Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager

Add a FlashArray to System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) in Fabric -> Add Resources -> Storage Devices.

This opens the Add Storage Devices Wizard. Select SAN and NAS devices discovered and managed by a SMI-S provider.

Use the default protocol of SMI-S CIMXML, use SSL, and select or create a Run As account with administrator permissions on the FlashArray. The Browse button will let you pick from existing Run As accounts or provide a method to create a new one.

In this screen you must select both Classification and Host Group. When the first FlashArray is added to SCVMM, create a classification with a friendly name to indicate what it is. PUREFAX was used in the example to indicate a FlashArray//X. By default there are no SCVMM Host Groups. All Hosts must be selected or no hosts managed by SCVMM will be able to access the storage device. In the case of SCVMM Host Groups, All Hosts can still be chosen, or you

In the future if you add additional FlashArrays that have a different purpose, for example, long term retention, create a new classification indicating that. When deploying resources it is easy to deploy them to a FlashArray within a particular classification. If deploying other models of FlashArray, a FlashArray//C or FlashArray//E, create new classifications that indicate their capabilities.

Select a failover cluster (SQL or Hyper-V or Scale out File Server) and right-click to get properties on the cluster in 'VMs and Services".

Then click on Shared Volumes and click Add. Click Create Logical Unit. After setting the size parameters and ensuring the FlashArray disk pool is selected, click OK, and it will revert back to the shared volumes screen. At this point the new disk exists on the FlashArray, and it will now be selected out of all of the available disks. Give it a volume label and click the quick and force check boxes to format. Click OK twice.

This last step can take a while, and the time it takes increases with each additional node in the cluster as SCVMM checks each host to ensure connectivity to the disk. It then connects the disk, formats it, adds it to the cluster, and finally makes it a CSV.

Open Failover Cluster Manager and the new CSV will be visible and online as a new mount point under C:\ClusterStorage.

It is a good practice to create a Volume in the context of the Cluster you wish to add a CSV too because if the SCVMM configuration is incorrect, you will not be able to create a Volume. All FlashArrays are added to SCVMM under a Classification and a selected Host Group. This Host Group can be a custom named one, or All Hosts.

To create a CSV, right-click the Cluster, select Properties, and then select Shared Storage. Click Add and then Create Logical Unit. In Figure 57, the Storage pool is empty. In this scenario there are 2 FlashArrays connected to SCVMM. Array 29 is added to this Host Group, but there is no connectivity between the FlashArray and this Cluster. Array 32 is assigned to another Host Group, so this Host Group does not have access.

Close these Windows and get the properties of the Host Group that contains the Cluster you want to add a CSV to. In Figure 58 notice that only FlashArray 29 (SN1-x50r2-e08-29) is added to the Storage Pool.

Click on Allocate Storage Pools and add the Storage Pool where the CSV is to be created.

Return back to the cluster’s properties, select shared volumes, then add, and finally select ‘Create Logical Unit’.

Now FlashArray 32, which is connected to this server through iSCSI is able to create a disk and then add it to the cluster as a CSV.

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