Network-attached storage system requirements

Before adding network-attached storage (NAS) systems and NetApp devices for monitoring, ensure that you understand the system requirements.

NetApp devices

A NetApp device (7-mode only) can be added to IBM Spectrum® Control as a block storage device, a file storage device, or both.
  • When you add a NetApp device as a block storage system, IBM Spectrum Control collects data by using a CIM agent.
  • When you add a NetApp device as a file storage system, IBM Spectrum Control collects data through the native API (NAPI) of the device.

For a list of NetApp devices that can be monitored, see External link iconNetApp support page.

Note: For new IBM Spectrum Control installations, Storage Resource agents are no longer supported for managing NetApp devices. If you upgrade from a previous version of IBM Spectrum Control, you can continue to manage NetApp devices that have Storage Resource agents installed from a previous release.

Other NAS devices

NAS devices other than Network Appliance devices must meet the following criteria in order to be supported by IBM Spectrum Control:
  • If scanned from a UNIX® agent, a NAS device must support Network File System (NFS) queries.
  • If scanned from a Windows™ agent, a NAS device must support Common Internet File System (CIFS) queries.
  • A NAS device must support SNMP queries (sysName and sysOID).
  • A NAS device must supply a unique sysName.
The following conditions might be necessary for adding other NAS systems for monitoring and management by IBM Spectrum Control.
Agent requirements
You must install the agent on a machine that has access to the NAS filers within your environment that you want to monitor.
Windows
The agent that is logging in to and scanning the NAS filer is not required to be in the same domain as the user or the NAS filer. If you install the agent on a different domain from the NAS filer, the agent scans the NAS filer if the domain of the agent computer is a "trusted domain" by the domain of the NAS filer.
UNIX and Linux®
The agent computer must import the NAS filer export files as NFS mounts (or automounts on Oracle Solaris).
Note:
  • You do not install agents to the NAS filers themselves.
  • For IBM Spectrum Control 5196 Network Attached Storage 300 G machines only, install the agent directly on those machines. If the 300 G is clustered, you need to install an agent on each local node.
NAS requirements
The NAS filers within your environment must be visible to the machines where you install the agent or agents. If you want to monitor NAS filers from Windows, you must configure those NAS filers to be members of a Windows domain.