HP Insight Orchestration 6.0 User Guide
The second approach is called “Dynamic” SAN volume automation via LUN masking. In this approach,
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 in terms of number 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 approach 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.
For more information on Storage Provisioning Manager, see
HP Logical Server Management Best Practices
white paper
.
Insight Orchestration approach to storage reservation and allocation
A key step in the service creation process involves both a reservation and allocation phase for all resources
required by the service template. The following approach is followed when performing storage reservation
and allocation. The resource set that is being analyzed is always the storage pool entries defined within
Virtualization Manager.
• Seek a storage pool entry (SPE) that contains a fully matched boot disk per the logical server’s boot
disk definition.
a. If found, seek one or more additional SPEs that fully match the logical server’s data disk definitions.
b. If not found, pause the request and raise an email alert (using an Operations Orchestration
workflow) requesting manual storage provisioning for the data disks.
• If the boot disk reservation could not be satisfied, fall back to seeking a single SPE which fully matches
both the logical server's boot disk and data disk requirements.
• If the boot disk reservation still cannot be satisfied, fall back to seeking a single SPE which fully matches
the logical server’s boot disk definition.
a. If found, pause the request and raise an email alert requesting manual storage provisioning for
the data disks.
• If the boot disk reservation still cannot be satisfied, pause the request and raise an email alert requesting
manual storage provisioning for the boot disk.
NOTE: Whenever a request that was paused for manual storage provisioning is continued, Insight
Orchestration will re-enter the reservation algorithm, applying the same logic to satisfy both the boot and
data disk requirements for the logical server.
Using the pattern above, the following priority is observed when trying to satisfy the storage requirements:
1. Try: “Static” SAN volume automation through Flex-FC
2. Fall back to: “Dynamic” SAN volume automation via LUN masking
3. Fall back to: Manual storage provisioning
The storage pool entries used for the preceding algorithm are defined with Virtualization Manager using
the logical server storage pool interface. Storage pool entries can be defined and fulfilled by a storage
administrator providing appropriate details once they have created, presented, and zoned the SAN storage
volumes. Alternatively, HP provides a solution, Storage Provisioning Manager, that enables the storage
administrator to define a catalog of pre-presented storage. Storage pool entries can be matched against
catalog entries without requiring human intervention, or requests can be viewed in the SPM interface and
34 Configuration