Manage Storage

Create Persistent Storage Devices

The first step in working with persistent storage is to create a Storage Device. A storage device provides access to the storage technology so you can configure the Management and Service networks that the cloud nodes will use to access it. You can manage storage devices with the buttons located above the storage devices list.

Button	Action
	Create a new storage device
	Remove an existing storage device
	Edit the selected storage device

Click the button, select Storage Device, and complete this form:

After you have created a storage device, you can check its details by selecting it in the list of storage devices.

Edit Storage Persistent Devices

Click the Edit button to modify the storage device.

Generic iSCSI Storage

Abiquo offers support for generic iSCSI storage without storage management capacity.

Create a Generic iSCSI Storage Device

Click  and complete the form to create a storage device, selecting GENERIC_iSCSI storage technology:

Adding and deleting volumes is described in the Managing Generic iSCSI Volumes section below.

Storage Pools

Button	Action
	Add storage pools
	Remove storage pools from Abiquo
	Update storage pool information
	Edit the selected storage pool.

Managed Storage Pools

After you create a managed storage device, you can add storage pools. Abiquo automatically detects all the pools in the target storage and allows you to add them to the platform. After the managed storage pools have been added, users will be able to create volumes. The volumes will be automatically allocated to storage pools in the chosen tier, in accordance with the selected storage pool allocation method.

Generic iSCSI Storage Pools

Abiquo creates a single pool for an entire generic iSCSI storage device because it cannot communicate with the device's management interface to detect the pools already created on the storage. For generic iSCSI storage, volumes must be created outside Abiquo in the storage device and then manually entered into Abiquo in the Virtual Datacenters view. For more information please see Manage Virtual Storage in Datacenters.

Add Storage Pools

Storage Pools can be added directly after creating the managed storage device or later.

To add Storage Pools to your infrastructure, click the add button and select the option "storage pool" from the drop-down list.

Select the storage device and the Add Storage Pool dialog will open with the list of available storage pools. Some pools might be selected and disabled because they are already registered in your Infrastructure, so you cannot add them again.

Each Managed Storage Pool must be associated with a tier, according to its service level. When users create a volume and select a Tier (Service level) for the volume, it will be created in a pool belonging to that tier in accordance with the storage pool allocation method.

After you create the storage pool, you can check its details by selecting it in the list of devices.

Modify a Storage Pool

To modify a Storage Pool, select it and click the  button to open the Edit form. You cannot modify the name of the Storage Pool because it is already defined. You can change the tier of all types of storage. You can also set the usable percentage of a pool, as well a the maximum number of volumes in the pool.

Remove a Storage Pool

To remove a storage pool, first remove all of the volumes within it. Then select the pool in the list and click the  button to remove it.

Manage Storage Service Levels with Tiers

The Tiers tab allows you to configure different service levels for external managed storage. Storage service levels are set with tiers that are configured to enable end users to choose the service level for the volumes they create under Storage as a Service. Click on the triangle beside a tier to view its contents listed in the format "pool (storage device)".

The Tiers tab contains the default tiers in Abiquo. You cannot add or remove Tiers, but you can change the tier name and enable/disable the required tiers. Select a Tier and click the  button to edit it.

Control Access to a Storage Service Level for all Enterprises

When you click on the Enteprise Access tab, you will see a list of all the enterprises with access to the storage tier. Click the buttons to "Allow for all enterprises" or "Restrict for all enterprises". This setting will override the checkbox on the previous page for all existing enterprises. However, newly created enterprises will receive the option specified with the checkbox.

The Allow for all enterprises or Restrict for all enterprises setting can later be changed for individual enterprises. See Controlling Access to Storage Tiers in the Manage Enterprises documentation

The Volume List

The Volume list contains all the volumes created in the pool with tiers, volume sizes and detials of the virtual appliances and virtual machines the volumes are attached to.

• In managed storage, volumes are created by users under Storage as a Service in Virtual Datacenters view. For more information see Manage Virtual Storage in Datacenters
• In generic iSCSI storage, volumes must be created outside Abiquo in the storage device itself and manually added by an administrator in the Infrastructure view. For more information see Managing Generic iSCSI Storage Volumes.

Manage Generic iSCSI Volumes

Volumes that have been already created on generic iSCSI storage can be added and deleted from Abiquo. They cannot be modified within Abiquo because there is no communication with the management interface of the generic iSCSI storage device.

Add a Generic iSCSI Volume

To add a pre-existing generic iSCSI volume, open your datacenter and generic iSCSI storage device. Then click the  button below the Volume list and complete the form. Note that many storage systems will automatically generate a LUN of 0 by default.

Troubleshooting External Storage on VMware

If a volume has been removed or replaced in the storage device, Abiquo may try to attach a volume that does not exist or is completely different to one previously configured. This situation may occur with: managed storage volumes, generic iSCSI volumes and persistent virtual machines. It can be resolved by manually performing a full HBA rescan of all ESX or ESXi hosts that had raw device mappings for the devices involved. In general, Abiquo avoids performing a full HBA rescan of storage on ESX or ESXi for performance reasons. Instead it checks for a raw device mapping for a given IQN and LUN, which means that changes to volumes can lead to this situation.