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Manage existing volumes

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BlueXP enables you to manage volumes and CIFS servers. It also prompts you to move volumes to avoid capacity issues.

Manage volumes

You can manage volumes as your storage needs change. You can view, edit, clone, restore, and delete volumes.

Steps

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Storage > Canvas.

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

  3. In the working environment, click the Volumes tab.

    A screenshot of the Manage Volume button under the Volumes tab.

  4. On the Volumes tab, navigate to the desired volume title and then click Manage volume to access the Manage Volumes right-side panel.

    Task Action

    View information about a volume

    Under Volume Actions in the Manage volumes panel, click View volume details.

    Get the NFS mount command

    1. Under Volume Actions in the Manage volumes panel, click Mount Command.

    2. Click Copy.

    Clone a volume

    1. Under Volume Actions in the Manage volumes panel, click Clone the volume.

    2. Modify the clone name as needed, and then click Clone.

    This process creates a FlexClone volume. A FlexClone volume is a writable, point-in-time copy that is space-efficient because it uses a small amount of space for metadata, and then only consumes additional space as data is changed or added.

    To learn more about FlexClone volumes, see the ONTAP 9 Logical Storage Management Guide.

    Edit volume tags (read-write volumes only)

    1. Under Volume Actions in the Manage volumes panel, click Edit volume tags to modify the volume tag assigned to the selected volume.

    2. Enter the volume tag key and value under the provided fields.

    3. To include additional tags, click Add New Tag.

    4. Click Save.

    Edit a volume (read-write volumes only)

    1. Under Volume Actions in the Manage volumes panel, click Edit volume settings

    2. Modify the volume's Snapshot policy, NFS protocol version, NFS access control list (export policy), or share permissions, and then click Apply.

    Note If you need custom Snapshot policies, you can create them by using System Manager.

    Delete a volume

    1. Under Volume Actions in the Manage volumes panel, click Delete the volume.

    2. Under the Delete Volume window, enter the name of the volume you want to delete.

    3. Click Delete again to confirm.

    Create a Snapshot copy on demand

    1. Under Protection Actions in the Manage Volumes panel, click Create a Snapshot copy.

    2. Change the name, if needed, and then click Create.

    Restore data from a Snapshot copy to a new volume

    1. Under Protection Actions in the Manage Volumes panel, click Restore from Snapshot copy.

    2. Select a Snapshot copy, enter a name for the new volume, and then click Restore.

    Change the underlying disk type

    1. Under Advanced Actions in the Manage Volumes panel, click Change Disk Type.

    2. Select the disk type, and then click Change.

    Note BlueXP moves the volume to an existing aggregate that uses the selected disk type or it creates a new aggregate for the volume.

    Change the tiering policy

    1. Under Advanced Actions in the Manage Volumes panel, click Change Tiering Policy.

    2. Select a different policy and click Change.

    Note BlueXP moves the volume to an existing aggregate that uses the selected disk type with tiering, or it creates a new aggregate for the volume.

    Delete a volume

    1. Select a volume, and then click Delete.

    2. Type the name of the volume in the dialog.

    3. Click Delete again to confirm.

Resize a volume

By default, a volume automatically grows to a maximum size when it's out of space. The default value is 1,000, which means the volume can grow to 11 times it's size. This value is configurable in a Connector's settings.

If you need to resize your volume, you can do it through ONTAP System Manager. Be sure to take your system's capacity limits into consideration as you resize volumes. Go to the Cloud Volumes ONTAP Release Notes for more details.

Modify the CIFS server

If you change your DNS servers or Active Directory domain, you need to modify the CIFS server in Cloud Volumes ONTAP so that it can continue to serve storage to clients.

Steps

  1. From the Overview tab of the working environment, click the Feature tab under the right-side panel.

  2. Under the CIFS Setup field, click the pencil icon to display the CIFS Setup window.

  3. Specify settings for the CIFS server:

    Task Action

    Select Storage VM (SVM)

    Selecting the Cloud Volume ONTAP storage virtual machine (SVM) displays it's configured CIFS information.

    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.

    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.


    If you're configuring Google Managed Active Directory, AD can be accessed by default with the 169.254.169.254 IP address.

    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.

    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.

  4. Click Set.

Result

Cloud Volumes ONTAP updates the CIFS server with the changes.

Move a volume

Move volumes for capacity utilization, improved performance, and to satisfy service-level agreements.

You can move a volume in System Manager by selecting a volume and the destination aggregate, starting the volume move operation, and optionally monitoring the volume move job. When using System Manager, a volume move operation finishes automatically.

Steps

  1. Use System Manager or the CLI to move the volumes to the aggregate.

    In most situations, you can use System Manager to move volumes.

    For instructions, see the ONTAP 9 Volume Move Express Guide.

Move a volume when BlueXP displays an Action Required message

BlueXP might display an Action Required message that says moving a volume is necessary to avoid capacity issues, but that you need to correct the issue yourself. If this happens, you need to identify how to correct the issue and then move one or more volumes.

