Table of Contents...(HCI) and build a Digital Foundation. vSAN 6.7 U1 simplifies operations by streamlining the deployment process, improving lifecycle management, reducing disruptions

Table of ContentsWhat's New with vSAN 6.7 Update 1 Lightning Lab .......................................................... 2

What's New with vSAN 6.7 U1 - Overview............................................................... 3Introduction............................................................................................................. 4Utilize Cluster Quickstart to build a vSAN Cluster ................................................... 6Gain Improved Insight with vSAN Cluster Capacity Reports..................................22Leverage Improved Guidance of Health Checks and Recommendations ..............26Understand Improved Space Efficiency Using Storage Reclamation .....................29Explore Powerful Management through PowerCLI Improvements .........................30Review In-Product Support Diagnostics for Faster Time to Resolution ..................33Examine Improved Resource Decommissioning Safeguards .................................35Conclusion............................................................................................................. 40Appendix - Lab Guidance ...................................................................................... 41

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What's New with vSAN6.7 Update 1 Lightning

Lab

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What's New with vSAN 6.7 U1 -OverviewWelcome to the What's New with vSAN 6.7 Update 1 Lightning Lab.

We have developed Lightning Labs to help you learn about VMware products in smallsegments of time.

In this Lab, you will get an overview of the key features that have been introduced withvSAN 6.7 Update 1.

Lab Captains:

• John Browne, Staff Technical Support Specialist, Cork, Ireland• Aleksey Lib, Senior Integration Architect, California, USA• Diane Scott, Senior Solutions Engineer, California, USA

Special Thanks for their tremendous contributions, guidance and assistance:

• Pete Koehler,Senior Technical Marketing Architect• Jeff Hunter, Group Manager, vSAN Tech Marketing• Pete Flecha, Senior Technical Marketing Architect• Jase McCarty, Staff Technical Marketing Architect

If you have never taken a lab, please view the to see best practices and tips on how touse the lab environment console.

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IntroductionVMware vSAN 6.7 U1 makes it even easier to adopt Hyper-Converged Infrastructure(HCI) and build a Digital Foundation.

vSAN 6.7 U1 simplifies operations by streamlining the deployment process, improvinglifecycle management, reducing disruptions during maintenance operations, andimproving capacity reporting. These updates help administrators more quickly andeasily deploy and extend infrastructure while minimizing disruptions while keeping theenvironment up to date.

In this lesson, we will:

• Utilize Cluster Quickstart to build a vSAN Cluster• Gain Improved Insight with vSAN Cluster Capacity Reports• Leverage Improved Guidance of Health Checks and Recommendations• Understand Improved Space Efficiency Using Storage Reclamation• Explore Powerful Management through PowerCLI Improvements• Review In-Product Support Diagnostics for Faster Time to Resolution• Examine Improved Resource Decommissioning Safeguards

Lab Preparation

We will use our Module Switcher PowerCLI Application to prepare the environment.

Module Switcher

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Module 1 Start

1. Click the Module 1 - Start button

This Startup Routine can take a few minutes to complete - thank you for your patience !

Monitor Progress

Monitor Progress until Complete.

• Press Enter to continue (and close the PowerCLI Window)

Lab Prep Complete

Your Lab has been successfully prepared!

1. Click Close [X] to safely close the Module Switcher

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Utilize Cluster Quickstart to build avSAN ClusterIn vSAN 6.7 U1, we tackled the task of making the initial setup, as well as ongoingexpansion of a cluster as intuitive as possible. vSAN 6.7 U1 introduces anew “Quickstart” guided cluster creation and extension wizard in vCenter thatguides the user through the deployment process for vSAN and non-vSAN clusters.

Open Chrome Browser from Windows Quick LaunchTaskBar

1. Click on the Chrome Icon on the Windows Quick Launch Task Bar.

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Login to vSphere Client

1. On the vSphere Client login screen, select "Use Windows sessionauthentication"

2. Click Login

Hosts and Clusters

1. Select Menu2. Click Hosts and Clusters

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** Did you turn on the Module Switcher (HOL-2008-Lightning) on page 5?

