For the past couple of months I've been playing with NetApp's upcoming Element Manager which is a complete re-write and eventually will replace FilerView. Since Val let the cat out of the bag, that opens the door for a blog entry.
Update - 03/06/2009: There has been an article recently posted by the Register stating that NetApp dumps FilerView in favor of the upcoming NetApp System Manager. That statement is not true. FilerView will continue to exist and be fully supported in the forseeable future.
The basic idea behind the NetApp System Manager (NSM) is to provide comprehensive management and capability of one of more arrays via a simple, easy to use, intuitive GUI.
NSM is a Windows/MMC 3.0 application that supports Discovery, Setup, FCP, iSCSI, CIFS, NFS, Deduplication, provisioning, Thin Provisioning, Snapshot and configuration management of multiple NetApp Storage Systems from a single pane of glass.
Storage Configuration Wizards
New wizards allow Admins to create quickly and easily create Aggregates, Volumes, LUNs, shares as well as a new Server Virtualization wizard that supports provisioning for VMware implementations.
Aggregate Wizard
Aggregate creation is literally a 3 click process. You can let the system select the appropriate disks based on the disk type you choose automatically, or you can select them manually. The Automatic process makes sure all disks in the aggregate are balanced across multiple back-end loops.
Volume Wizard
Creating a volume is similarly a no brainer process. Pick the aggregate you want, select the Volume size, snapshot space, %, enable thin provisioning if you'd like at the Volume level and/or enable deduplication under the Space settings tab and that's it. In there you can set the different Space Guarantees provided depending on what it is you want to accomplish.
LUN Wizard
The process of creating a LUN is pretty much out of the "How to Create a LUN for Dummies" book. Select a name for the LUN, it's size, the LUN type which corresponds to the OS type the LUN will be used by, click next, select an existing NetApp Aggregate/Volume that will contain the LUN or create a new Aggregate/Volume, select the initiators (FCP or iSCSI) that will have access to the LUN and you're done. Given the entire process is wizard driven I have personally found no way to mess up.
Server Virtualization Wizard
Given that we're seeing a large number of customer requests for NFS implementations for VMware, the NSM provides a Wizard for creating NFS Datastores. The process is similar to creating a Volume, however, the wizard will also ask for the VMkernel IP address of the ESX host(s) so the NFS volume gets exported. The dedup option is also there should you choose to take advantage of our NetApp level dedup capability.
Dashboard/System Tools
NSM provides a dashboard with notifications that are integrated with the Windows System Tray so you receive updated notifications regarding the system's health status. The Dashboard also includes it's own notification pane and performance pane. Autosupport, licensing, SNMP, and syslog can also be configured.
NSM will also be supported for the IBM N-Series system. The product will become available in the next few months, in the mean time it will soon become available to the NetApp Beta Community as a download for testing. We'd love to hear your feedback!!!
What about vfiler support in System Manager?
Posted by: Lionel Bar | July 15, 2009 at 06:27 AM
System Manger doesn't have any SnapMirror management capabilities?
Posted by: MikeBoston | November 20, 2009 at 01:38 PM