Dell PowerVault ME5 Series Administrator's Guide

Initiators, hosts, and host groups

An initiator represents an external port to which the storage system is connected. The external port may be a port in an I/O adapter (such as HBA) in a server.

For ease of management, you can group 1 to 128 initiators that represent a server into a host. A host is a user-defined object that represents a server to which the storage system is attached, and is used to define a mapping relationship to storage.

Further, you can also group 1 to 256 hosts into a host group. A host group is a user-defined set of hosts. Doing so enables you to attach all grouped initiators in a host, or all initiators and hosts in a group, instead of for each initiator or host individually.

The controllers automatically discover initiators that have sent a SCSI INQUIRY command or a REPORT LUNS command to the storage system, which typically happens when a host boots up or rescans for devices. When the command is received, the system saves the initiator ID. You can also manually create entries for initiators as described in the CLI Reference Guide by setting a nickname to a specified unique ID. For example, you might want to define an initiator before a controller port is physically connected through a switch to a server.

In the PowerVault Manager, you must assign a nickname to an initiator in order for it to be added to a host. An initiator can be a member of only one host. A host can be a member of only one group. A host cannot have the same name as another host, but can have the same name as any initiator. A host group cannot have the same name as another host group, but can have the same name as any host. A maximum of 32 host groups can exist. Once you have created a host, you can edit the profile specific to the operating system for that initiato