VVols Readiness Checker for Pure Storage FlashArray

The SE organization at Pure has been hard at work promoting VMware VVols as it enables customers to take the next step in their virtualization journey: mobility. In an earlier post on the Pure Storage blog, Ray Mar wrote about the simplest VVols implementation in the industry. Getting up and running with VVols is effortless but there’s always those pesky minimum requirements to know about before you can begin implementing VVols.

While reviewing the VVols Quick Start Guide, there were quite a few things to be mindful of:

Minimum vSphere version
Minimum Purity version
NTP servers configured on ESXi, vCenter, and FlashArray
FlashArray management ports accessible on port 8084
Host and host groups are present on the FlashArray
If replicating, make sure all of these requirements are met on the remote side too!

As the sharp system admin you are, you can probably take a quick glance at the requirements and know you’re good to go. But, it’s a great idea to double check a setting such as NTP that is usually “set it and forget it.” On a small cluster it’s easy enough to click around on a few hosts and vCenter and make sure it’s set and turned on but that’s no bueno on a much larger cluster. Sounds like a great task to be automated! With that in mind, I created the VVols Readiness Checker to quickly validate these prerequisites with PowerShell using PowerCLI and the Pure Storage SDK.

The script can be run on your local machine or server and will download PowerCLI and the Pure Storage SDK if it’s not present. After entering your vCenter, FlashArray, and associated credentials you’ll quickly get a summary of your environment’s readiness to implement VVols.

Once you’re finished addressing any warnings, proceed with the Quick Start Guide to update the vSphere Web Client plugin, register the VASA provider, and create the VVols Datastore!

I highly recommend importing the FlashArray protection groups as VM storage policies as this gives you fine grain control and validation via compliance checks that ensures the VMs are always protected as required by the business.