Creating a Writable VSS Snapshot
By default a Volume Shadow Copy snapshot is Read-Only. So when you create a new volume (purevol copy) you cannot modify the volume. Below are the steps to make the VSS snapshot writable. The steps show end-to-end how to: Connect to the FlashArray,Locate a VSS snapshotCreate a new volumeConnect new volume to hostThen clear read-only [...]
First Look at the Technical Preview of Pure Storage Cloud Block Store for Microsoft™ Azure
As you start to build your hybrid- or multi- cloud environment differences in storage capabilities across various private and public clouds become more and more prominent, [...]
Announcing the Pure Storage® FlashArray Management Extension for Microsoft® SQL Server® Management Studio
Today marks a significant milestone for Pure Storage as we announce the release of a new extension for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). This extension provides [...]
Announcing the Pure Storage FlashArray Management Extension for Windows Admin Center
Today Pure Storage is excited to announce new integrated capabilities to simplify the management and operation of Microsoft applications and databases running on Pure [...]
Get Pumped for Microsoft Ignite & Pure Storage!
Microsoft Ignite is just around the corner from November 4 - 8th in Orlando, FL, and Pure Storage is proud to be a Silver Sponsor in 2019. Make plans to stop by the Pure [...]
Go fishing at Pure//Accelerate for a Swordfish™
On Wednesday, September 18th @2:00-2:45pm I will be co-presenting with Richelle Ahlvers, Storage Management Software Architect from Broadcom, Inc. If you are interested in [...]
Oh wait but there’s more for Pure//Accelerate — THE PANELS!
Breakout sessions are the meat and potatoes of Pure//Accelerate but the next best side is the panel discussions. They're like the gravy on the potatoes.
I am involved in [...]
T-18 days to Pure//Accelerate 2019 — Check out the Microsoft Sessions!
18 days until the 4th Pure//Accelerate and it's jammed packed full of great sessions covering a ton of different new products, features and solutions. My team will be [...]
New! Pure Storage PowerShell SDK 1.16
A long awaited update to the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK is here! The new SDK supports FlashArray REST API 1.0 -- 1.16. For full documentation on the REST API use the [...]
Setting up SSL Certificate
My blog's SSL certificate recently expired and it was a mad dash to get a new one and back to HTTPS status. I always forget all of the openssl commands so figured I'd [...]
New-PfaCliCommand (Port 22)
The New-PfaCliCommand is a cmdlet we introduced for situations that the REST API is updated in a new version of Purity but the new REST endpoints are not supported in the [...]
Best Practice: Using -Version Parameter with New-PfaArray cmdlet
The Pure Storage PowerShell SDK supports our REST API from 1.0 -- 1.13 today. If you want to know what the highest version that is supported by a FlashArray use the below URL [...]
PowerShell Toolkit Update 1903.7
There were a few bugs discovered in Test-WindowsBestPractices cmdlet.
CustomPathRecoveryTime -- Was not setting the actual value from the system setting to our best [...]
SMI Lab 18 January Plugfest Learnings
A few weeks back I attended the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Symposium and Storage Management Initiative (SMI) Plugfest. I spent my time at the plugfest to [...]
One Pure Storage PowerShell Module to Rule Them All.
We have developed PowerShell Modules to support management and automation for the FlashArray, VMware, Windows Server, Exchange, Pure1 and soon FlashBlade. As we continue our [...]
Consistent API Experience for On-Premises and the Cloud
In my previous post I discussed how to achieve data mobility between on-premises and the cloud which focused on a Microsoft SQL Server production and dev/test use case. In [...]
Data Mobility from On-Premises to the Cloud
Today Pure announced Cloud Block Store for AWS which offers a way for the Pure Storage platforms to be extended into public cloud. There are many different use cases that [...]
Join the Pure/Code() Slack Team
We have had a Slack team for our Pure/Code() community but joining was more word of mouth, get a Slack invite from one of our Systems Engineers or Solutions Architects.
I [...]
Tech Preview of the Pure Storage Extension for Windows Admin Center
Today we are announcing the Tech Preview of the Pure Storage Extension for Windows Admin Center! The Pure Storage Extension for Windows Admin Center provides the ability to [...]
Updated PureStoragePowerShellToolkit 1808.24
There was a formatting problem discovered by a customer with the New-FlashArrayCapacityReport which is fixed in version 1808.24.
The issue was related to output [...]
Data Mobility Demo Journey from Pure//Accelerate
At Pure//Accelerate 2018 Cody Hosterman and I delivered a session on "Moving Data Between Cloud and On-Premises Virtualized Environments". The focus of this session was on [...]
Update: Pure Storage PowerShell SDK 1.13.1.12
We have updated the PowerShell SDK to fix a bug with a few cmdlets returning incorrect return values. One example shown below uses Get-PfaArrayAttributes cmdlet and returns [...]
New PowerShell SDK Release 1.13!
I am happy to announce a HUGE release of the PowerShell SDK, version 1.13. With this new release the version naming adopts the REST API version that is supported as part of [...]
New Version of PowerShell Toolkit (1805.11.1)
In a previous post I detailed out the issue with Get-MPIOSetting value returns. This problem caused the Test-WindowsBestPractices cmdlet to not work. This new version of the [...]
Pure/Hack(1) Kicks-Off!
Today we launched the Pure Storage Hackathon! We ran a hackathon at Pure//Accelerate 2017 and we got a few participants so this year we went a bit bigger to allow more [...]
