Planning for IBM System Storage DS8000

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Before using System Storage® DS8000® with PowerVC, ensure that you understand all requirements and restrictions.

For requirements and restrictions, such as firmware and license requirements, refer to IBM® Storage Driver for OpenStack.
Notes:
  • On the DS8000, if the host entry type for a Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) is AIX®, then that VIOS supports more than 256 vSCSI attached volumes. If the host entry type is Linux® or another host type that supports LUNPolling instead of reportLUN, then at most 255 vSCSI attached volumes are supported on that VIOS. Therefore, it is recommended that the host entry type for a VIOS is set to AIX.
  • The DS8000 supports a limited number of host connections. If you try to connect to more hosts than are supported, the storage device hangs. To determine the number of supported connections, refer to the maximum Fibre Channel port login information in the Fibre Channel overview for the DS8000 series topic.
  • To manage an NPIV connected virtual machine that uses DS8000 storage, the WWPNs associated with the virtual machine must be part of a host entry on the DS8000. To manage a vSCSI connected virtual machine that uses DS8000 storage, the VIOS WWPNs must be part of a host entry on the DS8000.

  • When using consistency groups on a DS8000 provider, you must specify the LSS IDs that will be dedicated to consistency groups. To set the LSS ID range, use the powervc-config storage ds8000 --cg-lss command and specify a range of LSS IDs. An example range is 00-0F.

    When a volume is added to a consistency group, it is migrated to an LSS in the specified LSS range. Only volumes that are in the available state can be added or removed from a consistency group. Consistency group snapshot volumes are created in this LSS range.

  • Install a certificate on the DS8000 to enable secure HTTPS communications between the PowerVC and DS8000. PowerVC validates the certificate against the system trust store. For certificates signed by internal CA, the CA root and intermediate certificates must be present in the system trust store to ensure successful certificate validation. If the certificate at DS8000 is self-signed, during registration a user or an administrator is prompted if they trust the certificate. If the self-signed certificate is stated as trusted, then it is added to PowerVC trust store and is used for subsequent communication.