Dell PowerScale

Introduction

Dell PowerScale is a scale out network-attached storage platform offered by Dell EMC for high-volume storage, backup and archiving of unstructured data.

It provides a cluster-based storage array based on industry-standard hardware and is scalable to 50 petabytes in a single filesystem using its FreeBSD-derived OneFS file system. A PowerScale clustered storage system is composed of three or more nodes. Each node is a server integrated with proprietary operating system software called OneFS (based on FreeBSD), which unifies a cluster of nodes into a single shared resource.

Available resources under PowerScale are as follows:

• Cluster: OneFS works exclusively with dedicated platform nodes, referred to as a “cluster”
• Node: A single cluster consists of multiple nodes, which are rack-mountable enterprise appliances containing: memory, CPU, networking, Ethernet or low-latency InfiniBandinterconnects, disk controllers and storage media. As such, each node in the distributed cluster has compute as well as storage or capacity capabilities.

Hierarchy of Dell PowerScale resources:

PowerScale Cluster
      — PowerScale Node
          — PowerScale Network Interface
          — PowerScale Drive
    — PowerScale Network Pool
    — PowerScale Quota
    — PowerScale SyncIQ Policy
    — PowerScale SnapShot
    — PowerScale Nfs Export
    — PowerScale Smb Share

Prerequisites

• OpsRamp Classic Gateway 10.0 and above (or) OpsRamp Cluster gateway

• Ensure that “adapter integrations” add-on is enabled in client configuration. Once enabled you can see Dell PowerScale integration under Setup » Integrations » Adapter section

Install the integration

1. From All Clients, select a client.

2. Go to Setup > Integrations > Integrations.

3. From Available Integrations, select Adapter > Dell PowerScale. The Install Dell PowerScale Integration popup appears.
   Note: Ensure that Adapter addon is enabled at client and partner levels.

4. Enter the following information:
   a. Name: Name of the integration
   b. Upload Logo: Optional logo for the integration.
   c. GateWay Profiles: Select a gateway management profile to associate with the client.
   

5. Click Install. The Integration page displays the installed integration.

Configure the integration

1. In CONFIGURATION section, click + Add.

2. On Create Adapter Configuration, enter:

   • Name: Configuration name.
   • Protocol: Protocol. Example: HTTPS, HTTP, etc.
   • IP Address/Host Name: IP address/Host Name of the target.
   • Port: Port
   • Alert Configuration: Configure the alert filters, alert severity mappings, etc. based on your requirements.
   Default configuration:

       {"alertFilters":{"alertSeverity":["emergency","critical","warning","information","unknown"],"alertOnRootResource":true},"alertSeverityMapping":{"emergency":"Critical","critical":"Critical","warning":"Warning","information":"Info","unknown":"Info"}}
       

   • Notification Alerts: Select TRUE or FALSE.
     Notes:
     • By default False is selected.
     • If you select TRUE, application will handle Critical/Recovery failure alert notifications for Connectivity, Authentication Exceptions.
   • API Authentication Type: Based on the selection, authorization mechanism changes with Target communication, you can either select:
     • Basic Auth
     • Session Cookie

3. In the Credentials section, select Custom and enter the Username and Password.

4. In the Resource Types & Metrics section, select the metrics you want and configure for availability and alert conditions.

5. In the Discovery Schedule section, select Recurrence Pattern to add one of the following patterns:

   • Minutes
   • Hourly
   • Daily
   • Weekly
   • Monthly
     
     

6. In the Monitoring Schedule section, configure how frequently the monitoring action should trigger.

7. Click Save.

The configuration is saved and displayed on the page.

After saving the integration, the Dell PowerScale resources are discovered and monitoring is enabled as specified by the configuration profile.

You can perform the actions manually, like Discovery, Monitoring or even Disable the configuration.

The discovered resources are displayed in the Infrastructure page under Cluster, with Native Resource Type as PowerScale Cluster.

PowerScale Node (Native Resource Type) is displayed under Components:

View resource metrics

To confirm Dell PowerScale monitoring, review the following:

• Metric graphs: A graph is plotted for each metric that is enabled in the configuration.
• Alerts: Alerts are generated for metrics that are configured as defined for integration.

Supported metrics

Risks, Limitations & Assumptions

• Application can handle Critical/Recovery failure alert notifications for the below two cases when user enables Notification Alerts in configuration:
  • Connectivity Exception
  • Authentication Exception
• Application will not send any duplicate/repeat failure alert notification until the existing critical alert is recovered.
• Application cannot control monitoring pause/resume actions based on the above alerts.
• Component level threshold configuration is not possible.
• Resource level metric threshold customization and frequency setting are not possible.
• Usability issues in application configuration page while adding/editing.
• Optional configuration parameters cannot be defined.
• Application upgrade is manual process without version change.

References

REST API Doc: https://developer.dell.com/apis/4088/versions/9.4.0.0/docs/1introduction.md