NetApp Simulator 8.1 7-Mode Walkthrough Setup Guide

This walkthrough guide is specifically using the current latest version of the NetApp Simulator ONTAP – version 8.1, and running the lab inside VMware Workstation 8 (*see Appendix B for Simulate ONTAP 8.1 Hardware and Software Requirements.) The NetApp Simulator is an excellent tool to learn about NetApp filers in a virtual lab environment.

Step n the B1: Download or Obtaiinaries

Go to http://now.netapp.com/NOW/cgi-bin/simulator and login with your NetApp NOW account.

Select the Simulator 8.x link, and choose the links to download the Simulate ONTAP 8.1 7-mode and C-mode simulators for VMware Workstation or ESX as required (*see Appendix C for Differences Between ONTAP 7-Mode and C-Mode,) and the 8.1 licenses

Installing & Maximising the NetApp ONTAP 8.1 Simulator

UPDATE 7 September 2012:  NetApp has released its Virtual Storage Appliance, Data ONTAP Edge which is a licensed functional VSA.
One of the strengths of NetApp’s storage offering is that its controller operating system called Data ONTAP is the same across every NetApp Filer storage product they sell. This is hugely significant as it means if you know how to administer and configure the smallest FAS2000 Series Filers you are pretty much up to speed to administer and configure Filers up to their biggest and beefiest FAS6200 Series Filers so you don’t have to learn another management interface when you upgrade.
NetApp has also produced a Data ONTAP Simulator which in their words is a “A tool that gives you the experience of administering and using a NetApp storage system with all the features of Data ONTAP at your disposal.”
There have been various versions of the simulator over the years which initially could be installed on a simple RedHat or SuSE Linux box using emulated disks and have the same look and feel as a real NetApp Filer (without the rack space requirement or electricity bill!). Things progressed over the years and you could use more Linux distros. Nowadays there is a pre-built VMware virtual machine so you don’t have to install RedHat or SuSE beforehand.
Unfortunately the simulator is only available to existing NetApp Customers and Advantage Partners and requires a login to the NetApp Support Site, http://now.netapp.com
I was about to start a serious rant about this limited availability when surprisingly whilst writing this post Vaughn Stewart sent out a tweet that NetApp are in fact looking at the possibility of opening up access to the simulator for version 8.1 which is fantastic news.
I fiercely believe opening up access to learning and training tools allows so many more people to learn about your technology in their own time and if they know about your technology they are more likely to buy!

NetApp releases its Virtual Storage Appliance, Data ONTAP Edge

NetApp has released its long awaited Virtual Storage Appliance which it has called Data ONTAP Edge and also has made available an evaluation version for the masses.
NetApp previously had a VSA which was available only for partners but it was fairly limited in what it could do, had very limited disk space and wasn’t the simplest VSA to set up.
I have worked with the previous VSA and blogged on how to make it a little more usable by increase the disk space in my post Installing & Maximising the NetApp ONTAP 8.1 Simulator which has been one of the most popular posts on this blog which shows you the interest.
Unfortunately my hackery wasn’t entirely successful and the expanded VSA wasn’t always stable despite my best efforts.
NetApp has now answered the call and released a VSA which is no longer just for evaluation use and available for everyone. It is being pitched as "a low-cost remote office storage solution".  The maximum usable storage is 5 TB which is a vast improvement from the 20 GB available with the previous unmodified VSA. This release of ONTAP Edge runs ONTAP 8.1.1. It’s a VM that runs on ESXi which requires 2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM and obviously available disk space.
I don’t know details on pricing or how this will be structured and whether you will be charged based on capacity.

NetApp PowerShell Toolkit, DataONTAP 3 released with new Performance Monitoring and full ONTAP 8.2 API Support

Two major features have been added:
A new cmdlet Invoke-NcSysstat which is like Invoke-NaSysstat and allows you to monitor cluster system performance stats for:  System, FCP, NFSv3, NFSv4, CIFS, iSCSI, Volume, Ifnet, LUN, and Disk.
Invoke-NcSysstat works in both the cluster and Vserver context for Data ONTAP 8.2 and up. For Data ONTAP versions previous to 8.2, Invoke-NcSysstat must be run in the cluster context. Ifnet and Disk performance stats aren’t available when running against the Vserver context.

NetApp PowerShell Toolkit, DataONTAP 1.7 released with VHD/VMDK file conversion and VHD alignment

NetApp has today updated it’s Powershell Toolkit, DataONTAP to version 1.7.
I’ve said it before but a rebranding to PowerONTAP would be a much cooler!
The major features include:
VHD/VMDK file conversion. You can use ConvertTo-NaVhd and ConvertTo-NaVmdk to use NetApp FlexClone to convert between VHD files used on Hyper-V & XenServer and VMDK files on VMware. That could make any hypervisor migrations so much easier.
VHD partition detection and alignment using Get-NaVirtualDiskAlignment and Repair-NaVirtualDiskAlignment on MBR fixed VDH files.
Data ONTAP 8.1 Cluster-Mode Support with 227 new cmdlets, yes that is 227 NEW cmdlets bringing the total Cluster-Mode cmdlets to 375.
CIFS rapid file cloning so you can duplicate files within CIFS shares (great for say refreshing test datasets from prod) using file level FlexClone.