VMware DRS rule manipulation using PowerCLI (EMC VPLEX use case) Part 1.

VPLEX is another of my favourite products,  and for good reason. I currently run a Metro cluster underneath a VMware platform that has proven to be super reliable.

One important design consideration for this is to ensure that VM’s are configured for site bias.

Why ? Glad you asked. In a VPLEX Metro configuration, a VPLEX detach rule is defined for every Distributed Virtual volume. If a communication failure occurs between the two VPLEX clusters, these detach rules define which cluster should detach it’s mirror leg to prevent both sites continuing to permit I/O activity during a failure. If this was not done, data inconsistency is the obvious outcome.

The site with bias ( the preferred site) will continue to service the I/O to the volume(s) and the non-preferred site will suspend all I/O. This process is transparent to the users and is fully automated.

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Once the communications issue is resolved (in our case, monitored by the VPLEX witness) the Distributed volumes will be re-synched and I/O will resume.

TL:DR ??

Here’s a quick and easy PowerCLI script that enumerates all the Virtual Machines that are running off a set of datastores with the same prefix, and then add’s them to a DRS Group that has a ‘should‘ rule;

The Datastores all have the same prefix in their name “SiteA_VPLEX” and the DRS Group Rules are called “SiteA_VMs SiteBVMS”  ( 1 rule, VM Group and Datastore list per side of the cluster)

This makes use of the most-excellent DRSRule module by Luc Dekens & Matt Boren available from github.

In my next post I’ll expand this theme to report on the missing VM’s from the groups and email this to a recipient for review of the action.

 

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4 thoughts on “VMware DRS rule manipulation using PowerCLI (EMC VPLEX use case) Part 1.

  1. Great post. We use similar script. 1 SDRS cluster for each detach group. Script adjusts DRS based on VM vnx file location

  2. Great post. We use similar script. 1 SDRS cluster for each detach group. Script adjusts DRS based on VM vnx file location

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