Dell PowerFlex Rack with PowerFlex 3.x Administration Guide

Adding and removing a PowerFlex device for server maintenance in a hyperconverged deployment (VMware)

Add or remove PowerFlex devices to balance the server load before performing server maintenance, and to avoid a server rebuild and maintain server performance.

1. Open VMware vCenter web client from the jump server.
2. Identify each storage VM (SVM) and its VMware ESXi host server.

   

3. Log in to the first PowerFlex metadata manager (MDM), using the PowerFlex GUI.
4. Verify that there are no rebuild or rebalance activities:
   • If using a PowerFlex version prior to 3.5: Verify that there is no activity in the Rebalance or Rebuild panes.
5. Click Backend and record all storage data server (SDS) devices and names.
6. Right-click the SDS device, and click Remove for each device.
   A rebuild occurs.
7. If using the PowerFlex GUI presentation server: Click Dashboard, and verify that there are no rebuild and rebalance activities.
   1. From the left pane, click Configuration > Devices.
   2. Select the devices.
   3. From the upper right menu, click More > Remove.
   4. From the Remove Device dialog box, click Remove.
   5. Click Dismiss.
8. When the rebuild is complete, perform any necessary SVM work.
9. Using VMware vCenter, shut down the SVM by right-clicking the SVM and clicking Shut Down Guest OS.
10. Use VMware vSphere vMotion to migrate any VMs other than the SVM to other hosts in the VMware vSphere cluster.
11. Right-click the VMware ESXi host and click Enter Maintenance Mode.
12. Reboot the VMware ESXi host and perform maintenance.
13. Allow the host to reboot, right-click the VMware ESXi host, and click Exit Maintenance Mode.
14. Start the SVM on the host.
15. After the SDS is connected, add back the previously deleted devices using the PowerFlex GUI (for PowerFlex version 3.5 and later):
    1. Go to the PowerFlex GUI presentation server, https://<ipaddress>:8443 using the MDM.
    2. Click Configuration > SDS.
    3. Find the newly added SDS, right-click and select Add Device. Click Storage device from the drop-down menu.
    4. Type /dev/sdX where x is the device IDs removed as part of the earlier removal. Provide the storage pool, verify the device type, and click Add Device. Add all of the required devices.
16. Allow the rebalance to complete.