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 manage Pure Storage FlashArray's. We will be showcasing the extension this week at Microsoft Ignite at booth #402. Microsoft released Windows Admin Center (WAC) on September 20th. [...]
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 [...]
New! Scale-Out Files Services with Windows Storage Server 2016
Rolling out of the lab and into production a new Pure Storage reference architecture (Download) for deploying a highly-available and scale-out Microsoft® File Server [...]
New! FlashStack™ Mini CI for Microsoft Applications with Hyper-V
Hot off the presses, the new FlashStack™ Mini Converged Infrastructure Design Guide for Microsoft Applications with Hyper-V (Download). This new FlashStack uses the UCS Mini [...]
Pure Storage Non-Disruptive Video Series – Chapter 3, the FINALE!
The final chapter in the Non-Disruptive Video Series is now available! In this chapter we focus on upgrading from a Pure Storage FlashArray//m20 to a FlashArray//m50. Just as [...]
Pure Storage PowerShell ISE Add-on
We all have ideas we all come up with daily based on customer interactions, self-learning or working with engineering. But the chance to make one of those ideas a reality is [...]
Simple Provisioning Script to Create Multiple Volumes and Adding to a PGroup
Got this question today that a customer was looking for a provisioning script that allowed them to create several hundred volumes with assigned prefixes and then add them to a [...]
New Release! Pure Storage PowerShell SDK 1.6.6.0
This new release of the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK provides easier access to IO and Space reporting metrics. For those customers that are interested in creating reports this [...]
Checking for Active Remote Assist Session
Pure Storage support uses Remote Assist to help customers upgrade and troubleshoot should an issue arise. There have been a few requests from our System Engineers about [...]
Ignite, Ignite, Ignite
Microsoft Ignite is always a great show because I finally get a chance to nerd out with like minded people. This year I am even more excited because of the further investments [...]
Best Practice: Disable Disk Fragmentation Scheduled Task
By default Windows Server creates a scheduled task for defrag. Connected drives from a Pure Storage FlashArray do not need this defragmentation operation performed as it [...]
Create a Hierarchy Tree of Hosts, Volumes & Snapshots
The following script creates a visual hierarchy to show the Host to Volume to Snapshot relationship.
PowerShell script:
Clear-Host
$return = Read-Host -Prompt 'Enter the [...]
Get GitHub Download Release Metrics
Cody Hosterman, Argenis Fernandez and I have posted a lot of content to GitHub and one of the details I always wanted to know was "# of downloads for project X". Although [...]
Find All Disconnected Volumes
Updates
5/2/2017 - Added size of disconnected volume output.
5/1/2017 - Fixed bugs.
There are many ways to determine what volumes are connected to a host or host group, [...]
Retrieving Members of Directory Service Configuration
Once Pure Storage FlashArray Directory Services has been configured seeing who has been added to the different defined groups (Array_Admin_Group, ReadOnly_Group or [...]
Always Use VIR IP for Pure Storage SMI-S Provider
When using the Pure Storage SMI-S Provider ALWAYS use the VIR IP address. The SMI-S Provider runs on the Active (Primary) controller and using the VIR IP allows for [...]
Pure Storage + HoloLens
I’m so excited, it’s already been fun to develop demos for the capabilities of the Pure Storage platform but now its time for some new demos. First off, Microsoft THANK [...]
Setting up System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 with Pure Storage
We introduced support for Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) with the release of Purity 4.6. I covered the Pure Storage SMI-S Provider Overview previously [...]
Pure Storage Non-Disruptive Video Series – Chapter 2
The next chapter in the Non-Disruptive Video Series is now available! In this chapter we focus on upgrading from a Pure Storage FlashArray FA-420 to a FlashArray//m20. Just as [...]
PowerShell SDK & Toolkit available via the PowerShell Gallery
On the heels of my post about transitioning to use PowerShell Remoting I have made the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK and Toolkit available via the https://powershellgallery.com. [...]
Correlate a Volume to Source Snapshot
I received a request from a customer to determine what snapshot is the source of a created volume. Before I dig into how to determine the correlation using the Pure Storage [...]
PowerShell Remoting…Start Transitioning If You Haven’t
With the upcoming release of Windows Server 2016, Nano Server and all things related to Microsoft Azure learning PowerShell Remoting and start relying less and less on the use [...]
Integration of Pure Storage with SolarWinds®
All-flash arrays are the new normal in the data center. Pure Storage simplicity meets SolarWinds® end-to-end IT infrastructure management
After several months of work by [...]
Updated Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit
I have updated the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit with a new cmdlet for testing Windows Server settings based on our best practices. The new release can be downloaded [...]
