Theory of Operation: NetApp Unified Driver for E-Series with iSCSI¶

E-Series drivers are being deprecated and will be removed after the S release

As described in the section called “Theory of Operation and Deployment Choices”, Cinder with NetApp E-Series requires the use of the NetApp SANtricity Web Services Proxy server deployed as an intermediary between Cinder and the E-Series storage system. A common deployment topology with Cinder, Nova, and an E-Series controller with the SANtricity Web Services Proxy can be seen below in Figure 4.7, “Cinder & E-Series Deployment Topology”.

Figure 4.7. Cinder & E-Series Deployment Topology

Tip

Installation instructions for the NetApp SANtricity Web Services Proxy server are available for download at https://library.netapp.com/ecm/ecm_download_file/ECMLP2428355, and the User Guide is available for download at https://library.netapp.com/ecm/ecm_download_file/ECMLP2428357.

Tip

The default http port for SANtricity Web Services Proxy is 8080. This port can be changed if necessary to avoid conflicts with another service, such as Swift. See Web Services Proxy documentation for instructions.

Dynamic disk pools (as described in the section called “Description of E-Series and EF-Series Systems”) and volume groups are the supported disk collection strategies when utilizing the Cinder E-Series driver. For more information on the capabilities of the E-Series storage systems, visit http://support.netapp.com.

Tip

While formally introduced in the Icehouse release of OpenStack, NetApp has backported the E-Series driver to the Grizzly and Havana releases of OpenStack, accessible at https://github.com/NetApp/cinder. Be sure to choose the branch from this repository that matches the release version of OpenStack you are deploying with.

Important

The use of multipath and DM-MP are required when using the OpenStack Block Storage driver for E-Series. Ensure that all unconfigured iSCSI host ports on the E-Series array are disabled for both IPv4 and IPv6 in order for multipath to function properly.

Important

Cinder volumes provisioned through the E-Series driver will not be mapped to LUN 0, as LUN 0 is reserved for special use with E-Series arrays.

Important

In order for OpenStack Block Storage and OpenStack Compute to take advantage of multiple paths, the following configuration options must be correctly configured:

The use_multipath_for_image_xfer should be set to True in cinder.conf within the driver stanza.
The iscsi_use_multipath should be set to True in nova.conf within the [libvirt] stanza.