Nutanix Unified Storage

Nutanix Files offers SMB shares and NFS exports for file serving use-cases in enterprise environments. Not all environments are equal and every solution has some recommendations to cater for high traffic environments, where hundreds or thousands of users might be accessing a single storage endpoint or a file share concurrently. Nutanix AOS and Files offers the flexibility to scale as your requirements grow without down-time or disruption to existing operations. Connection count to existing file shares can increase, where a Nutanix Files environment is being used by more users or applications than initially anticipated at the time of deployment.  An increase in users or usage of the Nutanix Files cluster can trigger a high connection count alert as follows: FileServerVmMaxConnectionsNotification (A160039) The "Maximum Connection limit" alert is generated when the Files cluster has one or more FSVM nodes under extensive load. This alert recommends running *’Performance optimisation'. Thi

Let’s say we deployed a new File server and want to use the power of analytics, a tool created to provide data and statistics on the operations and contents of a file server. Once File Analytics is deployed on AOS cluster. We can Launch the File Analytics GUI from prism to subscribe to a File Server. Data on the Analytics VM is protected and is kept in a separate volume group other than Files volume group. But what if we made a mistake while deploying or we want to roll back? How can we delete the File Analytic VM?Before answering the question, we need to be absolutely sure if we really want to delete the analytic VM as it will delete all the data and configuration related to the Analytics. So taking the above note as a serious disclaimer, if we wish to go-ahead Do we have a way to remove the Analytics VM? Just follow the documentation mentioned belowRemove Files Analytics     Want to know more about Files Analytics and it’s features and configuration? Give the following document a co

There is a .snapshot folder in the root of each of our Nutanix Files shares.  We think it is created by Files Analytics.  Can anybody confirm that and explain how it works?  We think some data may have been accidentally deleted from the folder so we want to make sure nothing has been damaged...

A Nutanix Files cluster is a single namespace that includes a collection of file systems used to support the SMB and NFS shares. These file systems use Nutanix volume groups as storage. Volume groups enable both high availability and scale-out for the file systems. A volume group is a collection of logically related vDisks (or volumes) attached to the guest via iSCSI. When an FSVM is down for maintenance or if a fault occurs, one of the surviving FSVMs takes over volume group ownership and continues servicing requests.   With the 3.x release of Nutanix Files, volume groups contain 16 virtual disks. From the 3.2 release of Files onward, all disks in the volume group are available for use by the assigned shares, representing a maximum standard share size of 140 TB.   Nutanix Files Storage The initial file system pool created on the volume group uses six of the drives as previously noted and supports 40 TB of data Once this file system pool reaches 80 percent space utilisation, Nutanix

Nutanix Files is a software-defined, scale-out file storage solution with inherent high-availability. File services contribute to important business functions in enterprises (VDI / Home Directories / Legal etc.), which is why Nutanix Files offers transparent HA for the Files Cluster VMs (FSVMs). When one or more FSVM(s) are unable to serve their file-shares for various reasons, another FSVM will perform a 'takeover' operation to assume the degraded FSVM's External IP address and shares/exports. During an HA event, the External IP is removed from the degraded FSVM and all shares exported. The FSVM taking over will then import the shares / exports and be assigned the other FSVMs external IP on a sub-interface of it's own External network.  This allows the operation to be transparent to the client and prevents any configuration change by the customer before, during, or after the HA events. Nutanix Files offers both SMB shares and NFS exports, both protocols behave differently in failure s

Does Nutanix Files support dedupe & compression?

Upgrades are always daunting and scary. The one question which scares us all is  "Will the upgrade be disruptive to my production environment? "    Well, to answer it shortly and briefly. NO, upgrading Nutanix Files will not affect your production environment.   Want to know how upgrades work in Nutanix and the workflow for Nutanix Files Upgrades?   Try going through the following Knowledge Base to understand how upgrades work in Nutanix architecture and what happens during Nutanix Files upgrade. KB-6945     But what if the CVM or Nodes go down during or after the upgrade?   The architecture of Nutanix Files is designed in a way to cater to the failure of CVM or the complete Node failure seamlessly.   In case of a CVM failure, all the active connections are disconnected, initiating the iscsi client to log in again, which happens through the external IP and the connections are now established with a healthy CVM(In short, your environment won't be affected).   Still confused about HA F

Nutanix Files is a software-defined, scale-out file storage solution that provides a repository for unstructured data, such as home directories, user profiles, departmental shares, application logs, backups, and archives. Nutanix Files comprises of 3 x File Server virtual machines which forms a highly-available file-serving cluster atop your existing AOS Cluster. As with any business critical application, it is vital that software upgrades be as non-disruptive as possible, Nutanix offers the same “ONE-CLICK” simplicity for Upgrading your Nutanix Files Cluster. How to plan Nutanix Files Upgrade: Always refer Nutanix Files x.x.x.x Release Notes before a new deployment or an upgrade. Always refer Software Product Interoperability page for AOS and Nutanix Files recommended interoperability. This is critical for a new deployment or upgrade. Always refer Upgrade Paths page before Nutanix Files upgrade. This provides you details about target release version and if they are supported for upgra

