vSphere Lab Storage: Synology DS414slim Part 4 – VAAI-NAS Plugin

This posting is ~8 years years old. You should keep this in mind. IT is a short living business. This information might be outdated.

Chris Wahl wrote a good blog post about the VAAI-NAS plugin some days ago. I really recommend to read this posting. Because of his article, I will only describe the installation of the plugin. You can download the plugin on the Synology homepage for free.

There are two ways to install the plugin: With the vSphere Update Manager (VUM) and a host extension baseline, or with ESXCLI.

Plugin installation using the vSphere Update Manager

First of all, we need to import the plugin (host extension) to the patch repository. Open the vSphere C# client, switch to the “Home” screen and click “Update Manager” under “Solutions and Applications”. Switch to the “Patch Repository” tab and click “Import Patches”.

vaai-nas_plugin_installation_vum_01

Import the SYN-ESX-5.5.0-NasVAAIPlugin-1.0-offline_bundle-2092790.zip file. The next step is to create a new baseline, in this case a “Host Extension” baseline.

vaai-nas_plugin_installation_vum_02

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Scroll down and add the plugin to the baseline (click the down arrow button). Click “Next”.

vaai-nas_plugin_installation_vum_03

Patrick Terlisten/ www.vcloudnine.de/ Creative Commons CC0

Check the settings and finish the creation of the baseline.

vaai-nas_plugin_installation_vum_04

Patrick Terlisten/ www.vcloudnine.de/ Creative Commons CC0

Now attach the baseline to your hosts or cluster.

vaai-nas_plugin_installation_vum_05

Patrick Terlisten/ www.vcloudnine.de/ Creative Commons CC0

As you can see, the VUM detected that my hosts are non-compliant, because the host extension is missing.

vaai-nas_plugin_installation_vum_06

Patrick Terlisten/ www.vcloudnine.de/ Creative Commons CC0

During the installation process, the plugin is installed and a host reboot is triggered. After a reboot and a scan, all hosts should be compliant.

vaai-nas_plugin_installation_vum_07

Patrick Terlisten/ www.vcloudnine.de/ Creative Commons CC0

In addition to the now compliant host status, the NFS datastores should now support hardware acceleration. You can check this in the vSphere C# or vSphere Web Client.

vaai-nas_plugin_installation_vum_08

Patrick Terlisten/ www.vcloudnine.de/ Creative Commons CC0

Another way to install the plugin is using the ESXCLI.

Install via ESXCLI

Upload the esx-nfsplugin.vib to a local or shared datastore. I placed the file in one of my NFS datastores. Then use ESXCLI to install the VIB.

~ # esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/VMDS-NFS-SATA/esx-nfsplugin.vib
Installation Result
Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
Reboot Required: true
VIBs Installed: Synology_bootbank_esx-nfsplugin_1.0-1
VIBs Removed:
VIBs Skipped:
~ #

Do enable the plugin, a host reboot is necessary. This ways is suitable for standalone hosts. I recommend to use the VUM whenever it’s possible.

Final words

I strongly recommend to install the plugin. Using the vSphere Update Manager, the installation is really easy. If you have a single host, try the installation using ESXCLI.

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