Cosonok's IT Blog

I’ve come across a few NetApp Verified Architectures in my time and thought they were pretty cool (similarly fabulous to Flexpod Design Guides.) But I’ve never seen a list of NVAs, and knowing that they are usually PDFs on https://www.netapp.com/us/media/ with the name nva-XXXX, or nva-XXXX-design, or nva-XXXX-deploy, I thought I’d try prospecting for them, using similar code to my NetApp Technical Report (TR) PowerShell Collector Script.

Full list of the NVAs discovered:

FlexPod Express with VMware vSphere 6.5 and FAS2600 (DEPLOY)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1112-deploy.pdf

FlexPod Datacenter with Apprenda for PaaS (DESIGN)

Including Red Hat OpenStack 8, Docker Containers, NetApp Jenkins Plugin, and ONTAP 9

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1113-design.pdf

FlexPod Express with Microsoft Windows 2016 Hyper-V and FAS2600 (DEPLOY)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1114-deploy.pdf

Converged Infrastructure Solution with NetApp E-Series and Splunk (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1115-design.pdf

FlexPod Datacenter with Microsoft Applications and NetApp AFF A-Series (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1116-design.pdf

FlexPod Datacenter with Microsoft Exchange 2016, SharePoint 2016, and NetApp AFF A300 (DEPLOY)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1117-deploy.pdf

NetApp and Broadcom Modern SAN Cloud-Connected Flash Solution (DESIGN)

Oracle and SUSE NetApp Verified Architecture Design Edition

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1120.pdf

NetApp ONTAP AI, Powered by NVIDIA (DEPLOY)

Scalable AI Infrastructure for Real-World Deep Learning Use Cases: Deployment Guide

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1121-deploy.pdf

NetApp ONTAP AI, Powered by NVIDIA (DESIGN)

Scalable AI Infrastructure: Designing for Real-World Deep Learning Use Cases

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1121-design.pdf

VMware Private Cloud on NetApp HCI (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1122-design.pdf

VMware Private Cloud on NetApp HCI (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1122.pdf

FlexPod Express with VMware vSphere 6.7 and NetApp AFF A220 (DEPLOY)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1123-deploy.pdf

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform with NetApp HCI (DEPLOY)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1124-deploy.pdf

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform with NetApp HCI (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1124-design.pdf

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform with NetApp HCI (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1124.pdf

FlexPod Express with Cisco UCS C-Series and AFF A220 Series (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1125-design.pdf

NetApp and Broadcom Modern SAN Cloud-Connected Flash Solution (DESIGN)

Oracle and SUSE NetApp Verified Architecture Design Edition

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1126-design.pdf

NetApp and Broadcom Modern SAN Cloud-Connected Flash Solution (DESIGN)

MongoDB and SUSE NetApp Verified Architecture Design Edition

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1127-design.pdf

VMware Validated Design for NetApp HCI (DESIGN)

VVD 4.2 Architecture Design

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1128-design.pdf

VMware End-User Computing with NetApp HCI and NVIDIA GPUs (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1129-design.pdf

FlexPod Express with VMware vSphere 6.7U1 and NetApp AFF A220 with Direct-Attached IP-Based Storage (DESIGN)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/nva-1130-design.pdf

The Script Used to Prospect for NVAs:

[String]$DownloadFolder = "C:\NVAs\"

[String]$LogFilePath = "C:\NVAs\log.txt"

[Int]$RangeStart = 1000

[Int]$RangeEnd = 1200

[System.Array]$Title = "","","",""

## Generic display function:

Function Wr{Param($P,$I="WHITE");Write-Host $P -ForegroundColor $I}

## Download the NVAs:

Import-Module BitsTransfer

For($i=$RangeStart; $i -le $RangeEnd; $i++){

[String]$Title[1] = "nva-$i"

[String]$Title[2] = "nva-$i-deploy"

[String]$Title[3] = "nva-$i-design"

For($t = 1;$t -le 3;$t++){

[String]$WebUrl = ("https://www.netapp.com/us/media/" + $Title[$t] + ".pdf")

[String]$SavePath = ($DownloadFolder + $Title[$t] + ".pdf")

## Get the header:

$hdr = $NULL

Try{$hdr = Invoke-WebRequest $WebUrl -Method Head}

Catch{"Dead link: $WebUrl" | Out-File $LogFilePath -Append}

## If we have a header:

If($hdr){

## Only download updated versions:

$Download = $FALSE

If(Test-Path $SavePath){

$SavedLRT = [DateTime]((Get-ChildItem $SavePath).LastWriteTime)

$WebFileLRT = [DateTime]($hdr.headers."last-modified")

If($WebFileLRT.Ticks -gt $SavedLRT.Ticks){

[String]$OutputString = ("UPDATED: " + $Title[$t])

$OutputString | Out-File $LogFilePath -Append

Wr $OutputString GREEN

$Download = $TRUE

}else{

[String]$OutputString = ("NO UPDATE: " + $Title[$t])

Wr $OutputString

}

}else{

[String]$OutputString = ("NEW D/LOAD: " + $Title[$t])

$OutputString | Out-File $LogFilePath -Append

Wr $OutputString GREEN

$Download = $TRUE

}

## Download:

If($Download){

Start-BitsTransfer -Source $WebUrl -Destination $SavePath

}

}else{

Wr "DEAD LINK : $WebUrl"

}

Image: Discovery in Action

Monday, 21 January 2019

Disk Sanitization Time?

