Dell Storage Center Back End Guide

Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7

A Guide to Using Dell Storage Center Storage in a RHEL OpenStack Platform 7 Environment

OpenStack Documentation Team

Abstract

This document describes how to configure Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7 to use one or more Dell Storage Center devices as back ends.

Chapter 1. Introduction

This document describes how to configure OpenStack to use one or more Dell Storage Center back ends. The following chapters assume that:

  • You intend to use only Dell Storage Center devices and drivers for Block Storage back ends
  • OpenStack has already been deployed with a properly-configured Block Storage service
  • You have the necessary credentials for connecting to the Enterprise Manager and Dell Storage Center Group
  • You have the username and password of an admin account for the OpenStack deployment (see "User and Role Management" in the Users and Identity Management Guide, or Creating additional OpenStack admin users for more information)

Chapter 2. Use a Single Dell Storage Center Back End

This section describes how to configure OpenStack to use a single Dell Storage Center device as a Block Storage back end.

2.1. Define the Back End

Start by creating a section for the back end in the /etc/cinder/cinder.conf file of the node hosting the openstack-cinder-volume service. The following snippet defines one back end, namely [backend]. This snippet displays the settings required for using a Dell Storage Center SAN device: 

[backend]
volume_driver=cinder.volume.drivers.dell_storagecenter_iscsi.DellStorageCenterISCSIDriver 1
​san_ip=10.1.1.1 2
​san_login=Admin 3
​san_password=password 4
​iscsi_ip_address=192.168.0.20 5
​dell_sc_ssn=64702 6
​dell_sc_api_port=3033 7
​dell_sc_server_folder=server_folder 8
​dell_sc_volume_folder=volume_folder 9
​iscsi_port=3260 10
1
volume_driver: The volume driver required for Dell Storage Center back ends (namely, cinder.volume.drivers.dell_storagecenter_iscsi.DellStorageCenterISCSIDriver).
2
san_ip: The IP address used to reach the Dell Enterprise Manager. This field has no default value.
3
san_login: The user name to login to the Dell Enterprise Manager at the san_ip. The default user name is Admin.
4
san_password: The corresponding password of san_login. Default password is password.
5
iscsi_ip_address: The Dell Storage Center ISCSI IP address to be used for creating volumes and snapshots.
6
dell_sc_ssn: The Dell Storage Center serial number to use. Default is 64702.
7
dell_sc_api_port: The Dell Enterprise Manager API port. It’s optional and defaults to 3033.
8
dell_sc_server_folder: The Server folder in Dell Storage Center where the new server definitions are placed.
9
dell_sc_volume_folder: The Server folder in Dell Storage Center where the new volumes are created.
10
iscsi_port: The ISCSI port of the Dell Storage Center array. This parameter is optional, and defaults to 3036.
Note

See the Configuration Reference Guide for more information about Dell Storage Center volume driver settings.

Once you define the back end, enable it through the volume_backend_name setting in the [DEFAULT] section of /etc/cinder/cinder.conf:

# openstack-config --set /etc/cinder/cinder.conf DEFAULT volume_backend_name backend

After editing /etc/cinder/cinder.conf, restart the Block Storage service to apply your new settings:

# openstack-service restart cinder

2.2. Load the Necessary Administrator Credentials

As you will be performing administrative functions from this point onwards, you need to load the necessary environment variables to facilitate authentication. To do so, run the following commands:

# export OS_USERNAME=ADMIN_USER

# export OS_TENANT_NAME=admin

# export OS_PASSWORD=ADMIN_PW

# export OS_AUTH_URL=http://KEYSTONE_IP:35357/v2.0/

# export PS1='[\u@\h \W(keystone_admin)]\$

Where:

  • ADMIN_USER and ADMIN_PW are the username/password of a user account with administrative rights within the OpenStack environment.
  • KEYSTONE_IP is the IP address or hostname of the Identity service.

For more information about OpenStack admin accounts, see Creating additional OpenStack admin users.

2.3. Create a Volume Type

After defining the back end, create a volume type for it. The following commands will create the volume type dell_sc_backend and map it to the back end dell_sc_iscsi (from Section 2.1, “Define the Back End”):

# cinder type-create dell_sc_backend

# cinder type-key dell_sc_backend set volume_backend_name=dell_sc_iscsi

2.4. Test Your Configuration

Verify your configuration by creating a 1GB volume named test_backend. To do so:

# cinder create --volume_type dell_sc_backend --display_name test_backend 1

Chapter 3. Use Multiple Dell Storage Center Back Ends

This section describes how to configure OpenStack to use multiple Dell Storage Center devices as Block Storage back ends.

