Specifications
9
Technology Overview
Xserve RAID
Management
and Monitoring
Xserve RAID comes with RAID Admin, a powerful remote management application
that dramatically simplies setup and monitoring of multiple Xserve RAID systems. This
Java-based tool provides an intuitive interface for creating protected storage volumes,
managing preferences, and monitoring storage hardware. To protect storage systems
from unauthorized access, RAID Admin uses robust, multilevel password authentication.
RAID Admin integrates with hardware to continuously monitor system activity and
status. The environment management coprocessors in the RAID controllers connect
to the host system via Ethernet, providing dedicated, out-of-band system management
capabilities. This ensures optimum system performance and reliability, because there is
no contention for bandwidth with the RAID processors or the Fibre Channel interface.
Setting Up and Managing Arrays
RAID Admin lets you create arrays in three easy steps. First, choose a RAID level for
information about the benets and limitations of that level. Next, click the drives you
want to assign to the array. RAID Admin even gives you information about each of
the drives in your Xserve RAID system, so there’s no guesswork. Any remaining drives
are assigned as global hot spares for each controller. Last, choose background initial-
ization to make the newly created array available immediately.
RAID Admin provides an easy-to-use interface for creating RAID sets.
Remote management using RAID Admin
The Java-based RAID Admin application
works over TCP/IP, making it easy to
set up, manage, and monitor Xserve
RAID systems from virtually any Internet-
connected computer.
Automatic discovery with Bonjour
Using Apple’s Bonjour technology, RAID
Admin automatically discovers Xserve RAID
systems on your network. This makes it
easy to add them to your management
window, without having to enter each IP
address manually.