This article is part of a series.

Note: In case you already configured DNS settings while setting up the VMs (part 2 and 3) you can directly test name resolution with ping.

For the next steps it is advisable that both NetApp VMs are configured correctly. They should at least be able to resolve each other. If you plan to create a synchronous vFiler DR name resolution must work. If not you might get errors like “SnapMirror is unable to setup a multipath connection to vol_vfiler, resorting to the standard single TCP connection.” und “SnapMirror: destination transfer from 192.168.2.66_vfiler_con:vol_vfiler1 to vol_vfiler1 : Error in snapmirror sync mode negotiation.”.

You can choose between 2 DNS configurations: “Configuration with a DNS server” and “Configuration via /etc/hosts”. Make sure to always configure one of these options on both simulators.

This article is part of a series.

In this part of the series a new aggregate (aggr1) and volume (vol_vfiler01) are created on each of the 2 simulators. The aggregate consists of 14 disks and the volume will have a size of 10 GB (minimum size for synchronous SnapMirrors). In the video I used the OnCommand System Manager to configure the first simulator (netapp01).

This article is part of a series.

In general the second simulator is configured like the first one. As a main difference you have to change the serial number and system id of the second VM and use the appropiate license numbers like already mentioned in Part 1.

From the file “VSIM Licenses: 8.2.3 licenses Clustered-ONTAP” you choose a serial number matching your VMware product. In my case this is the line “Licenses for the non-ESX build (Serial Number 4082368507)”. So the serial number for the second VM is 4082368507 and the license codes are listed beneath.

This article is part of a series.

After you unzipped the file vsim_netapp-7m.tgz you have to open DataONTAP.vmx in VMware Fusion. The virtual network cards are configured as “Host-only” by default and only reachable from the host actually running the VM. To be able to communicate with the VMs in your normal network you should switch them to “Bridged”.

This article is part of a series.

To test NetApp vFiler DR and other NetApp features you can use Data ONTAP Simulator. At the end of this series of articles you have 2 7-Mode NetApps with all licenses needed and vFiler DR configured. I use VMware Fusion on Mac OS X to run the Data ONTAP Simulator but VMware Workstation and VMware Player should work quite the same.