VNX storage arrays have a concept of Unisphere Domains which let you manage multiple arrays from one Unisphere GUI. To manage two or more arrays from a single pain of glass you need to join their storage domains. There are typically two scenarios:
- Joining arrays of the same generation, such as VNX to VNX or Clariion to Clariion (VNX1 and VNX2 are considered as one generation)
- Joining arrays of different generations, such as Clariion to VNX
Same generation arrays
When joining same generation arrays to a single domain you get the benefit of having consistent domain-wide settings across all arrays in the domain, such as: DNS, NTP, LDAP and Global Users. If you go to Unisphere Home screen and click on the Domain button you will find where all domain-wide settings are configured. Once they are set up these settings propagate to all systems within the domain.
There’s also a concept of Domain Master, which keeps and distributes domain-wide settings. Domain Master can be changed manually if you wish to do so by using the Select Domain Master wizard.
To add a new system to the same domain simply click on Add/Remove Systems and follow the wizard.
Different generation arrays
It’s very uncommon to see a Clariion these days, but if you still have one and want to have a single management interface across both your Clariion and VNX arrays you have to use Multi-Domains. You won’t get the benefit of having the same domain-wide settings, but if you have just 2 or 3 arrays it’s not really that hard to set them up manually.
To add a new domain to Multi-Domain configuration click on Manage Multi-Domain Configurations, specify VNX Service Processor IP and assign a name. System will be added to the list of Selected Domains.
Always add another domain to Multi-Domain configuration on a system which is running the highest release of Unisphere within the Multi-Domain, otherwise you’ll get the following error:
This version of user interface software does not support the management server software versions on the provided system.
Once the system is added you will see both arrays in the systems list and will be able to manage both from one Unisphere interface. For the sake of demonstration I used two VNX arrays in the screenshot below. But the same process applies to Clarrion arrays.
Local and global users
Unisphere has two types of user accounts – local and global. Local account can manage the system you have connected to and global account can manage all systems within the same domain.
By default, when array is being installed, global security is initialized and one global user is created. There are no local user accounts on the system by default, which is fine, because each array is created as a member of its own local domain.
In a Multi-Domain configuration you need to make sure you’re logging in to Unisphere using an account, which exists in every domain being managed. Otherwise, each time you log in to Unisphere you will have to manually login to the remote domain on the domain tab, which is quite annoying.
If you have different accounts on each of the arrays, make sure to make them consistent across all systems.
Conclusion
In this post in a few simple steps we went through the Unisphere single domain and multi-domain configurations. If you want to know more details about Unisphere Domain management refer to EMC white paper “Domain Management with EMC Unisphere for VNX“.
The main benefit of using Unisphere Domains is that they give you ability to manage all of your VNXs by connecting to just one array. If you have an old Clariion you’ll have to use a so called Multi-Domain. VNX1 and VNX2 arrays can join a single domain.
If you are a systems engineer, I’m sure you have to deal with Java compatibility issues all the time as I do. You install a certain Java version to fix one client and it immediately brakes another one.
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