What’s New in PowerStoreOS 3.2?
Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:15:24 -0000
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Dell PowerStoreOS 3.2 is the second minor release of 2022 for the Dell PowerStore platform. With this release come some great updates for both PowerStore T and PowerStore X systems as well as enhancements that complement the second generation hardware released in PowerStoreOS 3.0. Check out the full list of features below!
PowerStoreOS 3.2
PowerStoreOS 3.2 includes hardware updates for our 1st generation PowerStore appliances as well as full PowerStore X support.
- Platform: PowerStore 500, 1000, 3000, 5000, 7000, and 9000 T models now support the NVMe Expansion shelves by online upgrade of the Embedded Module (or addition of 4-port card for PowerStore 500).
- Data Mobility: File Mobility Network (used for Async File Replication) can now be deleted and reconfigured while preserving any existing replication sessions.
- PowerStore X: Adds full support of PowerStore X appliances in the PowerStoreOS 3.x code base, adding support for vSphere 7.x. Includes added ESXi licensing alerting and resource information.
- Serviceability: A new data collection profile has been added to help support services get the information they need to troubleshoot faster.
- Scalability: Increased limits of volumes provisioned using NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe/oF).
- Upgrades: Single-hop upgrade from PowerStoreOS 2.1.1 to PowerStoreOS 3.2 to simplify the upgrade process for both PowerStore T and PowerStore X appliances.
Platform
Online upgrade of the embedded module
First generation PowerStore 1000-9000 T appliances can now upgrade their embedded module to support NVMe expansion shelves. The upgrade is performed online non-disruptively. The upgraded embedded module removes the SAS back-end ports and features a new 2-port card that uses 100GbE QSFP ports for back-end connectivity to the NVMe expansion shelves.
Note: Any PowerStore with existing SAS expansion shelves cannot be upgraded because the SAS controller is removed on the new embedded module.
Addition of a 4-port card for PowerStore 500
When purchasing the PowerStore 500, the embedded 4-port card is optional. Without the 4-port card, NAS services, multi-appliance clustering, and NVMe expansion shelves are not supported. In PowerStoreOS 3.2, customers can now add the 4-port card to the appliance online and non-disruptively to an existing system to support the extra functionality that the 4-port card provides.
Addition of 2-port card on PowerStore 1200-9200 T
When purchasing a PowerStore 1200-9200 T model system, the 2-port 100GbE QSFP card used for back-end connectivity is optional and only required when used with NVMe expansion shelves. In PowerStoreOS 3.2, customers can install the 2-port card on existing appliances in an online non-disruptive upgrade procedure and then use the back-end connectivity for adding NVMe expansion shelves.
Data mobility
PowerStoreOS 3.0 introduced the File Mobility Network, which provides management and connectivity for Asynchronous File Replication. To change the mobility network settings of an existing configuration, all file replication sessions would need to be deleted before any changes could be made. In PowerStoreOS 3.2, users can now delete and re-configure the File Mobility Network while keeping all asynchronous file replication sessions intact.
PowerStore X support
Platform
PowerStore X appliances can now be upgraded to PowerStoreOS 3.2. (The previous maximum supported version for PowerStore X was PowerStoreOS 2.1.1.) This means that PowerStore X appliances can now benefit from the feature functionality of PowerStoreOS 3.0 and greater. As part of this upgrade, internal ESXi hosts will be upgraded to ESXi 7.0 Update 3e (build 19898904). For information about the PowerStore 3.0 release, see What’s New In PowerStoreOS 3.0?.
ESXi license alerting
PowerStore X systems now alert the user when the internal ESXi host license is about to expire or has expired. Although this update is relatively small and simple, there is nothing worse than having a licensing issue disrupt your production environment. PowerStore administrators can now notify VMware administrators of any licensing issues or alerts that may occur.
Enhanced resource display in PowerStore Manager
In PowerStore X, the chassis is split into two ESXi nodes, and the PowerStoreOS container resides on a virtual machine within the VMware cluster. The physical resources such as CPU and Memory are split up and allocated: half to the PowerStoreOS container virtual machines that drive the data stack, and half to be used on AppsON virtual machines hosted on the PowerStore appliance. In PowerStoreOS 3.2 we’ve made it easier to see how many resources your virtual machines are consuming verses how many the PowerStoreOS container virtual machines are using.
