Chapter 3 Discover Storage

Table of Contents
This figure shows the visual indicator that shows where you are in the tutorial. The Discover storage option is selected. This is step two of a seven step process.

Storage refers to two different types of disk space: the space available for environment resources such as virtual machine templates and ISO files, and the logical or physical disks used by virtual machines.

Virtual machines use two types of storage, as follows:

  • Virtual disks: disk image files on a file system.

  • Raw physical disks: LUNs accessed directly by the virtual machine.

A storage repository can be any of the following:

  • iSCSI: Abstracted LUNs or raw disks accessible over existing Ethernet infrastructure (SAN Servers).

  • FCP: Abstracted LUNs or raw disks accessible over Fibre Channel host bus adapters (SAN Servers).

  • NFS: File-based storage over existing Ethernet infrastructure (NAS or File Servers).

The first step, before you can discover storage, is to configure the storage repositories that contain environment resources. You configure the storage repository outside of the Oracle VM environment. This step includes tasks such as creating and exporting file system mounts on an NFS server. For more information about discovering and configuring storage, see Storage Tab.

In addition to the storage entities you require for storage repositories, you should make sure you leave at least 12 GB of disk space for each server pool file system. The server pool file system is used to hold the server pool and cluster data, and is also used for cluster heartbeating. You create server pool file systems the same way you create storage entities for storage repositories. For more information about the use and management of clusters and server pools, see How do Server Pool Clusters Work?.

Your storage may have been automatically discovered when you discovered your Oracle VM Servers. If not, you must discover it. If your storage server exposes a writable file system, discover the file server using the procedure in Discover File Server. If your storage server exposes raw disks (SAN volumes, iSCSI targets and LUNs) discover the SAN servers using the procedure in Discover SAN Server.

The following examples show how to discover a file server, and a SAN server so that your storage is ready to be used to create a storage repository or server pool file system.

3.1 Discovering a file server

This example uses a file server storage type (an NFS share). Replace the IP address for that of your own file server.

To discover a file server:

  1. Click the Storage tab.

  2. Select Discover File Server Discover File Server icon from the toolbar.

    This figure shows the Discover File Server icon in the Storage tab.
    Click to view larger image storage_discover_snip.png

  3. The Discover a File Server wizard is displayed. Select the Oracle VM Storage Connect plug-in for the storage type, in this case we are using the Oracle Generic Network File System Oracle VM Storage Connect plug-in. Enter a name for the storage, and the IP address of your file server, then click Next.

    This figure shows the first step of the Discover a File Server wizard.
    Click to view larger image fileserver_discover1.png

  4. Assign one or more Oracle VM Servers to perform any required administration on the file server. Click Next.

    This figure shows the Add Admin Servers step of the Discover a File Servers wizard.
    Click to view larger image fileserver_discover2.png

  5. If any file systems on the file server contain existing virtual machine resources they are listed on this step of the wizard. Select the corresponding check box to discover the content of the selected file systems. This allows Oracle VM Manager to add the existing resources to the system. Click Finish to complete the file server discovery.

    This figure shows the Select File Systems step of the Discover a File Server wizard.
    Click to view larger image fileserver_discover4.png

    At the end of the file server discovery a refresh operation is triggered to make sure all file systems available on the file server appear in Oracle VM Manager. When the operation is complete, the available file systems are displayed in the management pane when you select the file server.

    You can change the name of the file systems by selecting the file system in the table and clicking Edit File System Edit Files System icon in the management pane toolbar.

    This figure shows the Storage tab with the File Servers folder selected and the File Systems perspective displayed, which lists the file systems which have been discovered.
    Click to view larger image fileserver_discover5.png

3.2 Discovering a SAN server (storage array)

This example uses an iSCSI SAN server. Replace the information here for that of your own SAN server.

To discover a SAN server:

  1. Click the Storage tab.

  2. Click Discover SAN Server Discover SAN Server icon in the toolbar.

    This figure shows the Discover SAN Server icon in the Storage tab.
    Click to view larger image storage_discover_san_snip.png

  3. The Discover SAN Server wizard is displayed. Enter a name for the SAN server and optional description. Select iSCSI Storage Server from the Storage Type drop-down list, and the plug-in type for your SAN server, which in this example is Oracle Generic SCSI Plugin. Click Next.

    This figure shows the Discover SAN Server wizard.
    Click to view larger image san_discover1.png

  4. The Access Information step is displayed.

    This figure shows the Access Information step of the Discover SAN Server wizard.
    Click to view larger image san_discover2.png

    Enter one or more access hosts to create network paths to the storage. To add multiple paths (for multipathing), add multiple access hosts. Click Create New Access Host Create New Access Host icon to add access hosts for the SAN server.

    The Create Access Host dialog box is displayed.

    This figure shows the Create Access Host dialog box.

    Enter the IP address and access port of the host that has access to the SAN server. Typically, this is the IP address of the SAN server and the default access port of 3260. Click OK.

    This figure shows the Access Host added to the Access Information screen in the Discover SAN Server wizard.
    Click to view larger image san_discover3.png

    Repeat this step for each access host, for example, you may have access hosts such as 10.172.76.130, 10.172.76.131, 10.172.77.130, and 10.172.77.131 to enable multipathing. When you have entered all access hosts, click Next.

  5. For most SAN servers the wizard moves straight to the Add Admin Servers step. However, if you have vendor-specific storage hardware with an admin host handling more than one storage array, such as certain HP EVAs and EMC arrays, enter the name of the array to be used for the new SAN server. The wizard recognizes this type of storage and displays the Set Storage Name step when applicable. Enter the storage name and click Next.

  6. The Add Admin Servers step is displayed.

    This figure shows the Add Admin Servers step of the Discover SAN Server wizard.
    Click to view larger image san_discover4.png

    Use the arrow buttons to move the required Oracle VM Servers to the Selected Servers box. This selects which Oracle VM Servers are to be made available to perform Oracle VM related admin operations on the SAN server. Click Next.

  7. The Manage Access Group step is displayed.

    This figure shows the Manage Access Group step of the Discover SAN Server wizard.
    Click to view larger image san_discover5.png

    This example uses a generic ISCSI SAN server, so a default access group is created. Select the default access group in the table and click Edit Access Group Edit Access Group icon , then select the Storage Initiators tab in the Edit Access Group dialog box.

    This figure shows the Storage Initiators tab displayed in the Edit Access Group dialog box.

    Select and move the Oracle VM Servers into the Selected Storage Initiators box to add storage initiators to each Oracle VM Server. Click OK.

  8. Click Finish to complete the SAN server discovery operation.

  9. Select the SAN server in the navigation pane, and select Physical Disks from the Perspective drop-down list in the management pane. The list of physical disks on the server is listed in the table. These disks are automatically presented to the selected Oracle VM Servers.

    This figure shows the Storage tab with the SAN Servers folder selected and the Physical Disks perspective displayed, which lists the physical disks.
    Click to view larger image san_discover_completed_pdisks.png

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