Storage Migration, Capacity and Excel

[BostonTechGuy]

Good Day.  Going to start off, if there is a free tool out there to do what I need please recommend.

I am working with a client that is doing a full migration of their datastores (moving from a NA 3240 to 3250).  They want to clean up how they leverage their datastores at the same time.  Fair enough.

Currently they have separated OS Disk Files and Data Disk Files. The migration plan is to place all related VM files together. Migration and consolidation are the only goals in scope for this project.  Performance is not an issue, nor a concern.

The client has limited funds. They dont have budget for licensed tools. They want to have an excel spreadsheet listing all the VMs with your typical catagory columes (number of drives, Storage Provisioned, Storage used etc etc). One of the columes will be DESTINATION of the VM on the new storage.  On a second page of the Spreadsheet will be all the new Datastores with a forcast of Used Storage and Provisioned when the VMs are moved over.  The scope is to keep USED Storage below 80% and Provisioned below 400%.

What do I need help with? The first part for the VMs is easy. Export the VM listing from vCenter, got all the info of what is right now.  What I want to do is keep the spreadsheet dynamic on the Datastore page.  My goals:

1. Have the Destination Datastore on the VM page be a drop down with all the new Datastores as a selection (this is already done)
2. On the Datastore Page, have it pull the information on Storage Used, Storage Provisioned of the VM associated to that Datastore. Take that info and work an equation to change the total of Storage Used and Provisitioned

In other words. I have Datastore 1 through 8.  I have 300 VMs.  When I choose a Datastore to move VM 1 to on the VM Page, I select the Datastore in a drop down box.  I want Datastore 1 on Datastore Page to pull the Storage info from all VMs on VM Page that it has been assigned to and apply an equation to the Datastore Total (Used and Provisioned).  If I move VM 1 to Datastore 2, by changing the dropdown on the VM Page, the values on Datastore Page for Datastore 1 and Datastore 2 should update correctly.

I believe this should not be that hard.  I am doing this because scopes always change. If they change how the datastores are to be used based on a new criteria (say all web servers on DS 1 and all App Servers on DS 2), I want to make this spreadsheet as dynamic as possible so less work is done later.

Could this be done with a macro or formula in the spreadsheet??

Thanks,

BostonTechGuy

[grasshopper]

You may consider a free tool such as RVTools from robware that will put all the details in a spreadsheet for you already.  Get the client familiar with this output and run the reports ad hoc when needed to check progress.

If you really want to go the dynamic spreadsheet route you will have a bit of learning curve if you don't already use Excel features such as  Pivot Tables and vlookup, etc.  Either way, the RVTools report can feed your custom solution or stand on it's own.  Ideally you should be investing your time in PowerCLI instead of Excel IMHO :smileyhappy:

RVTools Download:
http://www.robware.net/

[BostonTechGuy]

Grasshopper (and anyone else),

Thanks for the update.  I completely forgot about RV Tools.  I have downloaded it and shared the love that its auditing tools.

The issue is about what will be, not what is.  I did figure it out.  One of those things where the solution was simpler than I originally thought, and it was your post that clued me in to it.  Thanks Grasshopper for the idea.

Use Pivot tables.

I will follow up this post a huge detailed message of how to do it.  Its very effective and I feel would help anyone doing Storage Migrations and replacement.

The client is doing:

• Moving to a new storage platform (Upgrading NetApp)
• Redesigning layouts of the Datastores in vSphere
• New version of vSphere (4.1 to 5.1)
• and all that goes with going 5.1 (SSO, Web client etc etc)
• Creating a DR with SRM...

all at the same time with end date of Dec 2013 :smileyhappy:

Great stuff.  The need as many roadmaps on paper as possible to easy the headache of this massive project.  This addresses the datastore migration and redesign of how they are configured.

Follow up on Excel coming soon.

Thanks,

BostonTechGuy

[grasshopper]

Excellent!  Sounds like you are on your way.  You should also consider testing out the NetApp "Balance" virtual appliance if you aren't already.  It provides huge reporting benefits.  You can get a temp key from your (or client's) NetApp rep.  Retail is around 20k US I think and you may be able to build that into your deal with NetApp along with the gear.  Anyway, best of luck and have fun!

PS - Since the vCenter needs to be upgraded before the ESXi hosts, it may be beneficial to move that up in the schedule a little bit.