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ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 9.13

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, delete, or modify storage systems, and create containers using REST APIs.

Note Modify and delete storage system is supported from ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 9.13P1 release onwards.

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. From ONTAP tools 9.12 release onwards, swagger does not support 1.0 APIs. The pointers that were previously on 1.0 are moved to 2.0 or 3.0 APIs.

Note From ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 9.13 release, 2.0 Storage capability profile APIs are no longer available.

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

/3.0/storage/clusters

DELETE

New

Storage Systems

/3.0/storage/clusters

PUT

New

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_AFF_A

Both

Both

Platinum_AFF_C

Both

Both

Platinum_ASA_A

Both

Both

Platinum_ASA_C

Both

Both

AFF_NVMe_AFF_A

Both

Both

AFF_NVMe_AFF_C

Both

Both

AFF_NVMe_ASA_A

Both

Both

AFF_NVMe_ASA_C

Both

Both

AFF_Thick_AFF_A

Both

Both

AFF_Thick_AFF_C

Both

Both

AFF_Thick_ASA_A

Both

Both

AFF_Thick_ASA_C

Both

Both

AFF_Default_AFF_A

Background

None

AFF_Default_AFF_C

Background

None

AFF_Default_ASA_A

Background

None

AFF_Default_ASA_C

Background

None

AFF_Tiering_AFF_A

Both

Both

AFF_Tiering_AFF_C

Both

Both

AFF_Tiering_ASA_A

Both

Both

AFF_Tiering_ASA_C

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_AFF_A

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_AFF_C

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_ASA_A

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_ASA_C

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Tiering_AFF_A

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Tiering_AFF_C

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Tiering_ASA_A

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Tiering_ASA_C

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Min50_AFF_A

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Min50_AFF_C

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Min50_ASA_A

Both

Both

AFF_Encrypted_Min50_ASA_C

Both

Both

Bronze

None

None

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

https://<machine_IP>/api/storage/volumes/{uuid}

The VCF deployment of ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 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