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Configure a stretch cluster for a VCF management domain using SnapMirror Active Sync (SAN and NAS)

Contributors sureshthoppay kevin-hoke
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In this use case we outline the procedure to use ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere to configure a stretch cluster for a VCF management domain. This procedure includes deploying vSphere hosts and vCenter Server, installing ONTAP tools, protecting datastores with SnapMirror Active Sync, migrating VMs to protected datastores, and configuring supplemental storage.

Stretch Cluster with ONTAP for VCF management domain

Both Uniform and Non-uniform stretched cluster configurations are supported for SAN. In case of NAS, it is active-passive configuration with ONTAP 9.19.1.

Note

Host proximity settings are used with multipath configuration to ensure the optimal path selection for the storage traffic. The host proximity settings are configured on igroup in case of SCSI and subsystem in case of NVMe-oF. For example, in Uniform host access configuration, host has access to both storage systems in the stretched cluster. In multipath configuration, the optimal and non-optimal paths are configured based on the host proximity settings.

Scenario Overview

The stretch cluster solution can be implemented on default cluster or on additional cluster in VCF management or workload domains. ONTAP tools 10.6 supports datastore protection with SnapMirror active sync for VMFS datastores on iSCSI and FC protocols. ONTAP supports SnapMirror active sync for SAN (with iSCSI,FC, NVMe-oF) and NAS (NFS v3 and NFSv4.1). For SAN protocols the protection is performed at consistency group level while for NAS is performed at SVM level. The following diagram illustrates the stretch cluster solution for a VCF management domain with ONTAP tools for VMFS with FC.

Stretch Cluster with ONTAP for VCF management domain

Principal storage on Management Domain

  1. Deploy VCF management domain with any supported protocol.

    1. For VMFS on FC and NFSv3, VCF Installer tool is used directly. In case of iSCSI, NVMe-oF, and NFSv4.1, it needs to be setup with vCenter and later use VCF installer tool to deploy the management domain. For more info, refer VCF Management Domain Deployment with iSCSI, NVMe-oF, and NFSv4.1

  2. Deploy ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere

  3. Deploy SnapCenter Plugin for VMware vSphere (optional)

  4. Protect the datastore.

    1. For iSCSI and FC, ONTAP tools 10.6 or above is used to protect the datastores. In case of NVMe-oF and NFSv4.1, utilize system manager to protect the datastores. For reference, check the video demo below for NVMe/TCP and NFS.

Supplemental storage on Management Domain

Once the management domain is up and running, additional datastores can be created using ONTAP tools 10.6 or above and protected with SnapMirror active sync for iSCSI and FC. For NVMe-oF and NFS, check the video demo below for reference as the demo is performed on a workload domain, but the same steps can be followed for management domain as well.

Additional information

For information on configuring ONTAP storage systems refer to the ONTAP 9 Documentation center.

For information on configuring VCF refer to VMware Cloud Foundation Documentation.

Video demo for this solution

Stretch cluster for VCF with SnapMirror active sync iSCSI using ONTAP tools
Stretch cluster for VCF with SnapMirror active sync NVMe/TCP
Stretch cluster for VCF with SnapMirror active sync NAS