There are two types of SMB shares and NFS exports.SMB shares:Distributed (previously called home). Standard (previously called general).NFS exports:Distributed (previously called sharded). Standard (previously called nonsharded).A standard share is an SMB share or NFS export hosted by a single FSVM. A distributed share spreads the workload by distributing the hosting of top-level directories across FSVMs, which also simplifies administration.Distributed shares and exports don’t allow files in the root. Unlike distributed shares and exports, standard shares and exports can store files in the root of the directory. Source :- https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/solutions/details?targetId=TN-2041-Nutanix-Files:top_exports_and_shares.html

When making a decision on increasing storage capacity of Nutanix Files FSVM cluster please keep in mind that the option to downsize is not available at this point.To change the storage capacity, enter the new size (in TiBs) in the FILE SERVER SIZE field.Note: Choose a size greater than the existing size. This operation does not impact current client connections. Figure. File Service Basics Window For more information please refer toNutanix Files Series | Queries you always hadNutanix Files Guide: Updating a File ServerKB-6898 Nutanix Files - Generic FAQ

There can be a situation where you have to either shutdown the entire AOS cluster hosting Nutanix Files, or just the Nutanix Files (AFS) cluster.Gracefully shutdown Nutanix Files and Nutanix AOS ClusterVerify that no snapshot or replication is taking place. Power off all guest VMs on the cluster, leaving only FSVMs (File Server VMs) and CVMs (Controller VMs) powered on.Gracefully Shut down a Nutanix FILES (FSVMs) Cluster STEP - 1 : Stopping all File Services 1.1 : For AOS 5.0.x - 5.5.x:minerva stop fsvm1.2 : FOR AOS 5.6 and later:From any CVM, enter the "afs" command prompt:nutanix@cvm: afs<afs> infra.stop *​The infra.stop * command will stop Nutanix Files services and power off the FSVMs for all File Servers.Gracefully Shutdown the AOS Cluster Once only the CVMs remain powered on, from any CVM, run:STEP 1 : Gracefully STOP an AOS Cluster:nutanix@cvm: cluster stopSTEP 2 : Gracefully shutdown the CVMs in an AOS Cluster:Once the cluster is stopped, we can then shutdown the CVMs its

Nutanix Files architecture and design is beautiful and complex at the same time, and let’s agree we all get some questions when we enter into the world of storage with Files.“We all have thought of these questions and still figuring out the answers” Which hypervisors support Nutanix Files? How do you deploy, delete and modify a Nutanix Files cluster? How do you shut down a Nutanix Files cluster for maintenance? What are Exports vs Shares in Nutanix Files? What is a Nutanix Files Storage Container? What is the minimum Domain Functional level required? How do you update DNS in Nutanix Files? Does Nutanix Files support DFS-R? Does Nutanix Files support DFS Namespaces (DFS-N)? What are the supported Antivirus ICAP servers for Nutanix Files? Want the answer to the above questions ??Give the following KB a readKB-6898Have some questions and queries regarding Nutanix Files ?Drop a comment and let’s start a discussion

We are looking to setup a Nutanix File Server on our ESX cluster, this file server will be housing 21TB of data. I know that we get 1TB for free, how to enable the licensing for the other 20TB as i believe it is per TB.

Mike McGhee demonstrates the scale up and scale out capabilities of Nutanix Files. Do you run Nutanix Files? Share your experiences with the broader community, be the first to reply here.

Is there a comprehensive Nutanix Files related command reference guide (PDF/HTML)? Similarly, a reference guide for Files with respect to APIs, RESTful calls, PowerShell/Python APIs etc?

An administrator may wish to log in to FSVM, for example, to perform network troubleshooting tasks.This can be achieved by establishing command line access to one of the CVMs on the cluster first and then logging in to FSVM. Please see step-by-step example below.Log in to CVM. Optionally, verify IP address configured on FSVM:$ ssh nutanix@10.123.124.125Nutanix Controller VMnutanix@10.123.124.125's password: Last login: Mon Oct 14 23:20:52 2019 from 10.245.246.237nutanix@NTNX-14SM71070032-A-CVM:10.123.124.125:~$ ncli fs ls Uuid : db890ac6-abcd-12ef-34ab-c6240654b029 Name : EXAMPLE-FS Version : 3.5.2 Container ID : 0005922b-abcd-12ef-34ab-002590c84bb8::81306 Container Uuid : 714c4d88-abcd-12ef-34ab-508b29c4a6d8 Virtual IP address : 10.124.245.125 [...]From CVM log in to FSVM:nutanix@NTNX-14SM71070032-A-CVM:10.123.124.125:~$ ssh nutanix@10.124.245.125FIPS mode initializedNutanix

