Hardware manual

Group Administration Storage solutions for all enterprises
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You can restrict iSCSI access to volumes according to IP address, iSCSI initiator name, or Challenge Handshake
Authentication Protocol (CHAP) user name. You can set up and authenticate CHAP accounts locally in the group
or through a RADIUS (Remote Authorization Dial-in User Service) server.
Advanced functionality at no extra cost
PS Series arrays match ease-of-use with ease-of-doing-business. Arrays come with basic and advanced software,
so you do not have to purchase expensive add-ons. New features are available through firmware updates and host-
based tools, which are provided at no additional cost to customers with a support contract.
For example, a PS Series group delivers:
• Onlin
e scalability.
You can expand array capacity or overall group capacity while online and with no affect on
users or availability. Hot-swappable hardware means that you can replace failed components while data stays
online.
• Multiple storage pools. In a PS
Se
ries group, you can divide storage into multiple pools. This helps you
organize storage according to usage, offering more control over resource allocation, while giving you a single
system management view. You get the advantages of storage consolidation and the ability to easily segregate
different workloads.
• Th
in provisioning. T
o use storage more efficiently, you can apply thin provisioning to a volume. Thin
provisioning lets you over-allocate group space to satisfy current and future storage requirements. This
functionality can be useful if an operating system or application cannot handle online volume expansion.
To an application or operating system, a thin-provisioned volume is fully allocated
. However, the group
initially allocates only a portion of the volume size. As you use the volume, the group automatically allocates
more space, with no disruption in availability.
• Thin clones. T
o
use storage space efficiently, you can create multiple thin clone volumes that are based on a
template volume. You can write data to each thin clone to make it unique. Only the data that is unique to a thin
clone is consumed from free pool space. Thin clones can be beneficial in storage environments that use
multiple volumes that contain a large amount of common data.
• V
olume collections. Y
ou can organize volumes into collections. This lets you perform a snapshot or replication
operation on all the volumes in the collection simultaneously.
• Scheduled operations. You can set up schedules to create volume snapshots or replicas at a specific time in
the
future or on a regular basis.
• Cloning. Cloning a volume crea
tes a new volume with the same size, contents, and attributes as the original
volume. Cloning is useful when you need a copy of an existing volume, such as when you are deploying copies
of a computer or database. When compared to traditional copy or restore operations, cloning dramatically
decreases the time required to make complete copies of a volume. You can also clone a snapshot or a replica,
creating a new volume with the same contents as the volume at the time you created the snapshot or replica.
• Snapshots. A snapshot is
a point-in-time copy of volume data. Snapshots greatly simplify and increase the
performance of backup and recovery operations. You can create snapshots on-demand and through schedules.
To recover data from a snapshot, you can set the snapshot online, connect to the target,
and copy the data. You
can also restore the entire volume from a snapshot or clone a snapshot. Cloning a snapshot creates a volume
containing the same data that was in the volume at the time the snapshot was created.
• Replication. By replic
ating volumes from one group to another, you can set up a simple, yet robust disaster
recovery strategy. Groups can be in the same building or a large distance apart.