Dell Storage Automation User Manual
H18024
Technical White Paper
Storage Automation with the Dell EMC
PowerMax Plug-in for VMware vRealize
Orchestrator
Abstract
This document describes how the Dell EMC PowerMax plug-in for VMware
vRealize Orchestrator enables automation of storage arrays to accelerate and
simplify provisioning operations and business processes.
October 2019
Revisions
2 Storage Automation with the Dell EMC PowerMax Plug-in for VMware vRealize Orchestrator | H18024
Revisions
Date
Description
November 2019
Initial release
Acknowledgements
Author: Bryan McFeeters
The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this
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Copyright © 2021 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its
subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners. [2/23/2021] [Technical White Paper] [H18024]
Table of contents
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Table of contents
Revisions............................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................................. 2
Table of contents ................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Executive summary ............................................................................................................................................................. 4
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 5
2 PowerMax plug-in for vRO ........................................................................................................................................... 6
3 Installing the plug-in and registering PowerMax arrays ............................................................................................... 8
4 Creating datastores for a new ESX cluster ................................................................................................................ 10
5 Scheduling snapshots ................................................................................................................................................ 12
6 Automatically exporting storage to new hosts in an ESXi cluster .............................................................................. 17
7 Expanding a volume and the datastore on it .............................................................................................................. 19
8 vRealize automation integration ................................................................................................................................. 20
9 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................. 21
A Technical support and resources ............................................................................................................................... 22
Executive summary
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Executive summary
With so many data center resources and tools available to IT administrators today, combining them with an
incredibly fast Dell EMC™ PowerMax storage array and automated workflows from VMware® vRealize®
Orchestrator™ (vRO) can be revolutionary. The PowerMax vRO plug-in builds upon the VMware vRealize
platform ecosystem and enables automation to accelerate frequent, simple provisioning operations as well as
complex, value-added, and multi-stage business processes. VMware vRO integrates with the vRealize and
vCloud suites to further improve service delivery efficiency, operational management, and IT process agility.
This document describes the vRO plug-in and use cases that enable organizations to consume storage from
the data center while consuming storage from the cloud. It also shows how to maximize investment in a
powerful storage array with code-based provisioning at top speed and scale, bridging the path to self-service
and beyond.
Introduction
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1 Introduction
Managing and delivering enterprise-class storage as a service can be tedious and repetitive, requiring
valuable time, hard-to-find expertise, and multiple distinct tools. Many architects and administrators would
rather spend their time innovating, planning, and developing code-based infrastructure to alleviate manual
chores that can hinder business progress. To optimize the storage delivery process, the Dell EMC PowerMax
vRO plug-in provides basic automation building blocks that can be chained together and integrated with other
data center infrastructure and software services, helping eliminate unneeded delays and configuration issues
due to manual errors.
Deploying and configuring the plug-in simply requires a VMware vRO server, the PowerMax plug-in (35 MB)
from Dell.com/support, and access to the Unisphere™ for PowerMax REST API server. These simple
requirements make it easy to get started with a proven orchestration platform.
Once connected to PowerMax arrays, users can begin by creating small workflows that perform atomic
operations to accomplish a task. Users can realize the full potential of the plug-in through integration with data
and object relationships provided by other vRO plug-ins and other external systems in the environment.
Whether built in to vRO or available through the community marketplace online, additional plug-ins can bridge
the gap between storage, network, and compute systems to deliver further returns on process automation.
VMware vRO with the PowerMax plug-in provides the code and visual workflow-building capability needed to
reduce the learning curve of automation and orchestration. Creating and maintaining workflows, their subactions, and associated code is relatively easy with familiar drag-and-drop and copy/paste interactions.
Execution can be tailored to the portal of choice depending on the end user, and can include the vRealize
Automation portal, the vRO Java or HTML5 client, or other interfaces through additional plug-ins or REST API
calls to the vRO server.
The vRO plug-in offers nearly unlimited options to increase the intelligence within code and tailor automation
workflows. This allows organizations to match the exact standards, specifications, and processes needed to
keep business-critical data, and the data center configuration that supports it, moving as fast as possible.
PowerMax plug-in for vRO
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2 PowerMax plug-in for vRO
The vRO plug-in is comprised of Java and JavaScript (scriptable actions) code along with defined actions and
workflows as part of a standard VMOAPP package.
The base underlying Java code is responsible for translating workflow and action functionality into REST
GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE calls to the appropriate Unisphere-for-PowerMax server endpoints. In the
background, the 96 workflows and 69 actions provided use the JavaScript-based scriptable tasks within vRO.
These call methods through scripting classes and can query the array model for a view of the current
inventory configuration.
Three types of workflows (Table 1) make it easy to get started with orchestration and automation. They can
be viewed, edited, and executed using the vRO Java desktop or HTML5 GUIs.
Workflow types
Workflow type
Workflow description
Example flowchart
Basic workflows
These manipulate an atomic resource
and a manage a discrete piece of array
functionality.
Examples include Create Volume,
Modify Port Group, Delete Masking
View.
Composite
workflows
These are made from basic workflows
and involve multiple steps that could
work on different types of resources.
Custom workflows
These generally have advanced
business logic and more complex steps
operating across many resource types or
at a larger scale than other workflows.
PowerMax plug-in for vRO
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Composite workflows available in the PowerMax Provisioning group integrate with the VMware vCenter
vRO plug-in. These are a great example of how data and relationships can be used from multiple plug-ins to
achieve more complex functionality. Some workflows performing operations that may remove access to
storage also have measures to avoid inadvertent data unavailability, similar to an Are you sure? prompt in the
Unisphere for PowerMax UI. These warnings appear when executing workflows through a GUI and can be
bypassed if necessary, during programmatic execution such as through the vRO REST API.
Certain workflows also have a retry mechanism that allow administrators to identify issues encountered in the
middle of a workflow, resolve them, and then continue to execute the workflow. The alleviates the need to
clean up any resources or artifacts created at the beginning of the workflow or the need for complex roll-back
code logic.
Overall, the transparency of simple workflows from the plug-in, along with flexibility and power of the
combinations, present an easy-to-use platform for custom control of storage provisioning automation.
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