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Cloud Manager 3.8
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Provisioning storage

Contributors netapp-bcammett
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You can provision additional storage for your Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems from Cloud Manager by managing volumes and aggregates.

Important All disks and aggregates must be created and deleted directly from Cloud Manager. You should not perform these actions from another management tool. Doing so can impact system stability, hamper the ability to add disks in the future, and potentially generate redundant cloud provider fees.

Creating FlexVol volumes

If you need more storage after you launch a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system, you can create new FlexVol volumes for NFS, CIFS, or iSCSI from Cloud Manager.

About this task

When you create an iSCSI volume, Cloud Manager automatically creates a LUN for you. We’ve made it simple by creating just one LUN per volume, so there’s no management involved. After you create the volume, use the IQN to connect to the LUN from your hosts.

Note You can create additional LUNs from System Manager or the CLI.
Before you begin

If you want to use CIFS in AWS, you must have set up DNS and Active Directory. For details, see Networking requirements for Cloud Volumes ONTAP for AWS.

Steps

  1. On the Working Environments page, double-click the name of the Cloud Volumes ONTAP system on which you want to provision FlexVol volumes.

  2. Create a new volume on any aggregate or on a specific aggregate:

    Action Steps

    Create a new volume and let Cloud Manager choose the containing aggregate

    Click Add New Volume.

    Create a new volume on a specific aggregate

    1. Click the menu icon, and then click Advanced > Advanced allocation.

    2. Click the menu for an aggregate.

    3. Click Create volume.

  3. Enter details for the new volume, and then click Continue.

    Some of the fields in this page are self-explanatory. The following table describes fields for which you might need guidance:

    Field Description

    Size

    The maximum size that you can enter largely depends on whether you enable thin provisioning, which enables you to create a volume that is bigger than the physical storage currently available to it.

    Access control (for NFS only)

    An export policy defines the clients in the subnet that can access the volume. By default, Cloud Manager enters a value that provides access to all instances in the subnet.

    Permissions and Users / Groups (for CIFS only)

    These fields enable you to control the level of access to a share for users and groups (also called access control lists or ACLs). You can specify local or domain Windows users or groups, or UNIX users or groups. If you specify a domain Windows user name, you must include the user's domain using the format domain\username.

    Snapshot Policy

    A Snapshot copy policy specifies the frequency and number of automatically created NetApp Snapshot copies. A NetApp Snapshot copy is a point-in-time file system image that has no performance impact and requires minimal storage. You can choose the default policy or none. You might choose none for transient data: for example, tempdb for Microsoft SQL Server.

    Advanced options (for NFS only)

    Select an NFS version for the volume: either NFSv3 or NFSv4.

    Initiator group and IQN (for iSCSI only)

    iSCSI storage targets are called LUNs (logical units) and are presented to hosts as standard block devices.

    Initiator groups are tables of iSCSI host node names and control which initiators have access to which LUNs.

    iSCSI targets connect to the network through standard Ethernet network adapters (NICs), TCP offload engine (TOE) cards with software initiators, converged network adapters (CNAs) or dedicated host bust adapters (HBAs) and are identified by iSCSI qualified names (IQNs).

    When you create an iSCSI volume, Cloud Manager automatically creates a LUN for you. We’ve made it simple by creating just one LUN per volume, so there’s no management involved. After you create the volume, use the IQN to connect to the LUN from your hosts.

  4. If you chose the CIFS protocol and the CIFS server has not been set up, specify details for the server in the Create a CIFS Server dialog box, and then click Save and continue:

    Field Description

    DNS Primary and Secondary IP Address

    The IP addresses of the DNS servers that provide name resolution for the CIFS server.

    The listed DNS servers must contain the service location records (SRV) needed to locate the Active Directory LDAP servers and domain controllers for the domain that the CIFS server will join.

    Active Directory Domain to join

    The FQDN of the Active Directory (AD) domain that you want the CIFS server to join.

    Credentials authorized to join the domain

    The name and password of a Windows account with sufficient privileges to add computers to the specified Organizational Unit (OU) within the AD domain.

    CIFS server NetBIOS name

    A CIFS server name that is unique in the AD domain.

