This section explains how to:

• Add a storage pool to a protection domain
• Create and map volumes
• Create a VMFS datastore

Adding a storage pool

A storage pool is always added to a protection domain. Each time that you add devices to the system, you must map the devices to storage pools. You can add storage pools both from the CLI and from the UI.

Storage pools in protection domains are preconfigured at the factory. If your environment requires that you create new storage pools, as an administrator, create a storage pool as follows:

1. In the PowerFlex UI, select Backend.

2. Right-click the Protection Domain that you want and select Add Storage Pool.
3. Enter a name for the new storage pool.
4. Select the storage pool configuration options that you want.
5. Using the vSphere plug-in for PowerFlex, in the vSphere Web Client select Home > Inventories, as shown in the following figure:

Figure 6.              Creating a storage pool

6. Select the Dell EMC PowerFlex icon, and then double-click Protection Domains in the left pane.
7. Select the protection domain that you want, and then select Actions > Create Storage Pool.
8. Enter a name for the new storage pool.
9. If you are prompted to enter a password, enter the PowerFlex authentication password.

Creating and mapping volumes

Volumes are created from storage pools and can be exposed to the hypervisor as a local storage device using the storage data client (SDC). When a volume is configured from a storage pool, it is distributed over all devices residing in that pool. Each volume block has two copies on two different SDSs, enabling the system to maintain data availability following a single point of failure.

Volumes can be:

• Thick—Capacity is allocated immediately, even if it is not used.
• Thin—Capacity is on reserve but not allocated until it is used.

Dell Technologies recommends using thick provisioning for creating PowerFlex volumes that will be used as datastores for the SAP HANA persistence.

As an administrator, add volumes as follows:

1. In the PowerFlex UI, after selecting the Volume submenu from the Frontend tab, right-click the desired storage pool to create a volume.

The Add Volume page opens, as shown in the following figure:

Figure 7.                  Adding a volume using the PowerFlex UI

2. To create more than one volume, enter the number of volumes that you want in the Create multiple volumes box.

Multiple volumes are created with the same name. A number is appended to each volume.

Mapping volumes

Map PowerFlex volumes to all vSphere servers in the cluster before you create a datastore on the volumes. The PowerFlex SDC on the vSphere server presents the volumes to the ESXi operating system.

To map volumes using the PowerFlex UI:

1. Select the volumes in the Frontend > Volumes view.

2. From the context-sensitive menu, select Map Volumes.

The Map Volumes window shows a list of the volumes that are to be mapped.

3. In the Select Nodes panel, select one or more SDCs to which you want to map the volumes and click Map Volumes.

The Map Volumes page opens.

Figure 8.                Mapping volumes to servers using the PowerFlex UI

4. Keep the page open until the operation is complete and you can see the result.
5. After you create a volume and map it to the desired SDCs, use the volume to provide storage capacity for the vSphere hypervisor. You can create a VMFS datastore on the hypervisor or expand an existing datastore.

Creating a VMFS datastore

To create a VMFS datastore on a PowerFlex volume:

1. Select the volume in the PowerFlex UI and locate its ID in the properties sheet.

Note: You can also identify the unique ID in vSphere Web Client, which shows each PowerFlex device as EMC Fibre Channel Disk followed by an ID number that has eui as a prefix.

2. In the vSphere Web Client, select the cluster in the left navigation pane, and then select the New Datastore icon on the Datastores tab.

The following figure shows the New Datastore page prior to completion of the create operation:

Figure 9.                  Creating a vSphere datastore on a PowerFlex volume

3. Click Finish.

The datastore that you created is connected to all the vSphere servers in the cluster and available to all VMs.