPA EntityManager for transaction; # rm -rf /storage/vsphere-client/netapp-
nested exception is solidfire
javax.persistence.PersistenceException: # reboot
org.hibernate.exception.GenericJDBCException:
Could not open connection

Installation and Registration

When using the registration utility, there is an error In the registration utility, use Update Plug-in instead of Register
registering the Plug-in against the vCenter server. A plug-in Plug-in.
with the key com.solidfire is already installed.

When using the registration utility, there is an error updating In the registration utility, use Register Plug-in instead of Update
the Plug-in against the vCenter server. A plug-in with the key Plug-in.
com.solidfire is not installed for the update.

When using the registration utility, there is an error that 1. Reboot the mNode or execute the following:
indicates the keystore cannot be found at sudo /opt/solidfire/vcp-reg.bash -F.
/opt/solidfire/registration/keystore and
2. Refresh the registration utility web UI.
/var/cache/jetty/tmp/./etc/keystore.

Accessing the Plug-in

Registration shows as successful, but the Plug-in icon is not l Log out of the vSphere Web Client and log in again.
visible on the Home page. Closing and re-opening your browser may be required.

l Clear your browser cache.

l From vCenter, restart the vSphere Web Client Service
from the Services menu within Windows Administrative
Tools or reboot vCenter.
l Ensure that you have all required default administrative
privileges associated with the vCenter Administrator role.
l Check that the Plug-in ZIP file successfully downloaded
to vCenter:
1. Open vsphere_client_virgo.log in the vCenter.
l For vSphere versions 5.x, see the VMware
Knowledge Base.
l For vSphere versions 6.x, see the VMware
Knowledge Base.
2. If a failure message indicates that the ZIP
download failed, download the ZIP again.

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Troubleshooting

Issue Resolution/Workaround

NOTE: You might need to correct an

unreachable or bad URL. Update the Plug-in
registration or unregister and register the
Plug-in again with a corrected URL. Failure to
download the ZIP can also occur if you
specified an HTTP URL without changing the
allowHTTP setting. See Modifying vCenter
Properties for an In-House (Dark Site) HTTP
Server.

l Verify networking ports. Ensure the management node is

reachable from vCenter bidirectionally on the required
ports. See Network Ports.
l Open vsphere_client_virgo.log in the vCenter. If there is
no log message about a download, reboot vCenter.

Upgrades

During a Windows vCenter Server upgrade from version 6.0 The directory that stores the runtime database has changed from
to 6.5 , you see a warning that the NetApp SolidFire version 6.0 to 6.5. The vCenter Plug-in is unable to create the
Extension cannot be upgraded or may not work with the needed files for runtime.
new vCenter Server. After you complete the upgrade and log
in to the vSphere Web Client, the following error occurs 1. Unregister the Plug-in. See Unregistering the
when you select a vCenter Plug-in extension point: SolidFire Plug-in.

2. Remove Plug-in files. See Removing the SolidFire Plug-in.

3. Reboot the vCenter.
4. Register the Plug-in. See Registering the NetApp
SolidFire Plug-in in vCenter .
5. Log into the vSphere Web Client.

Unregistering the Plug-in

vCenter Plug-in cannot unregister from vCenter after an In the vCenter Plug-in versions 3.0 or later, use the mNode
FDVA or management node IP address change or FDVA or Settings in the NetApp SolidFire Configuration extension point
management node reinstallation. to make IP address, user ID, or password changes.

In the vCenter Plug-in version 2.7, use the QoSSIOC Service

settings to make IP address, user ID, or password changes.

If you changed the FDVA or management node IP address while

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Troubleshooting

Issue Resolution/Workaround

using vCenter Plug-in version 2.6.1 and earlier, complete the

following procedure to manually unregister the Plug-in:

1. Enter the vCenter MOB (https://<vCenter IP>/mob) into

your browser.
2. Log in with vCenter Administrator role.
3. Click Content > ExtensionManager >
UnregisterExtension.

4. Enter the extension key for your version of the Plug-in. If

you have enabled QoSSIOC automation, select the key
with qossioc as a suffix:
l com.calsoft.solidfire (VCP versions earlier
than 2.5)
l com.calsoft.solidfire.qossioc (VCP
versions earlier than 2.5)
l com.solidfire (VCP versions 2.5 or later)
l com.solidfire.qossioc (VCP versions 2.5 or
later)
5. (For vCenter versions 2.6.1 and earlier) Clean up the
Plug-in from the FDVA or management node:
a. Enter the FDVA or management node IP
(https://<FDVA or management node IP>:8443)
into your browser.
b. Click Force Cleanup, and complete the
procedure.
6. Register the Plug-in.

