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IBM Storage Integration Server

Lihi Tikolsky Tags: integration vmware server storage ibm ‎ 6,243 Views

If you happen to be using one or more IBM storage systems that are serving your VMware environment, we invite you to check out our recently released ’IBM Storage Integration Server’, a software solution that consolidates all your IBM storage usage through a single backend deployment.

You can add your IBM storage arrays into the scope of IBM Storage Integration Server in just one step, by using your storage user credentials as shown in the following example from the web-based management interface:

Once added, the arrays would be available to all supported solutions, without having to re-add each storage array separately for each solution or for any future supported solution.

This single integration server reduces the amount of management traffic and shares the queried storage information with all the supported solutions. The first release, version 1.1.0, introduces support for ‘IBM Storage Enhancements for VMware vSphere Web Client’ and for ‘IBM Storage Provider for VMware VASA’.

‘IBM Storage Enhancements for vSphere Web Client’ enables native visibility and provisioning of IBM storage volumes (LUNs) within VMware vSphere Web Client. These enhancements bring the value of the already known and acclaimed IBM Storage vCenter plug-in, formally known as ‘IBM Storage Management Console for VMware vCenter’, to the new web-based VMware vSphere Web Client, which allows the integration of multiple vCenter servers instead of one.

VMware administrators who were previously daunted by the thought of the complex task of connecting and utilizing storage resources through vSphere Web Client – can now be much more relaxed with the ability to easily create and manage storage volumes in delegated storage pools, which were attached by the storage administrators on the IBM Storage Integration Server side.

‘IBM Storage Provider for VMware VASA’, previously a standalone plug-in, is now a feature of the IBM Storage Integration Server, adding the following enhancements:

· Supports the IBM Storwize family in addition to the existing IBM XIV support.

· Storage capabilities are automatically defined and assigned, eliminating the need for manual definition and assignment.

That’s about it, for now J

More to come soon!

You can download the IBM Storage Integration Server software package and the related documentation from the IBM Fix Central.

You can also view the online documentation at our information center.

As always, we would be happy to have your comments and thoughts.

The IBM Storage Host Software Group (HSG)

Modified on by Lihi Tikolsky

Host Attachment Kit 2.0.0

RoyRothenberg Tags: xiv_host_profiler hak ibm host xiv ‎ 7,617 Views

Hello Everyone,

It's been a while, but now we're back with our brand new IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit 2.0.0!

You probably noticed that we made the jump to version 2.0.0, and for a very good reason: We have an exciting new feature we've been developing for the last 6 months - xiv_host_profiler.

xiv_host_profiler introduces a new approach in the way we provide support to hosts connected to XIV systems. The utility gathers information about your host's configuration, analyzes it against a set of best-practice rules, and enables pre-emptive identification of storage connectivity problems. And this is exactly why we recommend running it on a regular basis.

This feature is also tightly integrated into our latest XIV System release 11.2. By default, when using xiv_host_profiler, the collected information gets uploaded to your XIV System for further analysis. This ability will assist our technicians to ensure your hosts' health before commencing XIV System upgrades or other procedures.

For privacy reasons, the information collected by xiv_host_profiler is only related to your host's storage connectivity status - items such as the host's HBA model, installed OS version and the configuration state of the multi-path framework.

After collecting the information, xiv_host_profiler is also able to analyze it against a bundled set of rules:

The rules against which we analyze the host's configuration will be updated regularly and can be downloaded from Fix Central.

As mentioned before, it's best to run xiv_host_profiler at least once a week (in order to keep the data as up-to-date as possible). We provide an easy way to do so - simply run 'xiv_host_profiler --create-scheduled-task'.

As usual, you can read more about xiv_host_profiler (and other HAK utilities) in the Host Attachment Guide and Release Notes, as well as in the man pages included in the HAK package (how? simply run 'man xiv_host_profiler').

We believe HAK 2.0.0 and the included xiv_host_profiler will further improve on the way we support our storage systems and the hosts connected to them. We'd love to hear more from you about your needs and expectations in the comments.

In the meantime, you can download yourself a copy of the Host Attachment Kit for your favorite host's operating system, right here.

The IBM Host Software Team

Host Attachment Kit 1.10.0 Released!

RoyRothenberg Tags: hak ibm xiv host ‎ 2 Comments ‎ 9,238 Views

Hello Everyone,

Once again, we are proud to announce the release of the latest IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit 1.10.0.

