Managing storage devices

About this task

XClarity Administrator can automatically discover storage devices in your environment by probing for manageable devices that are on the same IP subnet as XClarity Administrator. To discover storage devices that are in other subnets, specify an IP address or range of IP addresses, or import information from a spreadsheet.

After the storage devices are managed by XClarity Administrator, XClarity Administrator polls each managed storage device periodically to collect information, such as inventory, vital product data, and status. You can view and monitor each managed storage device and perform management actions (such as configuring system settings, updating firmware, and powering on and off).

A device can be managed by only one XClarity Administrator instance at a time. Management by multiple XClarity Administrator instances is not supported. If a device is managed by one XClarity Administrator, and you want to manage it with another XClarity Administrator, you must first unmanage the device on the initial XClarity Administrator, and then manage it with the new XClarity Administrator. If an error occurs during the unmanagement process, you can select the Force management option during management on the new XClarity Administrator.

Procedure

Complete one of the following procedures to manage storage devices using XClarity Administrator.

• Discover and manage a large number of storage devices and other types of devices using a bulk-import file (see Managing devices).

• Discover and manage storage devices that are on the same IP subnet as XClarity Administrator.

  1. From the XClarity Administrator menu bar, click Hardware > Discover and Manage New Devices. The Discover and Manage New Devices page is displayed.

     
     
     

     You can sort the table columns to make it easier to find the storage devices that you want to manage. In addition, you can enter text (such as a name or IP address) in the Filter field to further filter the storage systems that are displayed. You can change the columns that are displayed and the default sort order by clicking the Customize Columns icon ().

  2. Click the Refresh icon () to discover all manageable devices in the XClarity Administrator domain. Discovery might take several minutes.

  3. Select one or more storage devices that you want to manage.

  4. Click Manage Selected. The Manage dialog is displayed.

  5. Specify the user ID and password for authenticating to the storage device.

     Tip

     It is recommended to use a supervisor or administrator account to manage the device. If an account with lower-level authority is used, management might fail, or management might succeed but other future XClarity Administrator operations on the device might fail (particularly if the device is managed without managed authentication).

  6. Click Change to change the role groups that are to be assigned to the devices.

     Note

     • You can select from a list of role groups that are assigned to the current user.

     • If you do not change the role groups, the default role groups are used. For more information about the default role groups, see Changing the default permissions.

  7. Click Manage.

     A dialog is displayed that shows the progress of this management process. To ensure that the process completes successfully, monitor the progress.

  8. When the process is complete, click OK.

     The device is now managed by XClarity Administrator, which automatically polls the managed device on a regular schedule to collect updated information, such as inventory.

     If management was not successful due to one of the following error conditions, repeat this procedure using the Force management option.

     • If the managing XClarity Administrator failed and cannot be recovered.

       Note

       If the replacement XClarity Administrator instance uses the same IP address as the failed XClarity Administrator, you can manage the device again using the RECOVERY_ID account and password (if applicable) and the Force management option.

     • If the managing XClarity Administrator was taken down before the devices were unmanaged.

     • If the devices were not unmanaged successfully.

     Attention

     Devices can be managed by only one XClarity Administrator instance at a time. Management by multiple XClarity Administrator instances is not supported. If a device is managed by one XClarity Administrator, and you want to manage it with another XClarity Administrator, you must first unmanage the device from the original XClarity Administrator, and then manage it with the new XClarity Administrator.

• Discover and manage storage devices that are not on the same IP subnet as XClarity Administrator by manually specifying IP addresses.

  1. From the XClarity Administrator menu bar, click Hardware > Discover and Manage New Devices. The Discover and Manage page is displayed.

  2. Select Manual Input.

  3. Specify the network addresses of the storage devices that you want to manage:

     • Click Single System, and enter a single IP address domain name, or fully-qualified domain name (FQDN).
       Network Access

       To specify an FQDN, ensure that a valid domain name is specified on page (see Configuring network access).
     • Click Multiple Systems, and enter a range of IP addresses. To add another range, click the Add icon (). To remove a range, click the Remove icon ().

  4. Click OK.

  5. Specify the user ID and password for authenticating to the storage device.

     Tip

     It is recommended to use a supervisor or administrator account to manage the device. If an account with lower-level authority is used, management might fail, or management might succeed but other future XClarity Administrator operations on the device might fail (particularly if the device is managed without managed authentication).

  6. Click Change to change the role groups that are to be assigned to the devices.

     Note

     • You can select from a list of role groups that are assigned to the current user.

     • If you do not change the role groups, the default role groups are used. For more information about the default role groups, see Changing the default permissions.

  7. Click Manage.

     A dialog is displayed that shows the progress of this management process. To ensure that the process completes successfully, monitor the progress.

  8. When the process is complete, click OK.

     The device is now managed by XClarity Administrator, which automatically polls the managed device on a regular schedule to collect updated information, such as inventory.

     If management was not successful due to one of the following error conditions, repeat this procedure using the Force management option.

     • If the managing XClarity Administrator failed and cannot be recovered.

       Note

       If the replacement XClarity Administrator instance uses the same IP address as the failed XClarity Administrator, you can manage the device again using the RECOVERY_ID account and password (if applicable) and the Force management option.

     • If the managing XClarity Administrator was taken down before the devices were unmanaged.

     • If the devices were not unmanaged successfully.

     Attention

     Devices can be managed by only one XClarity Administrator instance at a time. Management by multiple XClarity Administrator instances is not supported. If a device is managed by one XClarity Administrator, and you want to manage it with another XClarity Administrator, you must first unmanage the device from the original XClarity Administrator, and then manage it with the new XClarity Administrator.