Configure Cluster Quickstart

1. Expand RegionA01 Datacenter and select RegionA01-COMP01 Cluster2. Select Configure3. Expand Configuration if necessary and select Quickstart4. Click EDIT

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Edit Cluster Settings

1. Indicate that you would like to enable DRS, vSphere HA and vSAN by enablingthe toggle switches

2. Click OK

Add hosts

1. Underneath '2. Add hosts', click ADD

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You might need to scroll to see - not shown

Add new and existing hosts to your cluster

1. Select Existing hosts (0 from 8)2. Click Hostname / IP Address to sort list3. Select esx-01a.corp.local, esx-02a.corp.local and esx-03a.corp.local4. Click NEXT

Note: The 'Existing hosts (0 from 8)' description will update to reflect the number ofselected hosts

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Host summary

1. Click NEXT

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Review and Finish

1. Click FINISH

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Validate

1. Scroll Down until you can see the Add hosts section (this view may cycle for afew seconds before fully displaying)

2. Note that you are provided a 'Pre-Flight Checklist' indicating whether therequirements for the Services that you have selected (DRS, vSphere HA, andvSAN) can be met. (The SCSI controller is VMware certified warning messageis expected as we are running in a nested virtualized environment vs. utilizing aphysical controller)

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Configure cluster

1. Scroll Down until you can see the '3. Configure cluster' section from theQuickStart

2. Click CONFIGURE

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Distributed switches

A vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) has already been pre-configured in the Labenvironment, therefore:

1. Enable the checkbox for Configure networking settings later2. Click NEXT

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Advanced options

1. Scroll Down until vSAN Options is viewable2. Enable Deduplication and compression and Disable Fault domains3. Click NEXT

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Claim disks

1. Select Host in the Group by drop-down menu2. Note that each Host has 1x Cache Device and 2x Capacity Devices (you can

scroll down using your keyboard down arrow as necessary)3. Click NEXT

Note: These disks will form a single Disk Group per Host.

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Ready to complete

1. Here we can determine that we will be creating a vSAN datastore with a capacityof 60.00 GB and cache of 15.00 GB. (This is an All Flash vSAN Cluster, whereboth the Cache and Capacity disks are SSD/Flash disks).

2. Click FINISH

Monitor Progress

1. Select Recent Tasks in the lower left-hand corner

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2. Select Running via the drop-down selector and Monitor until all tasks arecomplete

3. Minimize the Recent Tasks view (not shown)

Online Health

Now that the vSAN Datastore has been enabled, let's examine the Health of the vSANEnvironment:

1. Click Online health from the '3. Configure hosts' from the QuickStart.

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Health

vSAN has over 50 Health Checks Out of Box and the ability to leverage additional OnlineHealth Checks.

1. Examine the various Health Checks

Note: Hardware compatibility and Online health warnings are expected given thenested nature of the Lab and lack of external Internet access for online health checks.

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vsanDatastore

1. Click the Storage icon and expand RegionA01 if necessary2. Note that our vsanDatastore is now present (this is a vCenter alias and can be

re-named without impacting vSAN)

Lesson Complete

Congratulations!

You have successfully enabled vSAN via the new vSphere 6.7 U1 Cluster QuickstartWizard. This same wizard can be utilized to modify the Cluster in the future (e.g. Addingadditional Hosts as one example).

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Gain Improved Insight with vSANCluster Capacity ReportsCapacity utilization is a top of mind concern to those responsible for day-to-dayadministration of an environment. vSAN 6.7 U1 introduces two new features to helpadministrators better understand the capacity usage of a vSAN cluster.

Browser Zoom

1. Select the Elipses in the Chrome Browser upper-right hand corner2. Set Zoom to 80% (this will give us more visual real estate for the next section)

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Capacity

1. Select the Hosts and Clusters Icon2. Select the RegionA01-COMP01 Cluster3. Select Monitor4. Scroll Down5. Select vSAN\Capacity

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Usable Capacity Estimator

1. A new “usable capacity estimator” grants the user the ability to easily see thefree space available based on the use of the desired storage policy. A user isprovided with an ongoing history of deduplication ratios to understand howchanges in an environment may have impacted deduplication ratios.

