Managing external storage resources

In addition to the internal IBM® Flex System V7000 Storage Node storage, the IBM Flex System Manager management software is capable of managing several other storage systems and storage network devices.

Storage management with the management software involves two software components: Storage Manager and Storage Control. Both components are included with the management software. Storage Manager is a standard management software capability that provides basic storage lifecycle management (Discovery, Inventory, Health and Alerts). Storage Control is a preinstalled plug-in for the management software that expands storage support to mid-range and high-end storage devices. It is based on technology from Tivoli® Storage Productivity Center.

Flex System Enterprise Chassis and the management software offer many storage-management capabilities:

Discovery of physical and virtual storage devices
Support for virtual images on local storage across multiple chassis
Inventory of physical storage configuration
Health status and alerts
Storage pool configuration
Disk sparing and redundancy management
Virtual volume management
Support for virtual volume discovery, inventory, creation, modification, and deletion

Note: The Chassis Manager view in the management software is the primary interface for selecting managed resources and performing management tasks on those resources. However, some of the procedures in this section include steps that instruct you to use the navigation area, which is hidden by default in the web interface.