This video talks about Unisphere web based management system overview, benefits, initial configuration wizards and demo on Unity system.
Hello and welcome to EMC unity storage system video on Unisphere, which is a web based storage management solution for all storage administrative needs. For this video. We will be going through a few topics including an overview on the Unisphere interface, including supported browser versions.
Then we'll go into the benefits of using the management interface followed by a description of the initial configuration wizard. Before finally getting into a demonstration of navigating and using unisphere to start with an overview Unisphere is a storage management solution which utilizes HTML five for its user interface to manage a unity system.
HTML five is the same market language used today in web pages which allows unsphere to be supported on many modern browsers without the need of additional plugins or additional applications to be run supported browsers along with supported versions can be seen here including Google Chrome, internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.
The benefits of using Unisphere are numerous in number but here are a few to be highlighted. First. The high performance of the interface can be attributed to the architecture and how it was implemented with the fact that the application load and data retrieval is specific to the page, the user is currently viewing therefore only necessary data is loaded resulting in fast page load times.
Another benefit to unisphere for unity storage system is the elimination of security concerns by not needing additional plugins to be installed. Lastly unisphere was designed with the it generalist in mind including using a modern and contemporary looking U I for administrators, ensuring a smooth and great user experience in managing storage.
After installing a unity system and a management IP is configured. You can log into unisphere for the first time using the given IP. When logging in, you will notice that a wizard is automatically loaded called the initial configuration wizard. This wizard guides you in configuring your brand new storage system to configure many useful settings that are usually done by administrators.
The settings available for configuration include uploading the unit for licenses for using the available features on the system. Configuring network settings like DNS and ITP, provisioning storage pools and fast cache among other other useful user and system configurations.
The benefit of using this initial wizard is it allows you to get to the point where you can start provisioning storage resources in a short amount of time if you accidentally close the wizard or want to rerun the wizard. A quick link is provided in the settings menu. Let's now get into a demonstration of using unisphere and navigate through its available menus.
Here we'll be locking into a brand new unity system. You will see that the user is automatically shown the initial configuration wizard when logging in the first parts of the wizard are mandatory including accepting a license agreement, a change of the administrator and service user account, default passwords and uploading a valid license to use the features of the storage system.
All of the parts of the wizard are optional but recommended to be completed to get the system in a state ready for creating and provisioning storage resources for this demo. We'll skip the rest of the wizard and now move on to an already running system that has been pre configured.
Here's the default dashboard page which shows a basic overview of system resources including any storage resources that are not in a healthy state. In this case, all storage resources are healthy. The dashboard page can also be customized to show additional view blocks or additional dashboards that can be added for various looks of system statuses and resource states.
Now let's take a look at how this user interface is laid out. First, you will notice that on the left hand side of the screen is the main navigation menu for unisphere. Within this menu. Users have easy access to various system settings including system service settings, storage resource pages, host configuration, data protection settings, alerts and jobs as well as a wide array of support options.
The settings available in the left-hand navigation menu are settings that are ideally used on a regular basis, which is why they are in the main menu settings that are usually set once and not used on a regular basis can be found in the settings menu, which can be found by clicking the gear icon in the top right of the user interface.
As you can see here, the licenses page is the first page seen in the menu where users can upload new licenses as necessary settings available are separated by category for various system and storage related settings. You know at the bottom of the settings menu is a quick link to the initial configuration wizard.
So users can rerun the wizard as needed back in the main interface. Let's first check out the system view page. This page is very useful in diagnosing hardware issues and finding more information about the components that make up the storage system. The enclosures tab is especially helpful in displaying a graphical illustration of the physical system with clickable components.
As you notice here, more information about each component can be seen in the right hand side including part numbers in case a specific part needs to be replaced. Now let's go to the pools page here. You can see that a few storage pools have already been created using the available discs.
On the system note that pools are a prerequisite for all other storage resources on the system like lens and file systems. Going to the properties of one of the pools, we can see the specific discs that make up the given pool in the discs tab including information such as tier type and capacity.
Another tab to point out is the fast VB tab which shows the amount of data to be moved per tier for the next fast VP relocation cycle. If it it is a multi tier pool, since we have some storage pools created, let's go create a new storage resource navigating to the lun page.
We can see that a few lines have been previously created. Let's create a new lun to see the intuitive and easy workflow available through unisphere within the lun wizard. We'll first choose a friendly name for the resource. For this example, let's call it lun demo. On the next step, we'll choose the mix pool as the storage pool to create this lu from keep the default fast PTER policy of star hide than auto tier and give the lun two inch gigabytes.
We will not be setting up a hostile limit for this resource. So let's click next in this next page. We can choose the host that should access this resource or choose a few pre configured E six I hosts and give them one access, not for data protection, automatic snapshot creation can be configured in the wizard as well.
Let's use the default protection scheme given by the system which takes a snapshot every day and keeps it for two days. Native replication is also available here, but we'll leave it un configured for this demo. All that's left in the summary is to verify the chosen settings and that's it.
The creation of the line can begin, you can close the window as the job will run in the background. And if you want, you can then later navigate to see the status of the job in the jobs page. Let's now check out the support page. The support ecosystem for unity is robust and covers many aspects of maintaining a storage system including links to white papers and other technical documentation available on EMC.
Online support. There are also links to create service requests, links to knowledge based articles for troubleshooting and links to order and return parts as needed among other various options. This concludes the unsphere overview demonstration for additional information on unisphere and its available settings. Please see the introduction to the UD platform and users for overview white papers on EMC online support.