There’s not much information out there regards disk sanitization time, so I thought I’d share my experience. I had the privilege to sanitize an old NetApp FAS2040A system running ONTAP 7.3.6 with 12 x 600GB 15k RPM SAS disk drives.

There are a couple of KBs on this:

7-mode: https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1072424

C-mode: https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1028718

And there is this communities post with useful information:

https://community.netapp.com/t5/Data-ONTAP-Discussions/Sanitization-time/td-p/38843

These were the timings for a (to DoD/Department of Defense standard) -

disk sanitize start -c 3 DISK

- on 600GB 15k RPM SAS disks.

TIME = 9 hours 4 minutes and 22 seconds

From the> rdfile /etc/log/messages

Wed Jan 16 12:32:05 GMT [disk.failmsg:error]: Disk 0c.00.3 (...): message received.

Wed Jan 16 12:32:05 GMT [raid.disk.unload.done:info]: Unload of Disk 0c.00.3 Shelf 0 Bay 3 [NETAPP X290_S15K7560A15 NA00] S/N [...] has completed successfully

...

Wed Jan 16 21:36:27 GMT [disk.sanit.complete:info]: Disk 0c.00.3 [S/N ...] has completed sanitization.

According to the communities post link above, you can run sanitize on up to 100 disks at a time. You’ll have to run it two times at least, since the root disks also need to be sanitized (4a/reinitialize the system on different set of root disks.) For this system it took 3 visits to site to complete the work (alas, remote access was not possible):

Day 1: Re-initialize and sanitize spare disks (cannot do root disks).

Day 2: Re-initialize and sanitize disks we couldn’t do before.

Day 3: Final checks (“disk sanitize status”) to confirm all disks are wiped.

Image: Hard Disk

Saturday, 29 December 2018

Burn USB Key PowerShell

Christmas bonus post...

For Christmas - amongst other things - I got 3 more Jamiroquai albums (I’ve got all 8 now) and also an Amazon Giftcard with which I purchased Anjunabeats Volume 13. So, I wanted to update my car music USB key, but needed to use a fresh USB key. I realized that the method of my 24th April 2018 post Using PowerShell to Create a Correctly Ordered USB Music Key was way too clunky, so came up with the following script.

You’ll need to copy all your music into a folder of folders first, and make sure it’s ordered how you want.

Image: Car Music folder

Then just run the PowerShell as in the below example:

.\BurnUSB.ps1 -SourcePath "D:\CAR MUSIC" -DestinationDrive F

And your USB key will be burned like a CD (since car music systems read USB keys like a CD, that is the first copied file is first in the playlist, second copied second, third copied third, etcetera.)

The Script

Param(

[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][String]$SourcePath,

[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][String]$DestinationDrive

)

[System.Array]$Folders = (Get-ChildItem $SourcePath | sort-object Name).Name

Foreach($Folder in $Folders){

[String]$NewFolderPath = Join-Path ($DestinationDrive + ":") ($Folder)

"New-Item -Path $NewFolderPath -ItemType directory"

New-Item -Path $NewFolderPath -ItemType directory

[String]$ReadFolderPath = Join-Path ($SourcePath) ($Folder)

[System.Array]$MusicFiles = (Get-ChildItem $ReadFolderPath | sort-object Name).Name

$MusicFiles | Foreach{

[String]$FileToCopy = Join-Path ($ReadFolderPath) ($_)

[String]$FileDestination = Join-Path ($NewFolderPath) ($_)

"Copy-Item -LiteralPath $FileToCopy $FileDestination"

Copy-Item -LiteralPath $FileToCopy $FileDestination

}

Monday, 17 December 2018

End of Year 2018 Post (Happy New Year 2019!)

It’s been a bit of a quiet year on Cosonok’s blog. Including this post, I’ll have done 56 posts this year, which is a record minimum number of posts in a full year for Cosonok (61 posts in 2011 being the previous record minimum.) Still been busy though, with other blogs and a tiny bit of YouTube too.

Stats-wise, Cosonok’s blog appears to be in decline. Which is perhaps not surprising since prior to 2013 this was very much an IT generalists blog, but since 2013 it’s been predominantly NetApp, so more specialized and perhaps less reach. The stats, whilst fun, have never been the goal, it’s always about sharing hopefully useful stuff, an aid for my memory, and I’m always amazed and grateful that people read posts from this blog - and leave comments.

Image: Cosonok’s IT Blog Stats

All of the most viewed posts are from 2010/11/12 – which is not unsurprising – but what might be surprising is that the most viewed posts from the last month (November 16 to December 16, 2018) have 6 out of 10 posts from 2010/11/12.

Image: Top 10 Posts by Pageviews (All time)

Image: Top 10 Posts by Pageviews (last month)

I’m actually working over Christmas (except for the usual holidays and 24th) but this will be 2018’s final post. So all that’s left to say is:

Merry Christmas!

- and -

Happy New Year 2019!