The following information is included in this section:
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center manages and monitors storage servers and appliances, discovers and provisions storage capacity on these appliances through Storage Connect plug-in software, and then makes them available for use as guests storage.
Storage libraries are the storage resources for Oracle Solaris Zones, Oracle VM Server for SPARC, Oracle VM Server for x86, their server pools, and virtual datacenters. The storage libraries are used for storing the virtual host metadata and for virtual disk storage usage. The storage libraries must be associated with the virtualization hosts for guest storage usage.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides the ability to utilize the two following main types of storage:
Filesystem Storage: File system based storage such as Network Attached Storage (NAS) Libraries and Oracle VM Storage Repository.
Block Storage: Block-based storage arrays that support the Storage Array Network (SAN) protocols like Fibre Channel and iSCSI.
This chapter provides a brief description about different storage types, how they are represented in the UI and supported actions, and how they are associated with the virtualization hosts and used by the guests.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides discovery profiles to discover your storage servers. If the storage vendor provides Storage Connect Plug-in for the storage server, then Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center checks for the plug-in and exposes the storage device features and attributes. With the discovery of the storage server, the exported file systems, LUNs, clones, and snapshots are populated and displayed in the UI. There are also periodic update of the storage server for any creation or deletion of exported LUNs, file systems, clones and snapshots.
For Oracle VM Server for x86, you must discover the storage resources from the Oracle VM Manager. To add storage to Oracle VM Servers, discover the storage resources from the corresponding Oracle VM Manager. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides the UI options from the Oracle VM Manager to discover the storage resources such as Discover File System Storage, Discover SAN Storage and Discover iSCSI Storage. The same options are available from the discovery profile options.
The discovered servers are displayed under Storage in the Assets tree. You can select the storage and the center pane displays the details about the server.
You can manage storage servers like Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance and Oracle Exadata Servers. For Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance, there are more options to launch the appliance UI from the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center UI, and to manage the shares and services of the server.
Oracle Exadata Server are discovered as part of discovering the SuperCluster Engineered Systems.
See Chapter 11 for detailed information about discovering, managing, and setting up storage hardware in Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides support for the following storage types:
File System Storage: The NAS storage libraries are based on the NFS file systems. You can create the storage library by providing the NFS mount point on the discovered storage asset or any other hosts.
Oracle VM Storage Repository are based on NFS or OCFS (Oracle Cluster File System). The repository is especially for Oracle VM Server for x86 systems. Whereas, the NAS storage are used for all other systems. Create the repository by providing the Oracle VM Manager, Oracle VM Server, and the NFS file systems. For OCFS, you must select the LUNs from the list.
Block Storage: Block storage libraries are the storage arrays that support the SAN protocols Fiber Channel and iSCSI. The block storage are also known as SAN libraries. The SAN libraries are groups of Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs). The LUNs supported by one or more storage arrays that are managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center form the Dynamic Block Storage Library. In the dynamic block storage library, the user can create, edit or delete the LUNs.
The LUNs supported by one or more storage arrays that are not managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center form the Static Block Storage Library. Also, for storage servers that are discovered and managed with existing LUNs form the static block storage as the user cannot create, edit or delete the LUNs.
Local Library and Local Devices: The file system in the virtualization host are termed as local library. Local library is the default library that is displayed in selecting the storage library. The storage devices that are attached to the virtualization host are defined as local devices. You cannot manage the local devices. You can use to store the data on the local devices.
You associate the storage libraries to virtualization hosts like Oracle Solaris Zones, Oracle VM Server for SPARC, and Oracle VM Server for x86. Server pool is a group of homogenous virtualization hosts. Associating a storage library to a server pool results in associating the storage library to all the virtualization hosts in the server pool.
The storage libraries are provided to store ISO images, guest metadata and for disk storage for the guest requirements. The storage libraries store the metadata of the guest such as zones, logical domains, and virtual machines. The metadata storage in the File System storage such as NAS enables to migrate the guests between compatible servers. You cannot store the metadata in SAN storage libraries. You use the SAN libraries only for disk storage purposes of guests.
Prepare your storage resources to be accessed and used by the systems managed in Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center. Create appropriate storage libraries depending on the type of storage which are exposed as file system or block storage disks. You can then associate the libraries to the virtualization hosts during provisioning or assign them later.