The main feature of this release is Windows Server 2012 support. From this version onward, HAK is fully compatible with your new & shiny installation of Windows Server 2012. Go ahead and take it for a spin!

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve ease of use, we have translated the Windows Installer of HAK to Japanese as well, for the benefit of our Japanese speaking users. More languages to follow.

In addition to the above, we have also resolved several bugs and known issues from previous versions, including among others:

Increased reliability in regard to volume size reporting in xiv_devlist
Improved stability during the configuration phase of iSCSI connections on Solaris
Path counts are reported more accurately in xiv_devlist on HP-UX
We have resolved a known issue in xiv_syslist on HP-UX, regarding XIV System modules and ports connected to the host
xiv_diag now runs more smoothly on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Suse Linux Enterprise Server distributions

Of course that's not all - You may read more about these improvements as well as the rest of the enhancements and fixes in the Release Notes.

We hope you will enjoy this new release of the Host Attachment Kit, at least as much as we enjoyed developing it!

Follow this link to download the installable or portable packages and access the release documentation.

If you have comments, questions or requests, please write to us in the comments section below. We'd love to hear from you.

The IBM Host Software Team

Announcing Host Attachment Kit 1.9.0

ZivKalmanovich Tags: hak xiv host ibm ‎ 10,349 Views

Hi Everyone !

It's HAK release time again !!
As part of our ongoing efforts to keep the IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit up to date and provide enhanced and new functionality, we are proud to announce the latest Host Attachment Kit version 1.9.0.

In this new version we have added support for several new platform versions:
Solaris 11, the recently released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 and the latest AIX 5.3, AIX 6.1 and AIX 7.1 Service Packs which introduce IBM XIV LUN 0 support.

But we did more than that. We have also enhanced the current HAK functionality by providing our UNIX & Linux users with manual pages accessible by using the 'man' command. Now you can access the documentation for each HAK command by executing 'man <HAK command>'.

In addition, in AIX OS, 'xiv_attach' is now capable of automatic discovery of connected XIV systems and host definition on the connected XIV, by utilizing the latest AIX 5.3, AIX 6.1 and AIX 7.1 SP, in which XIV LUN0 support was added. This aligns the XIV support in AIX OS with that of other supported OS-s. Moreover, LUN0 support also introduces a new HAK utility to AIX HAK users - 'xiv_syslist' , which you can read more about here.

The log collection utility, 'xiv_diag', was enhanced and now can be executed in unattended mode by providing the command with the destination path for the compressed log collection package as a command line argument.

Finally, additional bugs and known issues were resolved, and you can read more about them in the Release Notes.

Follow this link to download the installable or portable packages and access the release documentation.

Let's keep in touch!

The IBM Host Software Team

Host Attachment Kit 1.8.0 was released

ZivKalmanovich Tags: hak xiv ibm host ‎ 2 Comments ‎ 9,997 Views

We are happy to announce our newest edition of the IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit, version 1.8.0. This release includes a new utility and support for new operating system versions, as well as several bug fixes and code infrastructure improvements.

And now, let's dive into the details:
Starting with our cool new utility, called "xiv_syslist"... This new tool in the HAK will provide great assitance to host and storage administrators, by exposing useful storage array details from the server/host point of view. What kind of details? Without turning this post into a User Guide, the list of storage array details includes (for each array connected to the host): Array name, Array Serial, Management IPs, Connected Modules & Ports, Connectivity Types, Host Name Defined and Host Ports Definition State. The output can be formatted as xml or csv, as well as regular text output.The "xiv_syslist" utility is available on all platforms supported by the HAK.

Here is a screenshot, for first impression:

In addition we have broadened our list of supported OS versions and now it also includes: SLES 11 SP2, RHEL 5.8, Solaris 10 u10, AIX 7.1 TL1 and AIX 6.1 TL7.

We could not finish without mentioning the issues that were fixed in this version. While several minor issues have been fixed, the most encompassing one is an infrastructure revamp for the "xiv_devlist" utility, that has fixed many issues in the utility on all the supported platforms.

Now if this sounds good to you, here is the download link from IBM Fix Central. Here you can find the IBM XIV Host Attachment Guide and the HAK Release Notes for each of the platforms.

We would love to hear from you, please leave your questions and comments below.

Happy Easter and Passover Holidays!

The IBM XIV Host Software team

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