2. Click CAPACITY HISTORY

Note: We currently only have the Default vSAN (RAID1) policy in our lab; however, ifthere were additional policies like RAID5, for example, you could see the free spacesavings prior to actually switching to that policy.

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Capacity History

1. We’ve introduced the ability to see historical data for information such as totalcapacity used and remaining over the course of time.

Lesson Complete

These improvements to vSAN will provide better visibility and comprehension of storageutilization for smarter decision making.

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Leverage Improved Guidance of HealthChecks and RecommendationsThe follow lesson reviews the improvements to Health Check and Recommendations.

Health Enhancements

The health check feature of vSAN continues to play a prominent role in its ability toensure that an environment meets hardware and software configuration requirements.vSAN 6.7 U1 extends this feature even more, with a more robust way of handling

multiple approved firmware levels for storage controllers. A new Unicast networkperformance health check and test ensures that proper continuity is achieved betweenvSAN hosts, and will report network bandwidth results for the tests.

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Health Enhancements

1. Select Hosts and Clusters Icon2. Select RegionA01-COMP013. Select Monitor4. Click vSAN\Health

Silence Health Check

vSAN 6.7 U1 also introduces functionality that is now accessible in the UI. Healthchecks can be silenced granularly, directly in the UI, as well as being able to purgeinaccessible swap objects that are no longer needed.

1. Select SCSI controller is VMware certified2. Click Silence Alert

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3. Click Yes (not shown)

Retest

1. Click RETEST2. Note that the SCSI Controller test is grayed out and no longer throwing an Alert

(not shown)

Lesson Complete

These improvements improve the effectiveness of vSAN’s ability to not onlyrecognize issues, but remediate them.

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Understand Improved Space EfficiencyUsing Storage ReclamationThis lesson reviews improvements in space efficiency.

Utilize Cluster Quickstart to build a vSAN Cluster

Modern guest operating systems have the ability to reclaim no longer used space oncedata is deleted inside of a guest operating system. Using commands known as TRIM/UNMAP for the respective ATA and SCSI protocols, this helps the guest operatingsystems be more efficient with storage space usage. vSAN 6.7 U1 now has fullawareness of TRIM/UNMAP commands sent from the guest OS, and can reclaim thepreviously allocated storage as free space.

Lesson Complete

We are unable to show you this feature in action in our nested virtualized lab; however,we thought it was important to make you aware of this new capability. This is anopportunistic space efficiency feature that can deliver much better storage capacityutilization in vSAN environments. Administrators may find in some cases, dramaticspace savings in their production vSAN environments.

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Explore Powerful Management throughPowerCLI ImprovementsThe following lesson reviews PowerCLI improvements.

Utilize Cluster Quickstart to build a vSAN Cluster

A robust command line interface is important for not only automation at scale, itprovides programmatic consistency across any size of an environment. With PowerCLIversion 11, vSAN customers will see improvements to new PowerCLI cmdlets that areintended to replace Ruby vSphere Console commands.

Launch Windows Powershell

1. Click the Windows Powershell icon on the Windows Quick Launch Taskbar

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Connect to vCenter

1. Issue the following command to connect to vCenter:

connect-viserver vcsa-01a.corp.local

Examine vSAN cmdlets

1. List the vSAN related cmdlets by typing:

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help *vsan*

2. Press any key to complete list (not shown)

Note: These cmdlets can be used to not only check the health of vSAN but also worktowards automating tasks that you would otherwise perform manually via vCenter.There are many references online for additional information.

Test new vSAN cmdlet

1. Type the following (note that you can use Tab completion to avoid having to typethe entire command):

Get-VsanEvacuationPlan -entity esx-01a.corp.local

This new cmdlet simulates how host failures impact vSAN resource usage. This is justone example of the many other new cmdlets that there are to explore.