Scalability
Improved limitations for NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe/oF) volumes. The max number of NVMe/oF volumes are now in line with the max number of SCSI volumes allowed per appliance.
Serviceability
When troubleshooting any type of problem, the last issue you ever want to face is a bottleneck when transferring a data collection bundle up to technical support, especially when time is critical. In PowerStoreOS 3.2, we’ve added a new profile to our data collection script called “minimal”. The “minimal” profile is much smaller in size and will collect only the essential information Dell technical support needs to troubleshoot an issue. From a terminal session as service user, the script can be started using the following command:
$ svc_dc run -p minimal
Upgrading to PowerStoreOS 3.2
With any new operating system upgrade, the next question is “Ok, how do I get there?”. Thankfully, PowerStore supports a simplified and fully non-disruptive upgrade path to PowerStoreOS 3.2.
PowerStore T
PowerStore T model appliances running on 2.0.x or greater can upgrade directly to PowerStoreOS 3.2 with a single-hop upgrade. For all PowerStore upgrades, see the Dell PowerStore Software Upgrade Guide on dell.com/powerstoredocs.
PowerStore X
PowerStore X model appliances running on PowerStoreOS 2.1.1 can upgrade directly to PowerStoreOS 3.2 in a single-hop upgrade. Why not from 2.0.1.3 you ask? Well for PowerStore X, we upgraded our internal ESXi hosts to support vSphere 7 in PowerStoreOS 2.1.1. This is a rather large stepping stone which is why PowerStoreOS 2.1.1 is the minimum version required. To view the current list of vCenter Server versions, see the table “VMware Licensing and Support for PowerStore X” in the PowerStore Simple Support Matrix. Finally, make sure to see the Dell PowerStore Software Upgrade Guide on dell.com/powerstoredocs.
Conclusion
The PowerStoreOS 3.2 release offers NVMe expansion shelf support for our first generation PowerStore models, PowerStore X virtualization integration, file mobility network updates, bug fixes, and more. With the easy non-disruptive upgrade path, this is a great time to upgrade any currently deployed system.
Resources
- What’s New In PowerStoreOS 3.0?
- PowerStore Simple Support Matrix
- Dell PowerStore Software Upgrade Guide
- Dell.com/powerstoredocs
- Dell PowerStore Info Hub
Author: Ryan Meyer, Senior Engineering Technologist
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What is PowerStoreCLI Filtering?
Thu, 14 Oct 2021 21:30:03 -0000
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What is PowerStoreCLI Filtering? With the sheer volume of features that are being pumped out with every Dell EMC PowerStore release, this may be a common question among other minor features that sometimes gets overlooked. That’s why I’m here to boast some helpful PowerStoreCLI tips and show why you just might want to use the filtering feature that got an update in PowerStoreOS 2.0.
PowerStoreCLI, also known as pstcli, is a light-weight command line interface application that installs on your client that allows you to manage, provision, and modify your PowerStore cluster.
For starters, check out the Dell EMC PowerStore CLI Reference Guide and Dell EMC PowerStore REST API Reference Guide on https://www.dell.com/powerstoredocs to see the wide variety of CLI and REST API commands available. You can also download the pstcli client from the Dell Product Support page.
Now when it comes to fetching information about the system through pstcli, we generally use the “show” action command to display needed information. This could be a list of volumes, replications, hosts, alerts, or what have you. Bottom line is you’re going to use the show command quite a bit and sometimes the output can be a little cumbersome to sift through if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
This is where filtering comes into play using the “-query” switch. When we use the query capabilities, you can fine-tune your output to focus rather precisely on what you’re looking for. Query supports various conditions (and, or, not) and operators such as ==, <, >, !=, like, and contains, to name a few. If you’re familiar with SQL, the condition and operator syntax is very similar to how you would type out SQL statements. But as with all pstcli commands, you can always put a “-help” at the end of a command if you can’t remember the syntax
Filtering your pstcli commands combined with custom scripts can be quite a powerful automation tool, allowing you to filter output directly from the source, rather than putting all your filtering logic on the client side. There are tons of ways to automate through scripting which I will save for another discussion. I’ll mainly be focusing on the command line filtering aspects from the PowerStore side. Let’s look at an example of how you can filter the output of your alerts with pstcli.
