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ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 9.12
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VMware Cloud Foundation mode of deployment for ONTAP tools

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ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere can be deployed in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) environment. The main objective of VCF deployment is to use ONTAP tools in a cloud setup and create containers without vCenter Server.

The VCF mode enables you to create containers for your storage without the need for a vCenter Server. VASA Provider is enabled by default after the deployment of ONTAP tools in VCF mode. After the deployment is complete, you can add storage systems and create containers using REST APIs. The following article has the procedure for adding storage to ONTAP tools when VCF is enabled, Add Storage to ONTAP tools from Swagger-UI.

A new API is introduced to generate the appliance-api-token that authenticates API calls. Some of the existing APIs are modified to include the appliance-api-token header. With ONTAP tools 9.12 release, swagger does not support 1.0 APIs. The pointers that were previously on 1.0 are moved to 2.0 or 3.0 APIs.

The APIs available for VCF deployment mode are:

API

HTTP method

New/modified

Section header

/2.0/admin/containers

GET

New

Container

/2.0/admin/containers

POST

New

Container

/2.0/vcf/user/login

POST

New

User Authentication

/3.0/storage/clusters

GET

Modified

Storage Systems

/3.0/storage/clusters

POST

Modified

Storage Systems

/2.0/storage/clusters/discover

POST

Modified

Storage Systems

/2.0/storage/capability-profiles

GET

Modified

Storage Capability Profile

/2.0/tasks/{id}

GET

Modified

Task

You can only work with vVols datastores in the VCF deployment mode. To create container, you need to use REST APIs customized for VCF deployment. The REST APIs can be accessed from the Swagger interface after the deployment is complete. While creating containers in VCF mode, you need to provide names of storage VM, aggregate and volume. You need to use ONTAP APIs to get these details as the ONTAP tools GET APIs for these resources are not updated.

Storage object

API

Storage VM

api/svm/svms

Aggregate

storage/aggregates

Volume

storage/volumes

While executing container create API, you can add existing volumes to the container. But you should ensure that the compression and deduplication values of the existing volumes matches the storage capability of the container. The virtual machine creation fails when the values do not match. The following table provides details on the values that existing volumes should have for corresponding storage capability profiles.

Container Storage capability profile

Deduplication

Compression

Platinum

Both

Both

AFF_Thick

Both

Both

AFF_Default

Both

Both

AFF_Tiering

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Tiering

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Min50

Both

Both

FAS_Default

Background

None

FAS_Max20

Background

None

Bronze

None

None

You can use the ONTAP PATCH API to set the appropriate values.

The VCF deployment of ONTAP tools allows only container creation workflows. If you want to use other workflows such as provisioning datastores, creating storage capability profiles, or disaster recovery, then you should register ONTAP tools with vCenter Server using the swagger page. From ONTAP tools 9.12 onwards the registration of ONTAP tools with vCenter happens from the swagger page. The limitation of ONTAP tools in VCF mode is that you cannot configure SRA for disaster recovery until you register the plugin. When you deploy ONTAP tools without VCF mode, the registration happens automatically.

Note The Register.html will be removed in the upcoming releases of ONTAP tools.
VMware Cloud Foundation deployment workflow