CLI Scripting by Miranda Steele, Guest Blogger
I'd like to introduce my first guest blogger, Miranda Steele. Miranda works on our REST API and FlashArray programmability team. She is extremely knowledgeable about our API, [...]
Troubles with Get-MPIOSetting in Windows Server
There have been a number of customers that have hit an issue with the Test-WindowsBestPractices cmdlet which is part of the PowerShell Toolkit. The problem started to manifest [...]
Updated: Restoring Protection Group Volume Snapshots
FlashRecover protection groups can be defined at all the different object levels the FlashArray supports; volumes, hosts and host groups. Whenever a snapshot is created, the [...]
New-FlashArrayCapacityReport cmdlet in Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit 1802.13
New-FlashArrayCapacityReport has been updated in the latest release of the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit 1802.13. The report that is generated provides a view of the [...]
Check Provisioning Type of a Windows Server Volume
I had a question asked about how to determine whether or not a connected volume to a Windows Server host is thin provisioned or not. I put together the below PowerShell script [...]
SQL Server Database Clones –> AWS Direct Connect –> AWS EC2
In August 2017 we announced the release of our >Hybrid Cloud with AWS and the demonstration in this blog is a follow-up to show how to leverage FlashRecover Snapshots with [...]
“The PowerShell Scripting Song”
There are no words for my appreciation to Chappy, Kyle, Charlies, Jon, Daniel, Arthur, John, Joe and a host of others for creating this song.
Enjoy the sounds of [...]
Creating Volumes from Protection Group Sources (Part 2)
In Part 1 of creating volumes from Protection Group (PGroup) sources I discussed how to get a specific snapshot to use for a disaster recovery (DR) restore. In the case of [...]
Creating Volumes from Protection Group Sources (Part 1)
When creating new volumes (Copy Volume) from a Protection Group snapshot the naming convention is the devil in the details. Below is an example using the PowerShell SDK . The [...]
Update! Setup Active Directory Integration with the PowerShell SDK
Update 10/6/2017 — Updated the PowerShell script to support the cmdlets in the PowerShell SDK (1.7.4.0+).
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Having Active Directory integration [...]
Thank you MS_Ignite Attendees!
Microsoft Ignite 2017 was all about the cloud, Office 365, Dynamics 365, Teams, Azure Cloud, Cloud Shell and more. Prefix or suffix a word with "Cloud" and that was the topic [...]
New Microsoft Platform Guide Released!
I am happy to announce the availability of the new Microsoft Platform Guide on the Pure1 Support site. The new platform guide is a complete re-write from the old Windows [...]
A Brief History of Time with PowerShell and Pure Storage
September 6, 2017 ---
Feeling a little nostalgic today. What an incredible journey the work on our PowerShell SDK has taken over the last 3+ years. It's hard for me to [...]
Start-Transcript -PathTo ‘Best Practice’
This is just a quick post to recommend that Pure Storage customers or partners working on automation workflows using PowerShell with Server and SAN infrastructure should [...]
New Release! Pure Storage Hybrid Cloud with AWS Design Guide
At Pure//Accelerate 2017 we announced a ton of new innovation, including a new Hybrid Cloud solution for AWS. If you missed it, check out my breakout session on Building [...]
Using Python Toolkit with Visual Studio Code
I have been using Visual Studio Code more than the PowerShell ISE nowadays for script development, C# and a few other projects. I mostly focus on Microsoft integrations but [...]
Purity//FA comes with Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX)
Offloaded Data Transfers (ODX) was introduced in Microsoft Windows Server 2012 to provide direct data transfer within or between storage arrays by bypassing the host system. [...]
DevOps Pipeline Demo of CloudSnap to AWS
At //Accelerate 2017 we announced a lot of new features for Purity//FA and one of the more interesting is CloudSnap. Omer Asad wrote a great blog that provides an [...]
Basic Storage Workflow using Overwrite
This is a follow-up blog based on Overwriting a Volume in Windows Server.
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Our snapshots offer an incredible amount of flexibility. One of the greatest [...]
New Pure/Code() Slack Team
Update 7/5/2017 -- Added https://pscodeinvite.azurewebsites.net/ using slackin for quick and easy sign-up!
Along with the upcoming hackathon we have introduced a new [...]
Pure/Code() Hackathon at //Accelerate 2017
Pure//Accelerate 2017 starts next week and I wanted to build up some excitement for the Pure/Code() Hackathon that will be happening during the event. This will be an event [...]
Overwriting a Volume in Windows Server
I have been asked the question about how do you overwrite a volume using the PowerShell SDK that is connected from a Windows Server a few times so here is how its done!
In [...]
Cisco PowerTool for setting up FlashStack Virtual Server Infrastructure
This is a great example of using the Cisco UCS PowerTool Suite for Microsoft PowerShell to setup a FlashStack. The Cisco UCS manager can be a bit overwhelming with all of the [...]
Access FlashBlade using the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK
In the latest release of the PowerShell SDK (1.7.4.0) we included a new cmdlet for sending CLI commands to the FlashArray. We added this cmdlet in case any new REST APIs had [...]
Using Protection Groups with VSS Snapshots
A common question I get about the Pure Storage Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provider is; "How can I replicate a VSS snapshot?" Our VSS provider takes FlashProtect [...]
Pure Storage PowerShell SDK 1.7.4.0 Released
This new release adds support for connecting to Pure Storage FlashArray using IPv6. The only change in the connectivity process using New-PfaArray is using an IPv6 address for [...]