I’ll be using the commands in a session to reduce screenshot clutter, so you don’t see all the login information. You don’t need to use a session to use pstcli filtering, but it’s a neat way to get familiar with pstcli, without having to see all the login and password info on every command. If you don’t know how to establish a pstcli session to your PowerStore, I recommend checking out the Dell EMC PowerStore: CLI User Guide.
The basic alert command is “alert show”. This will blast out every cached alert on the system, both active and cleared alerts.
alert show
I only listed the first few alerts in this figure because this was a long-standing system with hundreds of cleared alerts and only a few active. As you can see, there is a lot of information in the output. By default, most of the columns are abbreviated unless you have a very wide terminal and because of this, the output may not give much insight on what’s happening with the system at first glance. Combine that with the fact that you may have 100s of lines to look at. This is where filtering can really clear things up and provide you a more targeted view of your command output.
So, let’s apply some filtering. Perhaps I only want to see active alerts and ones that have a severity other than Info.
alert show -query ‘state == ACTIVE && severity != Info’
There, now my output went from 100+ lines to only displaying five alerts!
Take it one step further with the -select switch to filter out the extra columns. Let’s say my script only needs the event ID, Event Code, Timestamp, and Severity.
alert show -select id,event_code,raised_timestamp,severity -query ‘state == ACTIVE && severity != Info’
By the way, you if you prefer REST API, you can apply the same filtering logic to your REST commands! Here’s a sample REST command using curl that would return the same output from our example above:
$curl -k -u admin:<PowerStore_password> -X GET "https://<PowerStore_IP>/api/rest/alert?select=id,event_code,raised_timestamp,severity?severity=neq.Info&state=eq.ACTIVE" -H "accept: application/json"
There we go, we’ve filtered through tons of alerts to only seeing the five active alerts that we are interested in and at the same time only viewing the information we need. From here, as you can imagine the possibilities are endless!
For more information on PowerStore, I suggest checking out the PowerStore Info Hub.
Author: Ryan Meyer LinkedIn
What’s New in PowerStoreOS 3.6?
Thu, 05 Oct 2023 14:22:36 -0000
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Dell PowerStoreOS 3.6 is the latest software release on the Dell PowerStore platform.
This release contains a diversified feature set in categories such as hardware, data protection, NVMe/TCP, file, and serviceability. The following list provides a brief overview of the major features in those categories:
- Hardware: PowerStoreOS 3.6 introduces the highly anticipated Data-In-Place (DIP) upgrade feature, which allows users to perform a hardware refresh while remaining online, with no downtime or host migration.
- Data Protection: PowerStoreOS 3.6 now includes support for Metro Witness Server, which allows users to configure a fully active-active configuration for metro volumes across two PowerStore clusters—with more intelligent failure handling, resiliency, and availability during an unplanned outage.
- NVMe/TCP enhancements: Users now have the option to use NVMe storage containers to support host access through the NVMe/TCP protocol for Virtual Volumes (vVols).
- File: Administrators can perform disaster recovery tests within a network bubble, while using an identical configuration as their production NAS server environment.
- Serviceability: To build on the existing remote syslog implementation, PowerStore alerts can now be forwarded to one or more remote syslog servers in PowerStoreOS 3.6. The following sections also provide information about the Non-Disruptive Upgrade (NDU) paths to the PowerStoreOS 3.6 release.
Hardware
Data-In-Place (DIP) upgrades
Data-In-Place upgrades allow users to convert their PowerStore Appliance from a PowerStore x000T model to a PowerStore x200T model. This is a non-disruptive process because only a single node is upgraded at a time, while the other node continues to service host I/O. Data-In-Place upgrades are performed easily through PowerStore Manager’s Hardware tab.
The following table outlines the supported Data-In-Place upgrade paths from the source to target models. For PowerStore 9000T models, only block-optimized upgrades are supported to the PowerStore 9200T model. When upgrading a PowerStore 3000T to a PowerStore 5200T model, additional NVRAM drives are required. When upgrading from a PowerStore 5000T model to a PowerStore 9200T model, a power supply upgrade may also be required.
Note: *Denotes only block-optimized upgrade is supported
Data Protection
Metro Witness server support
Metro Volume support was introduced in PowerStoreOS 3.0. Since PowerStoreOS 3.0, Metro Volumes required manual intervention to fail over if the preferred site went down. PowerStoreOS 3.6 introduces the Metro Witness server feature. The Metro Witness server runs software that automatically forces the non-preferred site to remain online and service I/O if the preferred site were to go offline.
