ONTAP Select Deploy is the administration utility that you use to deploy ONTAP Select clusters. The Deploy utility runs in a dedicated Linux virtual machine. You can access the Deploy utility through the web user interface, CLI management shell, and REST API.

A hypervisor host is the core hardware platform that hosts an ONTAP Select virtual machine. When an ONTAP Select virtual machine is deployed and active on a hypervisor host, it is considered to be an ONTAP Select node.

You can create an ONTAP Select cluster composed of one, two, four, six, or eight nodes. Multi-node clusters always contain one or more HA pairs. For example, a four-node cluster consists of two HA pairs. A single node cluster does not provide HA capability.

Before using the Deploy administration utility to deploy an ONTAP Select cluster, you need to prepare the hypervisor hosts where ONTAP Select will run, including the storage and networking environments. This host pre-configuration is done outside of the ONTAP Select product based on the current requirements and limitations.

Every ONTAP Select node runs with either an evaluation license or a purchased license. An evaluation license allows you to evaluate ONTAP Select prior to deploying it in a production environment. The evaluation license is automatically generated and applied. If you deploy a cluster in a production environment, you must purchase a license which involves choosing:

The capacity tiers licensing model is the original option when licensing storage for an ONTAP Select deployment. It is based on the ONTAP model used with NetApp AFF and FAS. A separate license is required for each node. The storage capacity is locked to the node and perpetual (no renewal required).

The capacity pools licensing model was introduced with ONTAP Select 9.5 using Deploy 2.10. A separate license is required for each storage capacity pool. The capacity pool license is locked to a License Manager instance (that is a Deploy instance) and must be renewed based on the terms of your purchase. You can license and use any number of capacity pools in your organization. However, because the capacity pools are shared by the ONTAP Select nodes, fewer licenses are typically required than capacity tiers licensing.

The License Manager is a software component which supports capacity pools licensing. It is currently part of the Deploy administration utility. LM leases storage to the ONTAP Select nodes from the shared pools it manages. The License Lock ID is a numeric string uniquely identifying each LM instance, and therefore each Deploy instance. You must use both the capacity pool license serial number and LLID to generate a license file.

There are three license offerings available which determine the size capabilities of the ONTAP Select virtual machine when you purchase a license:

An ONTAP Select storage pool is a logical data container designed to abstract and hide the underlying physical storage. A storage pool is hypervisor-independent. When deployed on an ESXi hypervisor host, the ONTAP Select storage pool is synonymous with the VMware datastore.

Cluster MTU is a feature allowing you to configure the MTU size used on the internal network used with an ONTAP Select multi-node cluster. The Deploy administration utility adjusts the MTU size as you configure the HA pairs to accommodate your networking environment. You can also manually set the value.

The ONTAP Select vNAS solution allows an ONTAP Select node to access VMware datastores on external storage. With ONTAP Select vNAS, a local RAID controller is no longer needed; the RAID functionality is assumed to be provided by the remote storage. ONTAP Select vNAS can be configured in the following ways:

When you deploy a cluster that uses external storage available through the ONTAP Select vNAS solution (either VMware vSAN or a generic external storage array), the ESXi virtual machine hosting the ONTAP Select node can be moved through actions utilizing the following VMware features:

The ONTAP Select Deploy utility includes a mediator service which connects to the nodes in the active two-node clusters. This service monitors each HA pair and assists in managing failures.

MetroCluster SDS is a feature that provides an additional configuration option when deploying a two-node ONTAP Select cluster. Unlike a typical two-node ROBO deployment, the MetroCluster SDS nodes can be separated by a much greater distance. This physical separation enables additional use cases, such as disaster recovery. You must have a premium license or higher to use MetroCluster SDS. In addition, the network between the nodes must support a minimum latency requirement.

The Deploy credential store is a secure database holding account credentials. It is used primarily to register hypervisor hosts as part of creating a new cluster. See the Plan section for more information.

ONTAP Select provides storage efficiency options that are similar to the storage efficiency options present on FAS and AFF arrays. Conceptually, ONTAP Select with direct-attached storage (DAS) SSDs (using a premium license) is similar to an AFF array. Configurations using DAS with HDDs and all vNAS configurations should be considered similar to a FAS array. The main difference between the two configurations is that ONTAP Select with DAS SSDs supports inline aggregate level deduplication and aggregate level background deduplication. The remaining storage efficiency options are available for both configurations.

After creating a cluster, you can make changes to the cluster or virtual machine configuration outside of the Deploy utility using ONTAP or hypervisor administration tools. You can also migrate a virtual machine which causes configuration changes. When these changes occur, the Deploy utility is not automatically updated and can become out of sync with the state of the cluster. You can use the cluster refresh feature to update the Deploy configuration database. Cluster refresh is available through the Deploy web user interface, CLI management shell, and REST API.

When using direct-attached storage (DAS), RAID functionality is traditionally provided through a local hardware RAID controller. You can instead configure a node to use software RAID where the ONTAP Select node provides the RAID functionality. If you use software RAID, a hardware RAID controller is no longer needed.

Beginning with ONTAP Select Deploy 2.8, the Deploy administration utility contains only a single version of ONTAP Select. The version included is the most current available at the time of release. The ONTAP Select image install feature allows you to add earlier versions of ONTAP Select to your instance of the Deploy utility, which can then be used when deploying an ONTAP Select cluster. See Add ONTAP Select images for more information.

After you deploy an ONTAP Select cluster, you can configure the cluster as you would a hardware-based ONTAP cluster. For example, you can configure an ONTAP Select cluster using System Manager or the standard ONTAP command line interface.