HP Insight Orchestration 6.0 User Guide

administrator is notified and the operation pauses until the Insight Orchestration administrator scrubs
the disks attached to the servers being deprovisioned and continues the operation.
• Data disk deletion When configuring Insight Orchestration to perform manual storage provisioning,
the Insight Orchestration administrator is notified at the end of a Delete service operation. The Insight
Orchestration administrator must:
• Edit HP Insight Dynamics Logical Server Management storage pool entries
• Remove all LUNs added during the manual data disk allocation from the applicable storage pool
entries to make them available for provisioning
Automated allocation
Allocation is the process of finding the resources to match to the logical objects described in a template. An
Insight Orchestration template is the logical specification of an infrastructure service using template components
known as logical objects, enabling the user to provision an infrastructure service from resources.
In Insight Orchestration templates, logical objects are specified either by attribute value or by name. Logical
server groups and storage are specified by attribute value, and networks are specified by name or attribute.
The process of matching logical objects to resources is a key capability of Insight Orchestration and is part
of several request types, including Create Service request.
After validating the arguments of a Create Service request, the Insight Orchestration controller performs
an allocation. If Insight Orchestration can locate the resources that match the template, then the allocation
is successful. After a successful match, Insight Orchestration reserves the selected resources and provisions
to instantiate the infrastructure service specified by the template. If Insight Orchestration does not locate the
necessary resources, the request fails, the resources are not reserved, and the infrastructure service is not
created.
Insight Orchestration can also utilize the allocation process during the provisioning process. This internal
allocation process can begin when Insight Orchestration cannot successfully provision a logical sever. Insight
Orchestration releases the allocated server and attempts another allocation to find a replacement server and
continue the provisioning. If the reallocation fails, the Create request fails.
If you view logical resources in isolation, Insight Orchestration might not be able to successfully allocate the
template. Insight Orchestration cannot allocate a network without successfully allocating the logical server
groups connected to that network. Similarly, Insight Orchestration cannot allocate logical server groups
without successfully allocating the storage for all the servers within the group.
When Insight Orchestration executes the allocation algorithm to search for resources, it attempts to allocate
networks, then logical server groups, and finally storage. To maximize the chances of success, within each
category, the allocation algorithm always attempts to allocate the most constrained logical object first. For
example, all the networks in a template are evaluated, and the network with the smallest number of candidate
subnets is chosen to allocate first.
A Virtual Connect Domain Group defines the boundaries for a set of resources, specifically servers, networks,
and SAN volumes. Any resource within a VCDomain Group is visible to or connected to any other resource
within the same VCDomain Group. However, connectivity between VCDomain Groups is uncertain. The
Insight Orchestration algorithm verifies VCDomain group boundaries by backtracking, incrementally building
candidate solutions for allocation, and abandoning each partial candidate as soon as it determines that it
cannot possibly complete the allocation. If the subnet does not have enough servers attached to the network
associated to the VCDomain Group, the subnet allocated to a network is abandoned. Insight Orchestration
chooses another candidate subnet and retries the logical server group allocation. If another valid candidate
subnet is not located, the allocation process fails, and all partial reservations are released.
Allocation takes place within the context of multiple Create Service requests submitted simultaneously. If
two allocations occur at the same time, they might fail. This occurs if users provision a solution using the
same resources at the same time. Consequently, Insight Orchestration treats allocation as a critical step to
ensure only one allocation occurs at a time.
Automated operating system provisioning
Insight Orchestration automated operating system provisioning supports either SAN boot or DAS boot on a
server blade, not both. When configured for boot from SAN, the internal hard drive must be disabled. Insight
Orchestration supports DAS boot with or without SAN data, but does not support SAN boot with DAS data.
46 Insight Orchestration provisioning and allocation