Lesson Complete

PowerCLI has proven to be a flexible way to interface with vSAN, and expanding itscapabilities will improve efficiencies in administration of a vSAN environment. Theongoing PowerCLI improvements in vSAN 6.7 U1 make vSAN even easier toadminister using the wildly popular PowerCLI interface.

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Review In-Product Support Diagnosticsfor Faster Time to Resolution

Improving time to resolution is a win for both the customer, and VMware. VMware hasmade great advances in improving the customer support experience with recenteditions of vSAN. vSAN 6.6.1 introduced “vSAN Support Insight” which is VMware’smethod of automatically collecting vital infrastructure telemetry data about anenvironment for the VMware technical support engineers in our global support servicesgroup. vSAN 6.7 U1 continues with these improvements, introducing fine grained, deeplevel performance graphs for the explicit purpose of issue resolution.

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Performance for Support

1. Select RegionA01-COMP012. Select Monitor3. Select Support4. Click PERFORMANCE FOR SUPPORT

NOTE: The VMware support diagnostics is a built-in tool to assist GSS in theirtroubleshooting efforts. This is designed to replace, a deprecated, external tool knownas vSAN Observer. The tool is built-in to the UI and does not require anything to beenabled or disabled.

Lesson Complete

These advances help reduce the need to request log support bundles from the hosts,and when they are absolutely necessary, will contain even more critical data for betterroot cause analysis.

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Examine Improved ResourceDecommissioning Safeguards

Since each vSAN host in a cluster contributes to the cluster storage capacity, entering ahost into maintenance mode takes on an additional set of tasks when compared to atraditional architecture. vSAN 6.7 U1 has improved the safeguards when performingmaintenance and decommissioning activities on vSAN hosts. vSAN will now perform afull simulation of data movement to determine if the Enter Maintenance Mode (EMM)action will succeed for fail before it even starts. This will prevent unnecessary datamovement, and provide a result more quickly to the administrator.

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Enter Maintenance Mode for One Host

1. Right-Click esx-01a.corp.local2. Select Maintenance Mode\Enter Maintenance Mode3. Click OK (not shown)4. Monitor until Host show Maintenance Mode Icon (not shown)

Attempt Maintenance Mode for another Host

1. Right-Click esx-02a.corp.local2. Select Maintenance Mode\Enter Maintenance Mode

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Maintenance Mode Warning

1. Note that you are warned about the risk of putting another host intomaintenance mode (in this 3-Node Cluster, if we took 2 of the 3 Hosts offline thenVM storage would be inaccessible).

2. Click CANCEL

Exit Maintenance Mode

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1. Right-Click esx-01a.corp.local2. Select Maintenance Mode\Exit Maintenance Mode

Object Repair Timer

1. Select RegionA01-COMP012. Select Configure3. Select vSAN\Services4. Expand Advanced Options5. Click EDIT

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Advanced Options

1. When a host is in maintenance mode (unless the Full data migration optionwas selected) the objects on the host will be considered absent. vSAN will wait 60minutes until initiating a rebuild of the absent objects on remaining hosts.This isbecause vSAN is not certain if the failure is transient or permanent. If the host willonly be in maintenance mode for a few minutes it doesn't make sense tocompletely rebuild all the objects on a different host. If the host will be offline formore than the default 60 minutes the administrator can modify the vSAN Objectrepair timer. As of vSAN 6.7 U1 this setting is available in the UI. This isnow a cluster-wide setting and will apply to all hosts in the cluster vs.having to set this individually/separately on each host.

2. Click CANCEL

Lesson Complete

All of these improvements are added to enhance the overall experience andpredictability of host decommissioning activities like entering a host intomaintenance mode.

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ConclusionThank you for completing the What's New with vSAN 6.7 Update 1 Lightning Lab!

Lab Finished

Congratulations on completing the Lab.