Pure Storage Non-Disruptive Video Series – Chapter 1
Since joining Pure Storage I've been able to work on very interesting projects but the Non-Disruptive Video Series has been one of my favorites. The goal of the Non-Disruptive [...]
New! FlashStack for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013
FlashStack is a flexible, all-flash converged infrastructure solution from Pure Storage® that brings the flash revolution to your data center. It combines the latest in [...]
What Volume is Connected to What Host?
There was a Pure1 Community forum question asking how to identify what volume is connected to what host?
Here are some simple scripts to display with no need to go to the [...]
Demonstration of New Microsoft Azure Integration
During the Pure//Accelerate 2016 conference we announced the Pure Storage Hybrid All-Flash Cloud with Microsoft Azure. During the conference we presented sessions and [...]
Pure Storage Python Toolkit with BASH on Windows 10
Microsoft recently announced the new Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14316 which includes the ability to run native bash on Ubuntu on Windows. First off BRILLIANT! Secondly I [...]
Where are the Pure Storage SDKs and Toolkits?
I have received a lot of questions recently about the locations of the various SDKs and Toolkits for the Pure Storage® Windows PowerShell modules.
There are two new [...]
New Pure Storage PowerShell SDK Release
Today we released the new Pure Storage® PowerShell SDK 1.5. This new release addresses some core changes to the SDK that include:
Upgraded to support Transport Layer [...]
Announcing: Pure Storage All-Flash Cloud for Microsoft Azure
Today is an exciting day at Pure Storage! Holding our 1st User Conference: Pure//Accelerate; announcing new products: FlashArray//m10 and FlashBlade; along with several new [...]
Misconception of Microsoft Exchange Server support with Pure Storage FlashArray
The question from customers that consistently comes up is regarding support for Microsoft Exchange Server with a Pure Storage FlashArray. The simple answer is Yes, it is [...]
Pure Storage 40,000 Mailbox Resiliency Storage Solution (ESRP)
Unlike traditional disk based storage solutions where various arrays are designed to address specific customer profiles, FlashArray//m is designed to consolidate multiple data [...]
New PowerShell ISE *Preview* & PowerShell Gallery
There are so many great PowerShell development/scripting tools that have been developed offering a wide variety of features for every level of scripter. I’ve run through the [...]
Photo of the Day: Pure Storage FlashArray//m Series Systems
Thanks to Alex Touchette who took an amazing perspective shot of a row of Pure Storage FlashArray//m series systems. Feel free to download and use as your wallpaper, also [...]
Remove the Windows Features You Don’t Need to Save Some Space
Windows Server comes with a wealth of Roles and Features. In many cases not everyone uses all of the Roles or Features on every server deployed, physical or virtualized. So [...]
How-To: Enabling/Disabling Remote Assist with the PowerShell SDK
A question that is coming up often as more and more customers leverage the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK for automation management is, “How do I control Remote Assist [...]
$200 Discount Code for Pure//Accelerate, What do you want to learn?
Want to join us at Pure//Accelerate and save $200 off the registration fee???
The solution is as simple as our management interface:
Send a tweet with why you want to [...]
Accelerate Your Pure Storage Experience
After being at Pure Storage for the last 2+ years there are so many amazing moments that I have experienced but if I could distill it down into my Top 5 here they [...]
Kicking the Deployment Tires with Microsoft Nano Server
I finally started playing around with Microsoft Nano Server this past week and am quite amazed at the implementation of this new Windows Server deployment option. The [...]
Pure Storage SMI-S Provider Overview
With the release of Purity 4.6 we introduce support for the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S).This specification was created by the Storage Networking [...]
Learn about Commvault IntelliSnap technology integration with Pure Storage
Commvault adds orchestration and functional value on top of the Pure Storage FlashRecover Snapshot technology with the IntelliSnap™ technology snapshot management feature [...]
Using the PowerShell SDK with System Center 2012 Orchestrator
The Pure Storage PowerShell SDK presents opportunities to automate tasks in a variety of different applications, services and tools. In this post, I want to provide a simple [...]
Read a Password from a Secure File for use with the PowerShell SDK
Quick post on how to store and retrieve passwords to automate login to the Pure Storage FlashArray using the PowerShell SDK.
We will use the basis of a previous post, [...]
Getting Started with the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK
A picture (or video in this case) is worth a thousand words. In this video I walk through the following:
Installing the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK 1.0.15.0
Installing [...]
Calculating Block Size Using the Powershell SDK
The Pure Storage PowerShell SDK covers all aspects of management and automation for the FlashArray FA-400 series and the FlashArray//m series. In many of the discussions with [...]
