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Q2 2024 Update for Ansible Integrations with Dell Infrastructure
Tue, 09 Jul 2024 15:13:10 -0000
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Here is a summary of what’s new in the Ansible collections for the Dell ISG portfolio:
- Ansible collection for PowerFlex: v2.4 and 2.5
- Ansible collection for PowerStore: v3.3 and 3.4
- Ansible collection for PowerScale: v2.4 and 2.5
Ansible collection for PowerFlex
Following are the enhancements that are part of Ansible collections for PowerFlex v2.4 and v2.5:
- Support for PowerFlex 4.6 (v2.5)
- Support for PowerFlex on AWS (v2.4)
- Storage pool module enhancements (v2.5)
Storage pool module enhancements
The Storage Pool module has been enhanced to support the following configuration attributes:
- Enable / disable zero padding - zero padding must be enabled before adding any devices to the storage
- Set replication journal capacity
- Enable / disable persistent checksum
- Modify persistent checksum
- Set capacity alert thresholds - high and critical threshold percentage
- Set protected maintenance mode I/O priority policy
- Set rebalance enabled
- Set rebalance I/O priority policy
- Set V-Tree migration I/O priority policy
- Set spare percentage
- Set RMcache write handling mode
- Enable/Disable rebuilds
- Set rebuild/rebalance parallelism
- Enable/Disable fragmentation
Here is how a storage pool configuration looks with the latest module:
- name: Create a new Storage pool register: result dellemc.powerflex.storagepool: hostname: "{{ hostname }}" username: "{{ username }}" password: "{{ password }}" validate_certs: "{{ validate_certs }}" storage_pool_name: "{{ pool_name }}" protection_domain_name: "{{ protection_domain_name }}" cap_alert_thresholds: high_threshold: 30 critical_threshold: 50 media_type: "TRANSITIONAL" enable_zero_padding: true rep_cap_max_ratio: 40 rmcache_write_handling_mode: "Passthrough" spare_percentage: 80 enable_rebalance: false enable_fragmentation: false enable_rebuild: false use_rmcache: true use_rfcache: true parallel_rebuild_rebalance_limit: 3 protected_maintenance_mode_io_priority_policy: policy: "unlimited" rebalance_io_priority_policy: policy: "unlimited" vtree_migration_io_priority_policy: policy: "limitNumOfConcurrentIos" concurrent_ios_per_device: 10 persistent_checksum: enable: false state: "present"
Ansible collection for PowerStore
Dell PowerStore is the most modern storage array designed to handle diverse workloads with advanced data-centric capabilities. PowerStoreOS 4.0 introduces significant updates, including enhanced data efficiency with advanced compression algorithms, new PowerStore 3200Q with QLC drives for cost-effective storage, expanded networking capabilities, and improved data protection with Metro Volume support for Linux and Windows. It also offers native synchronous replication for block and file resources, easier migrations, and new features like system health scores, one-click updates, and dynamic node affinity for vVols. Enhanced security measures and improved serviceability are also part of this release. We have added Ansible module support for this release in PowerStore Ansible collections v3.3. In v3.4, the SMB Share module has been enhanced with support for access control lists (ACL) that are key to NAS file management.
SMB Share - support for ACL
The latest SMB Share module supports creation of a share with explicit ACL permissions. Here is an example:
- name: Create SMB share for a filesystem with ACL dellemc.powerstore.smbshare: array_ip: "{{ array_ip }}" validate_certs: "{{ validate_certs }}" user: "{{ user }}" password: "{{ password }}" share_name: "sample_smb_share" filesystem: "sample_fs" nas_server: "{{ nas_server_id }}" path: "{{ path }}" description: "Sample SMB share created" is_abe_enabled: true is_branch_cache_enabled: true offline_availability: "DOCUMENTS" is_continuous_availability_enabled: true is_encryption_enabled: true acl: - access_level: "Full" access_type: "Allow" trustee_name: "TEST-56\\Guest" trustee_type: "User" state: "present" - access_level: "Read" access_type: "Deny" trustee_name: "S-1-5-21-8-5-1-32" trustee_type: "SID" state: "present" state: "present"
Ansible collection for PowerScale
Following are the enhancements that are part of Ansible collections for PowerScale v3.1:
- New module dellemc.powerscale.support_assist to manage support assist settings on a PowerScale Storage System
- Support for the latest OneFS 9.8
- Updated Role module – Support to add a user or group to a role
- Updated SMB Module – Added support for running as root (run-as-root), along with other permission flags such as allow_delete_readonly, allow_execute_always, and inheritable_path_acl for an SMB Share
Support for Remote Support/Support Assist
Dell SupportAssist is the latest generation of call-home functionality of the legacy ESRS functionality. Starting OneFS 9.5, this new capability has been rolled out to PowerScale. To learn more, check out this blog post by my colleague, Nick Trimbee. A new module to configure SupportAssist is now available for PowerScale. Here is an example playbook with different tasks you can run and parameters you can configure:
--- - name: Support assist module operations on PowerScale Storage hosts: localhost connection: local vars: input: &powerscale_connection onefs_host: "10.XX.XX.XX" port_no: "8080" api_user: "user" api_password: "password" verify_ssl: false tasks: - name: Accept support assist terms dellemc.powerscale.support_assist: <<: *powerscale_connection accepted_terms: true - name: Get support assist settings dellemc.powerscale.support_assist: <<: *powerscale_connection register: support_assist_settings - name: Print support assist settings debug: var: support_assist_settings - name: Update support assist settings dellemc.powerscale.support_assist: <<: *powerscale_connection enable_download: false enable_remote_support: false automatic_case_creation: false connection: gateway_endpoints: - enabled: true gateway_host: "XX.XX.XX.XX" gateway_port: 9443 priority: 2 use_proxy: false validate_ssl: false network_pools: - pool_name: "subnet0:pool0" state: absent - pool_name: "subnet0:pool2" state: present contact: primary: first_name: "Eric" last_name: "Nam" email: "eric.nam@example.com" phone: "1234567890" secondary: first_name: "Daniel" last_name: "Kang" email: "kangD@example.com" phone: "1234567891" telemetry: offline_collection_period: 60 telemetry_enabled: true telemetry_persist: true telemetry_threads: 10
That’s it for Ansible in Q2 2024. Check out what’s new with Terraform providers for Dell infrastructure in this blog post.
Author: Parasar Kodati, Engineering Technologist, Dell ISG