See Chapter 16 and the Deploy Storage Libraries Workflow in the Deploy How To library at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E40871_01/nav/deployhowto.htm for procedures about creating storage libraries.
Table 16-1 lists the tasks and the role required to complete the task. Contact your administrator if you do not have the necessary role or privilege to complete a task. See the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Administration Guide for information about the different roles and the permissions they grant.
You can perform the following actions, depending on the requirements:
Create Storage Libraries
Edit Library Attributes
Associate Libraries
Disassociate Libraries
Create Local Library
Remove Storage
Enable Sharing
Disable Sharing
Table 16-2 shows where to find information.
Table 16-2 Location of Library Information in the BUI
| Object | Location |
|---|---|
|
To see storage libraries |
Expand Libraries in the Navigation pane, then scroll to the Storage Libraries. Select the type of library. |
|
To associate storage libraries to virtualization hosts |
Expand All Assets in the Navigation pane, then select the virtualization host and click Associate Libraries in the Actions pane. |
|
To add storage to virtual hosts |
Expand All Assets in the Navigation pane, select the virtualization host and then the virtual host. Click Add Storage in the Actions pane. |
|
To associate storage libraries to server pools. |
Expand Assets in the Navigation pane, then Server Pools in the Resource Management Views. Select the server pool and click Associate Library in the Actions pane. |
The file systems of the zones are implemented as ZFS file systems and a dedicated zpool is created for each zone. The storage allocated to the zone are pooled in the zpool and used by all the file systems of the zone.
For Oracle Solaris Zones, you can use the following types of storage libraries:
Local Library and Local Devices
NAS Storage Libraries
Static Block Storage Libraries
Dynamic Block Storage Libraries
Apart from the local library and local devices, associate the other libraries to the global zone. The libraries associated with the global zone are automatically available for all the non-global zones under it. The local storage is always available by default to all the zones.
When you discover and manage existing zone environments, the underlying storage of the zone is considered to be unmanaged and not recognized by Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center. You can use the option Move Storage option to move the zone metadata and storage to managed storage. See Moving Zone Storage for more information about the procedure.
For migrating the zones, the non-global zone must have shared storage. It is required to store the non-global zone metadata in a shared storage such as NAS storage and the virtual disk storage on SAN libraries. Only then, the migration option is enabled for the zone.
For any unmanaged storage, you must use scripts for migrating the unmanaged storage from the source to the target global zone. See Migrating Zones for more information about using scripts and other requirements.
For Oracle VM Server for SPARC, you can assign the following storage libraries:
NAS Storage Library
Static Block Storage Library
Dynamic Block Storage Library
The local storage libraries are available by default. The storage resources when associated with Oracle VM Server for SPARC becomes available for the logical domains. A virtual disk server (vds), primary-vds0, is created in the control domain by default. The vds provides virtual disk services to the logical domains to access the storage disks that are not directly assigned to them.
Assigning a PCIe bus or PCIe HBA to a root domain or I/O domain results in exclusive storage resource to the domains. A vds is created in the root domain and I/O domain so that it can provide virtual disk services to guest domains.
You can provide redundant access to the logical domain storage. The alternate path to access the same back-end storage can be provided while creating logical domains or adding storage to logical domains. For each virtual disk of the logical domain, a multipathing group is created and you must specify a group of virtual disk servers (vds) of other domains as the alternate path to the back-end storage access.
A multipathing group is created only when there is more than alternate path to access the back-end storage. You must select an active alternate path when there is a failure in a service domain.
When there is only one alternate path to the back-end storage, then unless you specify a name for the group, the multipathing group is not created.
You can either enter a name for the multipathing or a name is created in the format of logical domain name_mpGroup_devID. The devID is the disk index. For example, if the name of the logical domain is ldom, then the multipathing group name is in the format of ldom_mpGroup_1.
When you want to migrate guest domains that have multipathing configured for the back-end storage, then the target server must also have the I/O domains or root domains that provide multipathing to the back-end storage. This is essential for live migration of the guest domains. To successfully migrate a guest domain, the target Oracle VM Server must have root or I/O domains that have the same virtual disk service name as that of the source Oracle VM Server.
For example, when vds1 and vds2 are the alternate paths for a guest domain virtual disk, then the target Oracle VM Server must also have the same virtual disk servers, vds1 and vds2.
When you create guest domains, you can enable automatic recovery of the guest domains and authorize the recovery of the domains without I/O redundancy. This results in guest domains being recovered on servers when the server pool does not have any servers that do not have any I/O domains or root domains in them.