If you are looking for additional information on topic:

• vSAN Customer References by Industry• vSAN Use Cases• vSAN Operations Guide• vSAN Design and Sizing Guide• vSAN Compatibility Guide• Go to VMware Storage Hub for all things related to vSAN.

How to End Lab

To end your lab click on the END button.

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https://www.vmware.com/products/vsan/customers.html

https://storagehub.vmware.com/t/vmware-vsan/use-cases/

https://storagehub.vmware.com/t/vmware-vsan/operations-and-management-1/

https://storagehub.vmware.com/t/vmware-vsan/vmware-r-vsan-tm-design-and-sizing-guide-2/

https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=vsan

https://storagehub.vmware.com/#!/vmware-vsan

Appendix - Lab GuidanceThe Table of Contents can be accessed in the upper right-hand corner of theLab Manual.

Lab Module List:

• What's New with vSAN 6.7 Update 1 [30-45 mins] [Basic]

Location of the Main Console

1. The area in the RED box contains the Main Console. The Lab Manual is on the tabto the Right of the Main Console.

2. A particular lab may have additional consoles found on separate tabs in the upperleft. You will be directed to open another specific console if needed.

3. Your lab starts with 90 minutes on the timer. The lab can not be saved. All yourwork must be done during the lab session. But you can click the EXTEND toincrease your time. If you are at a VMware event, you can extend your lab timetwice, for up to 30 minutes. Each click gives you an additional 15 minutes.Outside of VMware events, you can extend your lab time up to 9 hours and 30

minutes. Each click gives you an additional hour.

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Alternate Methods of Keyboard Data Entry

During this module, you will input text into the Main Console. Besides directly typing itin, there are two very helpful methods of entering data which make it easier to entercomplex data.

Click and Drag Lab Manual Content Into Console ActiveWindow

You can also click and drag text and Command Line Interface (CLI) commands directlyfrom the Lab Manual into the active window in the Main Console.

Accessing the Online International Keyboard

You can also use the Online International Keyboard found in the Main Console.

1. Click on the Keyboard Icon found on the Windows Quick Launch Task Bar.

<div class="player-unavailable"><h1 class="message">An error occurred.</h1><div class="submessage"><ahref="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS07n6GzGuo" target="_blank">Try watching this video on www.youtube.com</a>, or enableJavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.</div></div>

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Click once in active console window

In this example, you will use the Online Keyboard to enter the "@" sign used in emailaddresses. The "@" sign is Shift-2 on US keyboard layouts.

1. Click once in the active console window.2. Click on the Shift key.

Click on the @ key

1. Click on the "@ key".

Notice the @ sign entered in the active console window.

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Activation Prompt or Watermark

When you first start your lab, you may notice a watermark on the desktop indicatingthat Windows is not activated.

One of the major benefits of virtualization is that virtual machines can be moved andrun on any platform. The Hands-on Labs utilizes this benefit and we are able to run thelabs out of multiple datacenters. However, these datacenters may not have identicalprocessors, which triggers a Microsoft activation check through the Internet.

Rest assured, VMware and the Hands-on Labs are in full compliance with Microsoftlicensing requirements. The lab that you are using is a self-contained pod and does nothave full access to the Internet, which is required for Windows to verify the activation.Without full access to the Internet, this automated process fails and you see this

watermark.

This cosmetic issue has no effect on your lab.

Look at the lower right portion of the screen

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Please check to see that your lab is finished all the startup routines and is ready for youto start. If you see anything other than "Ready", please wait a few minutes. If after 5minutes your lab has not changed to "Ready", please ask for assistance.

Please click here to begin your Lightning Lab!

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ConclusionThank you for participating in the VMware Hands-on Labs. Be sure to visithttp://hol.vmware.com/ to continue your lab experience online.

Lab SKU: HOL-2008-91-HCI

Version: 20191105-154511

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http://hol.vmware.com/

Documents

Table of Contents...(HCI) and build a Digital Foundation. vSAN 6.7 U1 simplifies operations by streamlining the deployment process, improving lifecycle management, reducing disruptions