“Pure Reduce” — Winner of the ASCII Art Competition
We held an ASCII art competition during the month of July and today we are announcing the winner. Congratulations, Andrew Reeves of Tecolote Research, Inc.!
Andrew’s [...]
Pure Storage PowerShell SDK FAQs
I have been fielding a few questions about the new release of the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK and I wanted to share the answers more broadly to ensure everyone understands [...]
Getting Started with the Pure Storage Python Toolkit
What?!? The Python Toolkit on the PowerShell Guy’s blog? Hell yeah I say, a cook is only as good as the number of spices and how to use those spices. I wanted to just put [...]
Announcing the New Pure Storage PowerShell SDK
We started supporting automation and management of the Pure Storage FlashArray with Windows PowerShell almost a year ago with the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit. The [...]
Backup Automation with SQL Server PowerShell and Pure Storage PowerShell
Microsoft SQL Server is one of the primary workloads that Pure Storage customers run on our FlashArray and a frequent question we get is on the topic of automated backup [...]
Simplify Design of 100% Flash Storage for Microsoft SQL Server 2014 with Flashstack
I’m back from my blogging hiatus after wrapping up the new FlashStack Converged Infrastructure Design Guide for SQL 2014. This was a fun and challenging project building out [...]
Using FlashRecover Snapshots to Quickly Scale Creating Databases
I recently helped with a simple proof of concept to enable the ability to create a number of SQL Server databases without the need to have the MDF and LDF created from scratch [...]
Looking for the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit?
The PowerShell Toolkit has been moved to a new GitHub repository. With the soon to be released PowerShell SDK coming which provides full support through our Pure Storage [...]
Sneak Peek: Managing a FlashArray//m with the new Pure Storage PowerShell SDK 1.0
There are a lot of exciting things happening at Pure Storage today. Announcing the new FlashArray//m, our new cloud-based management and support with Pure1 and last but not [...]
Developing the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit vNext
The history of the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit started with some simple work in Windows PowerShell ISE with 5 basic cmdlets (Get-PfaApiToken, Connect-PfaController, [...]
FlashStack Converged Infrastructure for Microsoft SQL Server
Uninterrupted database performance with AlwaysOn Availability Groups and native FlashArray-based replication
Microsoft SQL Server is an increasingly vital database workload [...]
#IgniteItOrange @ Microsoft Ignite!
Be sure to stop by booth #108 next week to talk with the Pure Storage Solution Architects, Argenis Fernandez (@DBArgenis) and me, along with our “Alliance Guy”, “Cool [...]
Get the Latest Version of the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit
Version 2.8.0.403 was released yesterday with a new SUPER helpful parameter, HttpTimeOut, on for Connect-PfaController cmdlet. I mistakenly introducing a very minor but [...]
Using the PSCredential Object with the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit
A great question came in yesterday about how to use the new –Credential parameter that was implemented in v2.5 Toolkit.
Question: What if someone wants to use the script [...]
Try the REST API using a REST client
Ever wanted to work with our REST API without the need to install the PowerShell or Python toolkits? Take the REST API for a test drive using a REST client. There are several [...]
Compare Windows 2008 R2 to Windows 2012 Storage Cmdlets
Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 introduced a new set of storage cmdlets that provided specific support for disk management, multipath I/O configuration, MSDSM settings and [...]
Save Get-Help PureStoragePowerShell to PDF
I met with a customer this past week and they asked if we had a copy of all of our PowerShell help in Portable Document Format (PDF). Unfortunately at that moment we did not [...]
Toolkit Update to 2.6.0.401
I have fixed a minor issue with the toolkit when it comes to figuring out the latest version of the REST API when connecting to a FlashArray. When we introduced the REST API [...]
Windows Server Failover Clusters, Disk Signatures & Snapshots
Leveraging snapshots to create new volumes that can be used on the same host or other hosts is an important feature as it allows for business and deployment agility when [...]
Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit 2.5.0.324
For those users of the PowerShell Toolkit this release has two significant changes:
Support for PSCredential
FlashArray parameter is now Optional
These two updates [...]
3rd Party ISV Integration
As Pure Storage continues to innovate and extend our core platform it provides many opportunities to integrate or automate functional areas. Two publicly available examples of [...]
Hack: Windows Live Writer 2012
I use Windows Live Writer as my blog editor. I self host WordPress.org on Windows Azure and appreciate the editing features and easy integration. Although I like Windows Live [...]
Quick Start Guide for the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit
The interest in the PowerShell Toolkit has grown over the last several months and I wanted to take a moment to provide some guidance on how to get started whether you are [...]
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