When you discover and manage logical domains created using CLI, the logical domain metadata is stored in the local storage library. The virtual disks of the logical domain are on the storage servers that are not managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center, and they are defined as opaque storage. You must enable the storage disks as Shared to allow migration or automatically recover guests with opaque file systems.
When you have the logical domain metadata stored in local storage library, migration option is disabled. You must move the metadata storage from local storage to shared storage such as NAS storage library. Use the Move Metadata option to move the metadata of a logical domain to a shared storage.
When you associate storage libraries with Oracle VM Server for SPARC, you have the option to select to which domain the library is associated. You can associate any storage library with the control domain, I/O domain or root domain provided the domains can access the library. The storage library that is associated with the domain adds to the virtual disk server (vds) of that domain. For example, when a FC card is installed only in the primary or the control domain, then the FC SAN library must be associated with the control domain only as it is the only domain that can access it. The FC SAN library storage adds to the control domain vds and enables the guest disks to use the storage.
You can add storage to the logical domains from the storage libraries associated with the server pool or the Oracle VM Server for SPARC. The control domain, I/O domains, and the root domains provide the virtual disk service to the logical domains. Use the option Add Storage to add storage to the logical domains.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides option to create Oracle VM Storage Repositories. This type of storage library stores virtual machine metadata, templates, assemblies, ISO images, and virtual disks for the Oracle VM Server for x86.
When you create the storage repository on a LUN, it is a block-based repository. When you create the storage repository on a NFS file server, it is a NFS-based storage repository.
When you discover an Oracle VM Manager, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides the option to discover the storage servers attached to it. Create discovery profiles for the storage servers and save them.
When you select to discover a storage server, existing discovery profiles are searched for the selected storage type. You can select from an available profile. When there are no profiles available, then the wizard to discover the corresponding storage server appears.
When you discover a storage resource, existing resources such as virtual disks, templates, ISO images, and virtual machine metadata are also discovered and displayed.
The following types of libraries setup are supported for storage of Oracle VM resources:
File system Storage: Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides an option to create Oracle VM Storage Repositories. A storage repository is a logical disk space made available through a file system on top of physical storage hardware. The supported types of file system are NFS and OCFS. When the storage repository is created on an NFS file server, it is a NFS based storage repository. The NFS file server consists of NFS file systems. When the storage repository is created on a LUN, it is a LUN-based repository. The OCFS file system is created on the storage server. Create storage repositories on these file servers to be used by Oracle VM Servers to store resources. The resources include virtual machine metadata, templates, assemblies, ISO images and virtual disks.
To create Oracle VM storage repositories, you must have an Oracle VM Server discovered. Only NFS-based repositories can be shared by multiple server pools.
Static Block Storage Libraries: The LUNs from the storage arrays that are not managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center form the static storage libraries. The LUNs are addressed by iSCSI or Fibre Channel protocols. This forms the iSCSI and SAN static storage libraries. Also, add LUNs exported from managed storage arrays. The LUNs can belong to one library at a time.
Dynamic Block Storage Libraries: The storage servers that are discovered and managed in Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center are presented under dynamic block storage libraries. The dynamic block storage libraries contains the exported LUNs from the storage array servers.
The virtual datacenter (vDC) inherits the storage resources allocated for the server pool. The virtualization type of the server pool defines all the possible types of storage resources available for the vDC.
When you create a vDC, you allocate the storage resources to be used for all the accounts created in the vDC. The allocated storage resources are used as root disks of the virtual servers (vServers) and volumes. Volumes are additional storages that you can attach to the vServers. For volumes, the storage is allocated from the storage libraries that are associated with the server pools. A cloud user can also import external volumes into the account.
The following storage resource that can be designated as volumes for vDCs based on different virtualization types:
Oracle VM Server for x86 based vDC
Oracle VM Storage Repositories
Dynamic Block Storage Libraries
Oracle Solaris Zone based vDC
NAS Libraries
Block Storage Libraries that include both Dynamic and Static
Oracle VM Server for SPARC based vDC
NAS Libraries
Block Storage Libraries that include both Dynamic and Static
For instructions on performing actions or to learn more about the role of this feature, go to one of the following resources.
For end-to-end examples, see the Deploy Storage Libraries Workflow in the Deploy How To library at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E40871_01/nav/deployhowto.htm.