Compute: Hosts & Host Groups, Initiators
Compute: Hosts & Host Groups, Initiators
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The Compute section contains multiple pages, one of which is the Hosts Information page as shown in Figure 10. The Host Information page defaults to the Hosts & Hosts Groups pane. It allows you to create and manage host configurations which are logical connections through which hosts or applications can access storage resources. When creating a host, the user must select an initiator type based off how the host will connect to the storage, either Fibre Channel, iSCSI, NVMe, or NVMe vVol.
You can pool individual hosts together into a host group. A host group is a collection of hosts that enables you to perform volume mapping operations across all the hosts in the group. For example, when you provision volumes for a host group, the volumes become available to all member hosts. A host group can only use one protocol. You cannot add a host to a host group that uses a different protocol.
NVMe host support is added in PowerStoreOS versions 2.0 and later to support end-to-end NVMe/FC configurations. In PowerStoreOS versions 2.1 and later, NVMe support is extended to also include end-to-end NVMe/TCP host configurations.
vVols can also be accessed using NVMeoF. PowerStoreOS 3.0 and later includes support for NVMe/FC for vVols. PowerStoreOS 3.6 and later includes support for NVMe/TCP for vVols.
Figure 10. Compute > Host Information > Hosts & Host Groups
The Host Information section also contains the Initiators pane in PowerStoreOS versions 3.0 and later as shown in Figure 11. This list view table displays all the initiators and initiator paths in one pane of glass for all supported protocols (iSCSI, FC, NVMe/FC, NVMe/TCP). This makes configuration and troubleshooting much more efficient for users. Click one of the blue initiator links in the identifier column displays the connected paths section of the UI showing the number of connections to node A and B. The total paths displayed make up the number shown on the main initiator pane under the Active Sessions column.
Figure 11. Compute > Host Information > Initiators