Pure Storage Python Toolkit Intro with Windows

Most of my scripting work here at Pure Storage has mostly been via PowerShell or at times Javascript (for like vRO). But I think it is time to get back into Python especially because of the VMware support for it now.

Pure Storage has an automation toolkit that helps get you started managing the FlashArray so you don’t have to deal with the direct REST work in your Python scripts. You can find information about that here:

http://pythonhosted.org/purestorage/index.html

Continue reading “Pure Storage Python Toolkit Intro with Windows”

Protection Group Recovery in PowerShell

Awhile back I wrote about performing an operation introduced in Purity 4.6 called protection group copy, which I really referred to as protection group recovery, which I think is maybe a more apt title.

Anyways, this feature is available in our REST API and our CLI (not yet in our GUI in a direct format) but is not yet built into our PowerShell SDK.  I have seen more than one request for information on how to do this, and it certainly can be done without our official SDK and this is through the good ol’ Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet built into PowerShell. I’ve spoken about using this many times, here and here.

Let’s walk through it specifically with protection group restore.

Continue reading “Protection Group Recovery in PowerShell”

Force the Invoke-RestMethod PowerShell cmdlet to use TLS 1.2

I wrote about some security changes in the FlashArray operating environment (called Purity) version 4.7 a month or so back. This was concerning the deprecation of SSL and TLS version 1.0, forcing all (management) connections to the FlashArray to use TLS 1.1 or 1.2 (read this here).

Our PowerShell SDK was enhanced so it would use the appropriate security connection type so users of that do not need to worry as long as they upgrade our SDK. But what about the few remaining functions that people might use that the PowerShell SDK doesn’t cover? As there are a few REST calls that are not built into the SDK (yet).  Continue reading “Force the Invoke-RestMethod PowerShell cmdlet to use TLS 1.2”

VAAI XCOPY not being used with Powered-On Windows VM

This is an issue I discovered along with my good friend and former colleague Drew Tonnesen a few years back which has cropped up a few times in recent days. I noticed there wasn’t really any information about it online, so made sense to put a quick post together.

In short, Windows 2012 R2 virtual machine clone or Storage vMotion operations complete much slower when powered-on as compared to when power-off. The common explanation is that VAAI XCOPY does not work when the VM is powered-on. This is not exactly true. Let me explain. Continue reading “VAAI XCOPY not being used with Powered-On Windows VM”