HP Matrix Operating Environment Software User Manual
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Manual storage provisioning means that either no storage has been pre-provisioned or that only
a subset of the storage has been pre-provisioned for a logical server. At the service creation time,
Insight Orchestration attempts to locate and allocate the storage resources.
When no storage resources are found, the overall request pauses for the administrator to manually
provision the required storage. The administrator is notified by an Operations
Orchestration-generated email message that contains the details of the service being provisioned
and the storage resources that are required. After the administrator has completed the storage
provisioning process using one of the following methods, the request is re-activated and allowed
to continue.
•
Creating a new storage pool entry using the Modify
→Logical Server Pools ... menu selection
in Virtualization Manager
•
Using the Storage Provisioning Manager UI to change the automation permissions on the
target volume to permit LUN masking control
Automated storage provisioning depends on pre-provisioning of SAN volumes. Once the SAN
volumes have been pre-provisioned, Insight Orchestration can automate the LUN presentation
process to a server through two different approaches.
Static SAN volume automation through multi-initiator NPIV
Using this process, SAN volumes are pre-masked to one more initiator WWNs within the SAN.
Zoning is also pre-configured. The SAN volumes are then made available within Virtualization
Manager’s storage pool as storage pool entries.
At service creation, Insight Orchestration is able to choose one or more storage pool entries from
the storage pool. It will then examine the initiator WWNs that were associated with each of the
storage pool entries and perform the required assignment to the server in order to enable server
visibility within the SAN to the set of SAN volume targets defined by the storage pool entries.
This process has the advantage of still being able to separate the boot and data storage visibility
to the server during OS provisioning without requiring any access to the existing SAN management
interfaces. The approach is limited to Virtual Connect managed servers only. For additional
information, see the Insight Dynamics – Automated Storage Provisioning: “Static” SAN volume
automation through multi-initiator NPIV white paper at
,
or contact your HP support representative.
Dynamic SAN volume automation via LUN masking
In this process, SAN volumes are pre-created but are not yet masked to one or more initiator
WWNs. Zoning must be pre-configured. The SAN volumes are made available within Virtualization
Manager’s storage pool as storage pool entries.
At service creation, Insight Orchestration selects one storage pool entry. The storage pool entry
must fully match the storage requirements for the logical server: number of SAN volumes, size,
RAID level, and optionally a set of one or more tags. Different than the Flex-FC approach above,
Insight Orchestration is able to perform automatic LUN masking and host mode assignment. This
allows Insight Orchestration to separate the visibility of boot and data storage during OS
provisioning. It also allows a single storage pool entry to be re-used across different logical servers
because the host mode may also be set dynamically based on the logical server’s requirements.
The process has the advantage of being supported for both Virtual Connect managed servers and
non-Virtual Connect managed servers. This approach does require that a SAN administrator be
willing to grant restricted access to the disk array management interface for performing the SAN
volume inventory and LUN masking operations. Storage administrators can grant specific server
administrators, or groups of administrators, these capabilities using the Storage Provisioning
Manager (SPM). SPM enables the storage administrator to create catalog entries representing the
pre-provisioned SAN volumes and have granular control over operations (some may support LUN
masking and changing host mode, others may not). This provides much more granular control than
giving the server administrator the Admin password to the storage array.
Configuring Insight Orchestration to list heterogeneous hardware
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