Tip BlueXP displays these Action Required messages when an aggregate has reached 90% used capacity. If data tiering is enabled, the messages display when an aggregate has reached 80% used capacity. By default, 10% free space is reserved for data tiering. Learn more about the free space ratio for data tiering.
Steps

  1. Identify how to correct capacity issues.

  2. Based on your analysis, move volumes to avoid capacity issues:

Identify how to correct capacity issues

If BlueXP can't provide recommendations for moving a volume to avoid capacity issues, you must identify the volumes that you need to move and whether you should move them to another aggregate on the same system or to another system.

Steps

  1. View the advanced information in the Action Required message to identify the aggregate that has reached its capacity limit.

    For example, the advanced information should say something similar to the following: Aggregate aggr1 has reached its capacity limit.

  2. Identify one or more volumes to move out of the aggregate:

    1. In the working environment, click the Aggregates tab.

    2. Navigate to the desired aggregate tile, and then click the …​ (ellipse icon) > View aggregate details.

    3. Under the Overview tab of the Aggregate Details screen, review the size of each volume and choose one or more volumes to move out of the aggregate.

      You should choose volumes that are large enough to free space in the aggregate so that you avoid additional capacity issues in the future.

      screenshot aggr volume overview

  3. If the system has not reached the disk limit, you should move the volumes to an existing aggregate or a new aggregate on the same system.

    For details, see Move volumes to another aggregate to avoid capacity issues.

  4. If the system has reached the disk limit, do any of the following:

    1. Delete any unused volumes.

    2. Rearrange volumes to free space on an aggregate.

      For details, see Move volumes to another aggregate to avoid capacity issues.

    3. Move two or more volumes to another system that has space.

      For details, see Move volumes to another aggregate to avoid capacity issues.

Move volumes to another system to avoid capacity issues

You can move one or more volumes to another Cloud Volumes ONTAP system to avoid capacity issues. You might need to do this if the system reached its disk limit.

About this task

You can follow the steps in this task to correct the following Action Required message:

Moving a volume is necessary to avoid capacity issues; however, BlueXP cannot perform this action for you because the system has reached the disk limit.

Steps

  1. Identify a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system that has available capacity, or deploy a new system.

  2. Drag and drop the source working environment on the target working environment to perform a one-time data replication of the volume.

    For details, see Replicating data between systems.

  3. Go to the Replication Status page, and then break the SnapMirror relationship to convert the replicated volume from a data protection volume to a read/write volume.

    For details, see Managing data replication schedules and relationships.

  4. Configure the volume for data access.

    For information about configuring a destination volume for data access, see the ONTAP 9 Volume Disaster Recovery Express Guide.

  5. Delete the original volume.

    For details, see Manage volumes.

Move volumes to another aggregate to avoid capacity issues

You can move one or more volumes to another aggregate to avoid capacity issues.

About this task

You can follow the steps in this task to correct the following Action Required message:

Moving two or more volumes is necessary to avoid capacity issues; however, BlueXP cannot perform this action for you.

Steps

  1. Verify whether an existing aggregate has available capacity for the volumes that you need to move:

    1. In the working environment, click the Aggregates tab.

    2. Navigate to the desired aggregate tile, and then click the …​ (ellipse icon) > View aggregate details.

    3. Under the aggregate tile, view the available capacity (provisioned size minus used aggregate capacity).

      screenshot aggr capacity

  2. If needed, add disks to an existing aggregate:

    1. Select the aggregate, then click the …​ (ellipse icon) > Add Disks.

    2. Select the number of disks to add, and then click Add.

  3. If no aggregates have available capacity, create a new aggregate.

    For details, see Creating aggregates.

  4. Use System Manager or the CLI to move the volumes to the aggregate.

  5. In most situations, you can use System Manager to move volumes.

    For instructions, see the ONTAP 9 Volume Move Express Guide.

Reasons why a volume move might perform slowly

Moving a volume might take longer than you expect if any of the following conditions are true for Cloud Volumes ONTAP:

  • The volume is a clone.

  • The volume is a parent of a clone.

  • The source or destination aggregate has a single Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) disk.

  • One of the aggregates uses an older naming scheme for objects. Both aggregates have to use the same name format.

    An older naming scheme is used if data tiering was enabled on an aggregate in the 9.4 release or earlier.

  • The encryption settings don't match on the source and destination aggregates, or a rekey is in progress.

  • The -tiering-policy option was specified on the volume move to change the tiering policy.

  • The -generate-destination-key option was specified on the volume move.

View FlexGroup Volumes

You can view FlexGroup volumes created through CLI or System Manager directly through the Volumes tab within BlueXP. Identical to the information provided for FlexVol volumes, BlueXP provides detailed information for created FleGroup volumes through a dedicated Volumes tile. Under the Volumes tile, you can identify each FlexGroup volume group through the icon’s hover text. Additionally, you can identify and sort FlexGroup volumes under the volumes list view through the Volume Style column.

screenshot show flexgroup vol
Note Currently, you can only view existing FlexGroup volumes under BlueXP. The ability to create FlexGroup volumes in BlueXP is not available but planned for a future release.