7. Restart vCenter services or reboot vCenter.

Removing the Plug-in

Removing SolidFire Plug-in package files completed Log out of the vSphere Web Client and log in again. Closing and
successfully, but NetApp SolidFire icons are still visible on re-opening your browser may be required.
the Home page.
If logging out of vSphere Web Client does not resolve the issue, it
might be necessary to restart the vSphere server web services.

Credentials

After the admin password for the vCenter that was used to For Plug-in version 2.6, go to the vCenter Plug-in
register the Plug-in is changed, the vCenter Plug-in cannot Register/Unregister page. Click the Update button to change the
be unregistered or removed. vCenter IP address, user ID, and password.

For Plug-in versions 2.7 and 3.0, update the vCenter

Administrator password in the mNode Settings in the NetApp
SolidFire Configuration extension point.

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Troubleshooting

Issue Resolution/Workaround

Management

Create, clone, and share datastore tasks fail or volumes are l Check that the software iSCSI HBA is present and enabled
not accessible by the ESXi host. on the ESXi host for datastore operations.
l Check that the volume is not deleted or assigned to an
incorrect volume access group.
l Check that the volume access group has the correct host
IQN.

l Check that the associated account has the correct

CHAP settings.
l Check that volume status is active, volume access is
readWrite, and 512e is set to true.

An exception is encountered when viewing datastores or Check network connectivity between the management node and
volumes. the SolidFire cluster.

Delete datastore operation fails. Check that all VMs have been deleted the datastore. You must
delete VMs from a datastore before the datastore can be deleted.

The vCenter Plug-in pane disappears from view in vCenter if This is a known issue in the vSphere Web Client. You can click a
vCenter panels are unpinned and then selected. NetApp SolidFire extension point to restore the Plug-in view, but
the Plug-in UI is not visible if you have clicked into an unpinned
vCenter panel.

(For versions 4.X only) The Flash-based vCenter user This is a known issue with Flash in the vSphere Web Client.
interface turns grey and all functions are inaccessible. The Complete any tasks in the Plug-in and refresh the browser.
SolidFire Plug-in simultaneously continues to function.

QoSSIOC

QoSSIOC status for the Plug-in displays a warning icon and l Unable to reach IP address
error message. The IP address is invalid or no responses are received.
Verify that the address is correct and that the mNode is
online and available.
l Unable to communicate
The IP address can be reached but calls to the address
fail. This might indicate that the QoSSIOC service is not
running at the specified address or a firewall may be
blocking traffic. See Network Ports.
l Unable to connect to the SIOC service
Open sioc.log in /var/log/solidfire/ on the management
node to verify that SIOCService started successfully. SIOC
service startup can take 50 seconds or more. If the service
did not start successfully, try again. You can verify the
current status of the SIOC service by opening
siocStatus.log in /var/log/solidfire/ on the management
node. If you are using a custom user ID or password, see
Configuring SIOC Service Credentials.

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Related Documentation

Issue Resolution/Workaround

QoSSIOC service settings displays as UP, but QoSSIOC is From the mNode Settings tab in the NetApp SolidFire
unavailable. Configuration extension point, click the refresh button in the
QoSSIOC Service. Update the IP address or user authentication
information as needed.

QoSSIOC is enabled for a datastore, but QoSSIOC is Check that the VMware SIOC is enabled on the datastore:
unavailable.
1. Open sioc.log in /var/log/solidfire/ on the management
node.
2. Search for the text SIOC is not enabled.
3. Use the vSphere Web Client or CLI to enable SIOC on the
datastore.

Related Documentation
You can find additional NetApp HCI and NetApp SolidFire vCenter Plug-in documents in NetApp Documentation: Product Library A-
Z.

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 121
Contacting Support

Contacting Support
If you need help or have questions or comments about NetApp products, contact NetApp Support:

l Web: mysupport.netapp.com
l Phone: 888.4.NETAPP (888.463.8277)

NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server Web Client Version 4.1 User Guide 122
1048 Pearl Street, Suite 250
Boulder, Colorado 80302

Web: netapp.com
Support: mysupport.netapp.com

May 2018