    Organizational Unit

    The organizational unit within the AD domain to associate with the CIFS server. The default is CN=Computers.

    DNS Domain

    The DNS domain for the Cloud Volumes ONTAP storage virtual machine (SVM). In most cases, the domain is the same as the AD domain.

    NTP Server

    Select Use Active Directory Domain to configure an NTP server using the Active Directory DNS. If you need to configure an NTP server using a different address, then you should use the API. See the Cloud Manager API Developer Guide for details.

  5. On the Usage Profile, Disk Type, and Tiering Policy page, choose whether you want to enable storage efficiency features, choose a disk type, and edit the tiering policy, if needed.

    For help, refer to the following:

  6. Click Go.

Result

Cloud Volumes ONTAP provisions the volume.

After you finish

If you provisioned a CIFS share, give users or groups permissions to the files and folders and verify that those users can access the share and create a file.

If you want to apply quotas to volumes, you must use System Manager or the CLI. Quotas enable you to restrict or track the disk space and number of files used by a user, group, or qtree.

Creating FlexVol volumes on the second node in an HA configuration

By default, Cloud Manager creates volumes on the first node in an HA configuration. If you need an active-active configuration, in which both nodes serve data to clients, you must create aggregates and volumes on the second node.

Steps

  1. On the Working Environments page, double-click the name of the Cloud Volumes ONTAP working environment on which you want to manage aggregates.

  2. Click the menu icon and then click Advanced > Advanced allocation.

  3. Click Add Aggregate and then create the aggregate.

  4. For Home Node, choose the second node in the HA pair.

  5. After Cloud Manager creates the aggregate, select it and then click Create volume.

  6. Enter details for the new volume, and then click Create.

After you finish

You can create additional volumes on this aggregate if required.

Important For HA pairs deployed in multiple AWS Availability Zones, you must mount the volume to clients by using the floating IP address of the node on which the volume resides.

Creating aggregates

You can create aggregates yourself or let Cloud Manager do it for you when it creates volumes. The benefit of creating aggregates yourself is that you can choose the underlying disk size, which enables you to size your aggregate for the capacity or the performance that you need.

Steps

  1. On the Working Environments page, double-click the name of the Cloud Volumes ONTAP instance on which you want to manage aggregates.

  2. Click the menu icon, and then click Advanced > Advanced allocation.

  3. Click Add Aggregate and then specify details for the aggregate.

    For help with disk type and disk size, see Planning your configuration.

  4. Click Go, and then click Approve and Purchase.

Connecting a LUN to a host

When you create an iSCSI volume, Cloud Manager automatically creates a LUN for you. We’ve made it simple by creating just one LUN per volume, so there’s no management involved. After you create the volume, use the IQN to connect to the LUN from your hosts.

Note the following:

  1. Cloud Manager's automatic capacity management doesn't apply to LUNs. When Cloud Manager creates a LUN, it disables the autogrow feature.

  2. You can create additional LUNs from System Manager or the CLI.

Steps

  1. On the Working Environments page, double-click the Cloud Volumes ONTAP working environment on which you want to manage volumes.

  2. Select a volume, and then click Target iQN.

  3. Click Copy to copy the iQN name.

  4. Set up an iSCSI connection from the host to the LUN.

Using FlexCache volumes to accelerate data access

A FlexCache volume is a storage volume that caches NFS read data from an origin (or source) volume. Subsequent reads to the cached data result in faster access to that data.

You can use FlexCache volumes to speed up access to data or to offload traffic from heavily accessed volumes. FlexCache volumes help improve performance, especially when clients need to access the same data repeatedly, because the data can be served directly without having to access the origin volume. FlexCache volumes work well for system workloads that are read-intensive.

Cloud Manager does not provide management of FlexCache volumes at this time, but you can use the ONTAP CLI or ONTAP System Manager to create and manage FlexCache volumes:

Starting with the 3.7.2 release, Cloud Manager generates a FlexCache license for all new Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems. The license includes a 500 GB usage limit.

Note To generate the license, Cloud Manager needs to access https://ipa-signer.cloudmanager.netapp.com. Make sure that this URL is accessible from your firewall.