After the VxRail dynamic nodes compute-only cluster configuration is completed, perform the following steps to provision PowerFlex as a primary storage and enable run-time operations such as system health status check, add/remove hosts, LCM upgrade operation etc.

Go to Cluster > Configure > VxRail > System page. A warning message reports: “VxRail cluster is not fully ready”.

Figure 13. Warning message 

1. Mount the datastore for the dynamic node cluster: From the section PowerFlex storage configuration, at least one PowerFlex volume has been created and mounted to VxRail Dynamic node cluster as VMFS datastore.

2. Initiate the primary storage provisioning API to set up the PowerFlex datastore as the VxRail primary system storage and enable VxRail day 2 operations.

API description: 

• API path: https://vxm-ip/rest/vxm/v1/system/primary-storage
• Method: POST
• Parameters:

• primary_storage_type: Fixed value "External"
• primary_storage_name: PowerFlex datastore name
• storage_policy_profile_name: Storage policy profile name for VxRail Manager. This field is optional. If it is not provided, the default policy will be determined by vCenter. However, it is recommended to create a separate default storage policy to avoid confusion.

Note: For more information about the API, see Dell EMC VxRail RESTfull API Cookbook.

In the following example, an API call procedure is used with the curl command:

• Open a command line which can access VxRail Manager.
• Run the following curl command:

curl -u "<vc user name>:<vc password>" --request POST 'https://< VxRail Manager IP>/rest/vxm/v1/system/primary-storage' --header 'Content-Type:application/json' --data-raw '{

"primary_storage_type": "External",

"primary_storage_name": "<PowerFlex datastore name>",

"storage_policy_profile_name": "<storage policy profile name>"

         }'

3.  Wait for a response. If the response code is 200 and the status is SUCCESS, the primary storage provision is successful, and day 2 operations are enabled. 

The following figure shows the workflow to provision PowerFlex as a primary storage:

Figure 14. Provisioning PowerFlex as a primary storage workflow