Automatic notifications can be set up to be sent out to users whenever a configured quota limit is reached on a Nutanix Files share.   There are two quota levels: User: Sets a specific amount of storage for a single user. For example, if an administrator allots only 1 GB, then you cannot take more than 1 GB. Group: Sets the amount of space that is available to each user in that group. For example, a group with a policy of 10 GB and 10 users can potentially use 100 GB of data (10 x 10 = 100 GB) under that quota policy. How do notifications work? When the quota reaches 90 percent consumption, Files sends warning emails to the recipients. When the quota reaches 100 percent consumption, Files sends alert emails to the recipients. If the quota has a soft limit and you continue to consume over 100 percent of the storage, then Files sends an email notification to the recipients every 24 hours.   The quota set up can be achieved by either using Web GUI or nCLI. To configure quota in Prism foll

Is there a directory I can access on the CVM to access files on the container? I want to change some permissions on a vmdx to convert onto AHV

Mike McGhee demonstrates how quickly Files can be deployed and ready for service. Because it's native to the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, everything can be easily seen and managed through the Prism interface.

I have deleted several shares on the Nutanix File Server we have running in VMware and the free space does not seem to be recovering even after a week. Is there a command i can run in ACLI or NCLI to force the clean up to take place? Or is there a better way to remove the shares other the through the Prism UI?

This content is taken from Nutanix File Solution doc available on the portal. I am just reposting this content here. 🙂 Happy Learning Please refer the solution doc for more details https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/solutions/details?targetId=TN-2041-Nutanix-Files:TN-2041-Nutanix-Files As shown in the following figure, each FSVM uses three separate vDisks: a 12 GiB boot disk that contains the boot image, a 45 GiB disk (/home/nutanix) that contains logs and software state, and a 45 GiB disk for Cassandra data. A Nutanix Files cluster is a single namespace that includes a collection of file systems used to support the SMB and NFS shares. These file systems use Nutanix volume groups as storage. Volume groups enable both high availability and scale-out for the file systems. A volume group is a collection of logically related vDisks (or volumes) attached to the guest via iSCSI. When an FSVM is down for maintenance or if a fault occurs, one of the surviving FSVMs takes over volum

Why Files Storage container is system managed? What all different purposes this container is used for?

Nutanix Files is a software-defined, scale-out file storage solution that provides a repository for unstructured data, such as home directories, user profiles, departmental shares, application logs, backups, and archives. Flexible and responsive to workload requirements, Files is a fully integrated, core component of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud. It leverages the underlying existing infrastructure of Nutanix Core components and acts as a service on a running and proven HCI solution. There are two sorts of communication which happens;Since files relies on Nutanix HCI cluster for core infra requirements and thus we have a requirement for an internal network to achieve this, this network is used by fsvm to communicate with CVM for Internal communication. For example storage traffic, rest api calls. The other network which is needed to ensure external communication can take place like share\export access by clients, AD, DNS and NTP. Ideally these two networks are segmented so externa

Nutanix Files is a software-defined, scale-out file storage solution that provides a repository for unstructured data, such as home directories, user profiles, departmental shares, application logs, backups, and archives. Flexible and responsive to workload requirements, Files is a fully integrated, core component of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud. Nutanix Files release cycle is independent of AOS releases. Since it’s functionality is independent of AOS. However, AOS acts as Storage and UI provider etc. . There are still a lot of components on which Files is dependent on. That’s the reason there is always a supported AOS base. Hopefully, in the near future Nutanix Files may completely decouple from AOS. This leads to an interesting point that what version customer should be on? Before we discuss this point let’s understand about Nutanix Files release history. Nutanix Files (formerly known as AFS) 2.x became GA with AOS 5.0.x Nutanix Files (formerly known as AFS) 3.x beca

Nutanix Files (formerly known as AFS) does not follow the Long Term Support Release (LTS) and Short Term Support Release (STS) tracks. AOS needs to be upgraded to a compatible version before you deploy Nutanix Files or upgrade Nutanix Files.One of the standard policies that Nutanix follows is to disable 1-click downloads for Product versions which are EOL. Nutanix Files follows a similar approach and you will no longer see any other 2.2.x version other than 2.2.4. 2.2.4 is maintained for customers who are in the AOS 5.5.x branch. Since Nutanix files have evolved a lot in the 3.x branch, other customers are recommended to adopt the latest 3.x version.Try to understand this concept from the following screenshot taken from the Upgrade Path page.In this example, I have assumed that AOS is already upgraded to 5.10.x (LTS) from 5.5.x( 5.5.x). Now we want to upgrade the existing Files cluster to 2.2.3. How to plan?Always refer to Nutanix Files x.x.x.x Release Notes before a new deployment or