3.1. Define Each Back End

Start by creating a section for each back end in the /etc/cinder/cinder.conf file of the node hosting the openstack-cinder-volume service. The following snippet defines two back ends, [backend1] and [backend2]: 

[backend1]
​volume_driver=cinder.volume.drivers.dell_storagecenter_iscsi.DellStorageCenterISCSIDriver 1
​volume_backend_name=backend1 2
​san_ip=10.1.1.1 3
​san_login=Admin 4
​san_password=password 5
​iscsi_ip_address=192.168.0.20 6
​dell_sc_ssn=64702 7
​dell_sc_api_port=3033 8
​dell_sc_server_folder=server_folder 9
​dell_sc_volume_folder=volume_folder 10
​iscsi_port=3260 11
​
​[backend2]
​volume_driver=cinder.volume.drivers. dell_storagecenter_iscsi.DellStorageCenterISCSIDriver 12
​volume_backend_name=backend1 13
​san_ip=10.1.1.1 14
​san_login=Admin 15
​san_password=password 16
​iscsi_ip_address=192.168.0.20 17
​dell_sc_ssn=64702 18
​dell_sc_api_port=3033 19
​dell_sc_server_folder=server_folder 20
​dell_sc_volume_folder=volume_folder 21
​iscsi_port=3260 22
​
1 12
volume_driver: The ISCSI volume driver required for Dell Storage Center back ends (namely, cinder.volume.drivers.dell_storagecenter_iscsi.DellStorageCenterISCSIDriver).
2 13
volume_backend_name: Defines each back end’s name. Each back end must have a unique name.
3 14
san_ip: The IP address used to reach the Dell Enterprise Manager. This field has no default value.
4 15
san_login: The user name to login to the Dell Enterprise Manager at the san_ip. The default user name is Admin.
5 16
san_password: The corresponding password of san_login. Default password is password.
6 17
iscsi_ip_address: The Dell Storage Center ISCSI IP address to create volumes and snapshots.
7 18
​dell_sc_ssn: The Dell Storage Center serial number to use. Default is 64702.
8 19
dell_sc_api_port: The Dell Enterprise Manager API port. This parameter is optional, and defaults to 3033.
9 20
​dell_sc_server_folder: The Server folder in Dell Storage Center where the new server definitions are placed.
10 21
dell_sc_volume_folder: The Server folder in Dell Storage Center where the new volumes are created.
11 22
iscsi_port: The ISCSI port of the Dell Storage Center array. This parameter is optional, and defaults to 3036.
Note

See the Configuration Reference Guide for more information about Dell Storage Center volume driver settings.

3.2. Load the Necessary Administrator Credentials

As you will be performing administrative functions from this point onwards, you need to load the necessary environment variables to facilitate authentication. To do so, run the following commands:

# export OS_USERNAME=ADMIN_USER

# export OS_TENANT_NAME=admin

# export OS_PASSWORD=ADMIN_PW

# export OS_AUTH_URL=http://KEYSTONE_IP:35357/v2.0/

# export PS1='[\u@\h \W(keystone_admin)]\$

Where:

  • ADMIN_USER and ADMIN_PW are the username/password of a user account with administrative rights within the OpenStack environment.
  • KEYSTONE_IP is the IP address or hostname of the Identity service.

For more information about OpenStack admin accounts, see Creating additional OpenStack admin users.

3.3. Configure the Volume Service

  1. After defining each back end, configure the volume service to use each of them. To do so, set the defined back ends as a comma-delimited list to the enabled_backends setting in the [DEFAULT] section of /etc/cinder/cinder.conf. For example, to set backend1 and backend2 (from Section 3.1, “Define Each Back End”) as your back ends, run:

    # openstack-config --set /etc/cinder/cinder.conf DEFAULT enabled_backends backend1,backend2

  2. Restart the Block Storage service to apply the new back end settings:

    # openstack-service restart cinder

  3. Next, declare a volume type for each back end. Later on, when you create a volume, you can use the volume type to specify which back end the Block Storage service should use for creating the volume. The following commands will allow you to create two volume types: dell_sc_iscsi1 and dell_sc_iscsi2:

    # cinder type-create dell_sc_iscsi1

    # cinder type-create dell_sc_iscsi2

  4. Map the volume type dell_sc_iscsi1 to backend1, and the dell_sc_iscsi2 volume type to backend2 (backend1 and backend2 are both distinct back ends defined in Section 3.1, “Define Each Back End”):

    # cinder type-key dell_sc_iscsi1 set volume_backend_name=backend1

    # cinder type-key dell_sc_iscsi2 set volume_backend_name=backend2

  5. Configure the Block Storage service to intelligently determine which back end to use for a specific request:

    # openstack-config --set /etc/cinder/cinder.conf DEFAULT scheduler_default_filters CapacityFilter

    With this, the Block Storage service will choose from the configured back ends based on each one’s capacity.

3.4. Test Your Configuration

Verify your configuration by creating a 1GB volume backed by backend2 and named test_backend2:

# cinder create --volume_type dell_sc_iscsi2 --display_name test_backend2 1

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