HP Logical Server Management Best Practices

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Figure 21: Using the Storage tab to modify associated storage pool entries not in the pool
Clicking the “Modify” button to the right of each row in the Storage Assignments table (shown in Figure 21) enables
the user to enter the storage details (as shown in Figure 20). The Storage pool entry export and import section of this
white paper discusses use of the command line interface to import storage details (avoiding such manual editing). Use
of SPM and the storage catalog also eliminates this need to manually provide details.
Figure 22 shows the definition of a storage pool entry using the SPM storage catalog. The storage pool entry type is
“SAN Catalog Storage Entry” and beneath the Volume & Path Selection table there is a button to “Show
Candidates”. The storage needs in the definition of this storage pool entry for a server with Virtual Connect portability
group remain the same, whether the catalog is used or not. The administrator begins with adding ports and selecting
the appropriate fabrics. The fabric choices offered match those defined when configuring Virtual Connect. The Matrix
OE software will allocate Virtual Connect initiator WWNs for each port, and the administrator has the option to
replace that WWN with another reserved Virtual Connect WWN, if appropriate (e.g., if the storage administrator
has reserved a set of initiator WWNs and created, presented, and zoned storage – but not created storage pool
entries to represent those storage volumes).
The appropriate volumes are defined for the storage pool entry, with the option to specify redundancy for individual
volumes, or across all volumes. The storage volume details are specified (in this case two volumes, a boot volume with
redundant path, and a data volume, both masked for visibility). The boot volume is selected via the radio button to the
left, and the result of clicking the “Show Candidates” button is the list of candidates for the boot volume. Candidates
are listed by their names, and thus it is a best practice to use names which will be meaningful to the administrator
and helpful in making an appropriate selection.
The storage volume details (including tags) are used by Matrix OE to make the request to the HP Storage Provisioning
Manager. Since larger volumes are often acceptable, the request uses the specified size as a minimum, and some of
the volumes returned may be larger in size. Matrix OE displays the size of the candidates in parenthesis after the
name of each candidate. SPM will order the candidates based on their suitability, with a volume that is a match but
requires no automation being higher on the candidate list than a volume which requires automation to match the
request (e.g., to change the host mode or perform LUN masking). Thus, it is possible a volume larger than the
requested size is considered a better match (if it doesn‟t require automation) than a volume which is an exact match
on size but requires automation.