The Metro Witness software is a distributed RPM package available for Linux SLES or RHEL distributions. The RPM can be deployed on a bare-metal server or a virtual machine. The Metro Witness server and software can easily be set up in minutes!
NVMe/TCP enhancements
NVMe/TCP for Virtual Volumes (vVols)
NVMe is transfer protocol that is specifically designed for connecting Solid State Drives (SSDs) to PCIe buses. NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) is an extension of the NVMe protocol to both TCP and Fibre Channel (FC) data streams. PowerStore currently supports both TCP and FC as NVMe-oF transports.
With the VMware vSphere 8.0U1 release, VMware introduced NVMe/TCP support for vVols. As the request for NVMe/TCP support grows, PowerStoreOS 3.6 expands its existing NVMe/TCP support to vVols as well! With this feature, PowerStore will be the industry’s 1st array to support NVMe/TCP for vVols[1].
From a performance perspective, NVMe/TCP is comparable to FC. From a cost perspective, NVMe/TCP infrastructure is cheaper than FC and can leverage existing network infrastructure. NVMe/TCP has a higher performance benefit than iSCSI and has lower hardware costs than FC. With the addition of NVMe/TCP support for vVols in PowerStoreOS 3.6, we combine performance, cost, and storage/compute granularity for system administrators.
File
Disaster Recovery (DR) tests within a network bubble
Many organizations are required to run disaster recovery (DR) tests using the exact same configuration as production. This includes identical IP addresses and fully qualified domain names. Running these types of tests reduces risk, increases reproducibility, and minimizes the chance of any surprises during an actual disaster recovery event.
These DR tests are carried out in an isolated environment, which is completely siloed from the production environment. Using network segmentation for proper isolation allows there to be no impact to production or replication. This allows users to meet the requirements of using identical IP addresses and FQDNs during their DR tests.
In PowerStoreOS 3.6, the appliance offers the file capability to create a Disaster Recovery Test (DRT) NAS server with a DR test interface. These DRT NAS servers permit a user to create a NAS server with an identical configuration as production, including the ability to duplicate IP addresses.
Note: DRT NAS servers and interfaces can only be configured using the CLI or REST API.
Serviceability
Remote Syslog support for PowerStore alerts
PowerStoreOS 2.0.x introduced support for remote syslog for auditing. These audit types included:
- Config
- System
- Service
- Authentication / Authorization / Logout
PowerStoreOS 3.6 has added support for forwarding of system alerts as well. This equips system administrators with more versatility to monitor their PowerStore appliances from a centralized location.
Upgrade Path
The following table outlines the NDU paths to upgrade to the PowerStoreOS 3.6 release. Depending on your source release, it may be a one or two step upgrade.
Note: *Denotes source release is not supported on PowerStore 500T models
Conclusion
The PowerStoreOS 3.6 release offers numerous feature enhancements that are unique and deepen the platform. It’s no surprise that PowerStore is deployed in over 90% of Fortune 500 vertical sectors[2] [1]. With PowerStore continuing to deliver on hardware, data protection, NVMe/TCP, file, and serviceability in this release, it’s no secret that the product is extremely adaptable and versatile in modern IT environments.
Resources
For additional information about the features described in this blog, plus other information about the PowerStoreOS 3.6 release, see the following white papers and solution documents:
- Dell PowerStore: Introduction to the Platform
- Dell PowerStore Manager Overview
- Dell PowerStore: File Capabilities
- Dell PowerStore: Replication Technologies
- Dell PowerStore: Virtualization Integration
- Dell PowerStore: Metro Volume
- Dell PowerStore: VMware vSphere Best Practices
- Dell PowerStore: VMware Site Recovery Manager Best Practices
- Dell PowerStore: VMware vSphere with Tanzu and TKG Clusters
- NVMe Transport Performance Comparison
Other Resources
- What’s New in PowerStoreOS 3.5?
- PowerStore Simple Support Matrix
- PowerStore: Info Hub – Product Documentation & Videos
- Dell Technologies PowerStore Info Hub
Author: Louie Sasa
[1] PowerStore is the industry's first array to support NVMe/TCP for vVols. Based on Dell internal analysis, September 2023.
[2] As of January 2023, based on internal analysis of vertical industry categories from 2022 Fortune 500 rankings.