Ontap tools 10.4 flexgroup creation | NetApp | Page 1

sterile wagon Aug 7, 2025, 4:15 PM

#

From everything i see in the documentation for ontap tools 10.4, to create a flexgroup via the create datastore option. You select the option "Distribute datastore data across the ONTAP cluster (Flexgroup)" option. I believe this should be on the Name and Protocol (Step 2) of the wizard but I do not see this option anyplace, even through the further steps. I've attached a screen shot of the options I do have.
Our ontap tools deployment is brand new and deployed in a single node deployment. On further screens I do see our arrays and SVMS that are added as storage backends. Array ONTAP version is 9.15.1p11

tranquil trench Aug 7, 2025, 4:29 PM

#

Where exactly do you see that mentioned in the OTV docs? Couldn't find anything about creating Flexgroups via OTV.

sterile wagon Aug 7, 2025, 4:40 PM

#

they were some steps I was given from the installer I was working with. Also one of the netapp presales engineers told us it was best practices to create the flexgroups with ontap tools. I'm not 100% sure where the steps provided came from. But from the What's new for version 9.8 "VMware integration and support in ONTAP 9.8 gets a boost with a number of new features including FlexGroup datastore support. ONTAP 9.8 allows you to provision a FlexGroup volume as a VMware NFS datastore, simplifying datastore management with a single, scalable datastore that provides the power of a full ONTAP cluster. Many of these new features are coming with the ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 9.8 release."

open sluice Aug 7, 2025, 4:54 PM

#

Ive said this before...will say it again.

If your VMware license supports it, you are probably way better off creating a Storage DRS Cluster. When creating, uncheck the default of automatic migration and set to No Automation.
This allows vmware to mostly intelligently PLACE the data.

When you make a Flexgroup, it creates 4 or 8 or more "pieces" of the volume that are advertised as 1. You have no direct control over where the data lands...it just does.

Instead, I can Create the Storage DRS cluster and add in 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 or whatever nominally sized datastores (like 4T or 10T or whatever). Vmware aggregates them for you and it knows which datastore it places things.

As neat as FlexGroups are, I just cannot see using them in vmware. I did try with a customer and it ended up being more of a hassle.

Snapshots are distributed all over the volumes so instead of one snap on a single volume, I end up with a snapshot on every member of the flexgroup

tranquil trench Aug 7, 2025, 5:42 PM

#

By the way: Using Storage DRS to utilize performance based local-balancing has been removed with vSphere 9.0: https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-0/release-notes/vmware-cloud-foundation-90-release-notes/platform-product-support-notes/product-support-notes-vsphere.html#GUID-f6c843ca-b8a3-4268-b443-1973708861b8-en_id-29cf5a54-f740-47b0-ae4d-2923e0cde0fc

Only initial placement based on capacity is still supported.

sterile wagon Aug 7, 2025, 6:35 PM

#

open sluice Ive said this before...will say it again. If your VMware license supports it, y...

We've used datastore clusters in the past when we where dealing with lun based vmfs volumes. Our Zerto admins have requested we avoid them due to issues they have had in the past with Zerto and datastore clusters.

open sluice Aug 7, 2025, 6:48 PM

#

I would suspect they had automation enabled. It messes all kinds of things up. Turning off the automation only allows VMware to do placement when vmotioning into the cluster or building a new vm

#Ontap tools 10.4 flexgroup creation