EMC Storage Product Knowledge Sharing

Auto-provisioning requires Enginuity 5874 or later. It simplify Symmetrix provisioning by allowing you to create group of devices like storage group in CLARiiON, Front-End Port Group and Host Initiators Group and then associate these groups with each other in a masking view.

The following are the basic steps for provisioning Symmetrix using Auto-Provisioning:-

1) Create a Storage Group
2) Create a Port Group
3) Create an Initiator Group
4) Associate the groups in a Masking View.

Creating Storage Group:- It is component of Auto-Provisioning group and FAST ( Will discuss about FAST in later post), both require Enginiuity 5874. The maximum number of storage group allowed per array is 8192. A storage group can contain up to 4096 devices. A Symmetrix device can belong to more than one storage group.

Note:- By default Dynamic LUN addresses will assigned to each device. If can manually assign the host LUN addresses for the device you are adding to the group by clicking Set LUN Address- Storage group dialog box.

Creating Port Group:- A port can belong to more than one port group and port must have the ACLX bit enabled. For example if you want FA 5A and 12 A for windows operating system, you can create port group name called WIN_PortGrp or Win_FA5A_FA12A_PrtGrp etc.

Creating Initiator Group:- The maximum number of initiator groups allowed per Symmetrix array is 8000. An initiator group can contain up to 32 initiator of any type and contain other initiator groups (cascaded to only one level).

Initiator Group name must be unique from other initiator groups on the array and cannot exceed 64 characters. Initiator group names are case-insensitive.

Creating Masking view:- It just a co-relation between Storage Group, Port Group and Initiator Group and you are done! Device will be mapped automatically to selected port group and masked to selected initiator groups.