Chapter 3. Systems management 143
3.3.7 Managing storage using IBM Flex System Manager
Storage management with IBM Flex System Manager involves two software components:
Storage Manager and Storage Control. Both are are included with the management software:
Storage Manager is a standard management software capability that provides basic
storage life cycle management (Discovery, Inventory, Health and Alerts).
Storage Control is a pre-installed plug-in for the management software that expands
storage support to mid-range and high-end storage devices.
The Storage Control feature of IBM Flex System Manager allows management of most IBM
mid-range and high-end storage systems. With the Storage Control plug-in, you can manage
an expanded set of storage subsystems and Fibre Channel switches.
Storage Control offers the following key advantages:
Extends storage management of IBM Systems Director and VMControl to cover most IBM
storage systems
Provides storage device discovery and coverage in integrated physical and logical
topology views
Shows relationships between storage and server resources
Facilitates single management server deployment
Provides ability to view controller and volume status and to set notification alerts
Virtualizes for higher storage utilization
Balances high performance and cost for mixed workloads
Protects data and minimizing downtime
Integration with VMControl featuring the following additional functions:
– Storage provisioning for image creation, deployment, and cloning
– Ability to manage storage system pool life cycle, take group actions across pool and
policy-based storage placement, provisioning, and cloning actions within the pool
Storage Control also extends the management capabilities and device coverage of the
VMControl, which is a tool within the IBM Flex System Manager Node responsible for the life
cycle management of virtual resources. This collaboration is leveraged in VMControl for tasks
such as working with system pools for items like server and storage pool creation, the image
library management and storage, and integrated virtualization management across server
and storage infrastructure.
For further details regarding storage management features, visit the following website:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/flexsys/information/topic/com.ibm.directo
r.storage.helps.doc/fqm0_t_sm_configuring_storage.html
Storage management and storage control
You can use Storage Control to monitor the health of storage subsystems, storage pools,
storage volumes, and fabric switches. You can run inventory against the Storage Control farm
to see updated health status.
You can also use Storage Control to manage several external storage subsystems. These
subsystems include the IBM® DS3000, DS4000®, DS5000, families, the IBM DS8000®
family (DS8100, DS8300, DS8700, DS8800), the IBM SAN Volume Controller, the IBM
Storwize V7000, IBM XIV®, Qlogic 8GB Fibre Channel switch, and the McDATA Sphereon
and Intrepid switches.
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