Chapter 7. Storage Managers

In Red Hat CloudForms, a storage manager is a service providing storage resources that you can manage from a Red Hat CloudForms appliance. This chapter describes the different types of storage managers used by Red Hat CloudForms, and how to manage them.

Two types of storage managers are currently available to Red Hat CloudForms: OpenStack Block Storage (openstack-cinder) and OpenStack Object Storage (openstack-swift). OpenStack Block Storage provisions and manages block storage, whereas OpenStack Object Storage manages object storage within the cloud. These storage managers are discovered automatically by Red Hat CloudForms after adding an OpenStack cloud provider.

7.1. OpenStack Block Storage Managers

The OpenStack Block Storage service (openstack-cinder) provides and manages persistent block storage resources that OpenStack infrastructure instances can consume.

To use OpenStack Block Storage as a storage manager, you must first add an OpenStack cloud provider to your Red Hat CloudForms appliance and enable events. The Block Storage service will be automatically discovered by CloudForms and added to the Storage Managers list in Red Hat CloudForms. See Section 3.1.1, “Adding OpenStack Providers” for instructions on adding a cloud provider and enabling events.

7.1.1. Creating Volumes on an OpenStack Block Storage Manager

You can create and attach volumes to your OpenStack Block Storage manager.

To create a volume:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Volumes.
  2. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click 1862 (Add a new Cloud Volume).
  3. Enter a Volume Name.
  4. Enter the volume size in gigabytes (GB).
  5. Under Placement, select the cloud tenant to attach it to.
  6. Click Add.
Important

After creating a volume, only the volume name can be edited.

7.1.2. Creating a Backup of a Volume

You can create a backup of a volume to protect against data loss, and restore it in the future.

Important

The openstack-cinder-backup service must be enabled on the OpenStack Block Storage manager to create a volume backup.

To create a backup of a volume:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Volumes.
  2. Click the volume you want to back up to open the volume’s summary page.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Create a Backup of this Cloud Volume (Create a Backup of this Cloud Volume).
  4. Enter a name for the backup in Backup Name.

  5. (Optional) Select Incremental? to take an incremental backup of the volume instead of a full backup.

    Note

    You can take an incremental backup of a volume if you have at least one existing full backup of the volume. An incremental volume saves resources by capturing only changes made to the volume since its last backup. See Create an Incremental Volume Backup in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Storage Guide for more information.

  6. Click Save.

View a volume’s backups by clicking Cloud Volume Backups on the volume’s summary page.

Note

See Back Up and Restore a Volume in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Storage Guide for more information about backups.

7.1.3. Restoring a Volume from a Backup

In case of data loss, you can restore a volume from a backup with the following steps:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Volumes.
  2. Click the volume whose backup you want to restore. This will open the volume’s summary page.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Restore from a Backup of this Cloud Volume (Restore from a Backup of this Cloud Volume).
  4. Select the volume to restore from in the Cloud Volume Backup list.
  5. Click Save.

7.1.4. Creating a Snapshot of a Volume

You can create a snapshot of a volume to preserve a volume’s state at a specific point in time. The snapshot can be used to create a duplicate of the volume.

To create a snapshot of a volume:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Volumes.
  2. Click the volume to snapshot to open the volume’s summary page.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Create a Snapshot of this Cloud Volume (Create a Snapshot of this Cloud Volume).
  4. Enter a name for the snapshot in Snapshot Name.
  5. Click Save.

View a volume’s snapshots by clicking Cloud Volume Snapshots on the volume’s summary page.

Note

See Create, Use, or Delete Volume Snapshots in the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Storage Guide for more information about snapshots.

7.1.5. Attaching a Volume to an Instance

To attach a volume to an OpenStack instance:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Volumes.
  2. Select the volume to attach.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Attach selected Cloud Volume to an Instance (Attach selected Cloud Volume to an Instance) to open the Attach Cloud Volume screen.
  4. Select an instance from the list.
  5. (Optional) Enter the Device Mountpoint.
  6. Click Attach.

7.1.6. Detaching a Volume from an Instance

To detach a volume from an OpenStack instance:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Volumes.
  2. Select the volume to detach.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Detach selected Cloud Volume from an Instance (Detach selected Cloud Volume from an Instance) to open the Detach Cloud Volume screen.
  4. Select an instance from the list.
  5. Click Detach.

7.1.7. Editing a Volume

Only the volume name can be edited on an existing volume.

To edit a volume’s name:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Volumes.
  2. Select the volume to edit to open its summary page.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click Edit this Cloud Volume (Edit this Cloud Volume).
  4. Enter the new Volume Name.
  5. Click Save.

7.1.8. Deleting a Volume

To delete a volume from the OpenStack Block Storage manager:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Volumes.
  2. Select the volume to delete.
  3. Click Configuration (Configuration), then click 1861 (Delete selected Cloud Volumes).

7.2. OpenStack Object Storage Managers

The OpenStack Object Storage (openstack-swift) service provides cloud object storage.

To use the OpenStack Object Storage service as a storage manager, you must first add an OpenStack cloud provider to your Red Hat CloudForms appliance and enable events. The Object Storage service will be automatically discovered by CloudForms and added to the Storage Managers list in Red Hat CloudForms. See Section 3.1.1, “Adding OpenStack Providers” for instructions on adding a cloud provider and enabling events.

7.2.1. Viewing Object Stores

The object store summary page shows details including the object store’s size, parent cloud, storage manager, cloud tenant, and the number of cloud objects on the object store.

In Red Hat CloudForms, view object stores on a object storage manager by following these steps:

  1. Navigate to Storage → Object Stores to display a list of object store containers.
  2. Click a container to open a summary page for that object store container.
  3. Click Cloud Objects to view a list of object stores in the object store container.
  4. Click an object store from the list to view the object store’s summary page.