Written by Sagar Nangare, Digital Strategist at Calsoft Inc.
Typically, in large scale data center
deployment and management, different components of a data center are managed by
different system administrators. To get the provisioning or updating of instructions
processed, certain iterations have to be followed by the admins. As data center
surged towards cloud-managed, a need for having a single console emerged that
would allow all the tasks to be performed within less time duration. For a case
of virtualized infrastructure which is mostly used by public cloud or large
enterprises to keep up with varying resource demands, a leading software suite -
VMware vSphere, is utilized by many enterprises. There are other options
available like Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer. But we will talk about
vCenter which is a key component of vSphere package installed on
administrator's standard central console to manage all virtualized data center
operations.
Development of vCenter Plugin for Storage Integration
We often use the term plugin in the IT
domain to extend the functionality of existing software ecosystem; be it
commercial vendor offering or open source project. All of the vendors or open
source communities have guidelines to develop and integrate plugins to native systems.
VMware vCenter is used to manage the virtualized data center platform helping
automated provisioning, monitoring and managing virtualized resource from the
single standalone console.
Let's talk about provision and management
of storage requirements using VMware vCenter.
In the case of storage management, a plugin
has to be developed to integrate virtualized data center storage server and
vCenter server. vCenter server is
basically a component of vSphere package and used in large scale enterprise deployments.
vSphere client installed on admin's laptop connects to a vCenter server for
providing instruction to storage or ESXi server in case of VMware enabled data
center ecosystem.
The Plugin emulates needs for manual
operations required at vCenter and storage end. In case if no plugin is
involved, one has to perform manual configuration at both ends for most of the
management tasks. A plugin takes few inputs from vCenter web client front end
and makes provisioning or configuration on the fly.
Plugin utilizes the REST APIs derived from
virtualized storage and SDKs provided by VMware vSphere web client to form a
connection between both systems.
A vCenter plugin can be used to perform the
following tasks
-
Creation and management of
Datastore: Plugin can be used to create datastores provided with instructions
to create volume and configurations like size, name, redundancy and host to be
mapped for datastore. With a plugin, we can access real-time view of statistics
and capacity or I/O usage of datastore. vCenter plugin allows to create and
configure volumes of arrays and set up size of performance profiles.
-
Earlier, an administrator could
only take a snapshot of virtual machines while the capability of taking
snapshot of datastore was missing. With vCenter plugin, it is possible to take
a snapshot of each of the datastore in storage arrays and enable admins to spin
up the snapshot based on defined schedules or as needed. Further cloning of
datastore can be achieved as well.
-
vCenter plugin allows
monitoring of storage events using vSphere events and alarms section. Admins
can track the capacity usage and sudden issues in storage processes. Based on
notifications that appear admin can take actions for issues raised.
-
Various metrics can be seen on
plugin UI, related to system utilization and performance monitoring. Admins can
see live or historical data of utilization of systems CPU, memory and disk
utilization in a graphical format.
Development of plugin application involves
coding for back-end service layer and front-end UI. Backend code involves the
logic of plugin operation and code to utilized REST APIs of vCenter and storage
arrays. UI can be developed using Angular JS, HTML5, and JavaScript.
Testing of a developed plugin is a tedious
process as it involves testing of functionality on all versions of vCenter
servers like 5.5, 6, 6.7 and so on. Each version is either widows based or
vCenter Server Appliance(vCSA) based. So, test analysis needs to perform on
each of the flavours of version.
Plugin UI also needs to be tested on each
of the available web browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer
and Chrome.
After finalizing the plugin, it has to get
certified from VMware itself to ensure that the plugin has been developed based
on best practices provided in VMware guidelines. Certification is necessary to
avoid any calamitous incidents which may harm virtualized storage arrays as
well vCenter server.
Summary
vCenter suite by VMware provides a single
console for administrating storage arrays and VMware servers. For enterprises,
integration of VMware vCenter with storage is the crucial factor while taking
storage-related decisions. This integration has a direct impact on performance
and efficiency in accessing data from storage volumes and in high demanding era
customized plugin can help create an interface for seamless communication with
virtualized computing resources. A vCenter plugin developed considering all
quality guidelines, best practices and standards can help enterprises to gain a
competitive edge in the market.
Meet Calsoft's team at VMworld 2018 to understand how they helped many storage vendors
and enterprises to achieve high throughput by developing
vCenter plugins.
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About the Author
Sagar Nangare is a
blogger, technology enthusiast & B2B technical marketing professional with
more than 7 years of experience. Currently working as Digital Strategist at Calsoft Inc.