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ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 9.13

MetroCluster configurations supported by ONTAP tools

Contributors Netapp-shabaana

The ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere supports environments that use MetroCluster IP and FC configurations for ONTAP. Most of this support is automatic. However, you might notice a few differences when you use a MetroCluster environment with ONTAP tools and VASA Provider.

MetroCluster configurations and ONTAP tools

You must ensure that ONTAP tools discovers the storage system controllers at the primary site and the secondary site. Typically, ONTAP tools automatically discovers storage controllers. If you are using a cluster management LIF, then it is a good practice to verify that ONTAP tools has discovered the clusters at both sites. Otherwise, you can manually add the storage controllers to ONTAP tools. You can also modify the user name and password pairs that ONTAP tools uses to connect to the storage controllers.

When a switchover occurs, the SVMs on the secondary site take over. These SVMs have the “-mc” suffix appended to their names. If a switchover operation occurs while you are performing operations such as provisioning a datastore, the name of the SVM where the datastore resides is changed to include the “-mc” suffix. This suffix is dropped when the switchback occurs, and the SVMs on the primary site resume control.

Note If you have added direct SVMs with MetroCluster configuration to ONTAP tools, then after switchover, the change in the SVM name (the addition of the “-mc” suffix) is not reflected. All other switchover operations continue to execute normally.

When a switchover or switchback occurs, ONTAP tools might take a few minutes to automatically detect and discover the clusters. If this happens while you are performing a ONTAP tools operation such as provisioning a datastore, you might experience a delay.

MetroCluster configurations and VASA Provider

VASA Provider automatically supports environments that use MetroCluster configurations. The switchover is transparent in VASA Provider environments. You cannot add direct SVMs to VASA Provider.

Note VASA Provider does not append the “-mc” suffix to the names of the SVMs on the secondary site after a switchover.

MetroCluster configurations and SRA

The Storage Replication Adapter(SRA) supports environments that use MetroCluster configurations (MCC) with NFS, iSCSI, and FCP protocol.

As a pre-requisite for MCC SRA Configuration, all the storage virtual machine (SVM) names should be unique on the MCC clusters. If the names are not unique, it causes conflicts and the SRA workflows fail.

Required Actions:

  1. After performing a MCC switchover or a switchback, ensure that the snapmirror list-destinations command on the source cluster shows the proper output with the new SVM name(<vserver_name>-mc). The command could take up to 30 mins to run.

  2. Perform discoverDevices operation from the SRM UI before proceeding with other SRA workflows. This operation ensures that the SRM is aware of the changes in the SVM names after a switchover or a switchback.