Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
152 lines (94 loc) · 11 KB

provisioning-block_storage.md

File metadata and controls

152 lines (94 loc) · 11 KB
copyright lastupdated
years
2014, 2017
2017-08-31

{:new_window: target="_blank"} {:shortdesc: .shortdesc}

Provisioning and Managing Block Storage

Provisioning Block Storage

How to order Endurance for Block Storage

  1. From the customer portal, click Storage > Block Storage OR from Bluemix Catalog click Infrastructure > Storage > Block Storage.
  2. In the top right corner, click on Order Block Storage link.
  3. Select Endurance from the Select Storage Type drop-down list.
  4. Click the drop-down list and select your deployment Location (data center).
    • If you selected a data center with improved capabilities (denoted with an * in the drop-down), you will have the option to choose between Monthly or Hourly Billing.
      1. With hourly billing, the calculation of the number of hours the block LUN existed on the account is performed at the time the LUN is deleted or at the end of the billing cycle, which ever comes first. Hourly billing is a good choice for storage that is used for a few days or less than a full month. Hourly billing is only available for storage provisioned in these select data centers.
      2. With monthly billing, the calculation for the price is pro-rated from the date of creation to the end of the billing cycle and billed immediately. There is no refund If a block LUN is deleted before the end of the billing cycle. Monthly billing is a good choice for storage used in production workloads that use data that needs to be stored and accessed for long periods of time (month or longer). NOTE: Monthly billing type is used by default for storage provisioned in data centers that are not updated with improved capabilities.
  5. Select the radio button next to the IOPS tier needed for your application(s).
    • 0.25 IOPS per GB is designed for workloads with low I/O intensity. These workloads are typically characterized by having a large percentage of data inactive at a given time. Example applications include storing mailboxes or departmental level file shares.
    • 2 IOPS per GB is designed for most general purpose usage. Example applications include hosting small databases backing web applications or virtual machine disk images for a hypervisor.
    • 4 IOPS per GB is designed for higher-intensity workloads. These workloads are typically characterized by having a high percentage of data active at a given time. Example applications include transactional and other performance-sensitive databases.
    • 10 IOPS per GB is designed for the most demanding workloads such as those created by NoSQL Databases, and data processing for Analytics. This tier is available in select datacenters for storage provisioned up to 4TB in size.
  6. Click the Select Storage Size drop-down list and select your storage size.
  7. Click the Specify Snapshot Space Size drop-down list and select the snapshot size (in addition to your usable space).
  8. Choose your OS Type from the drop-down list.
  9. Click the drop-down list and select your deployment Location (data center).
  10. Click Continue. You’re shown the monthly and prorated charges with a final chance to review order details.
  11. Click the I have read the Master Service Agreement checkbox and click the Place Order button.
  12. Your new storage allocation should be available in a few minutes.

How to order Performance for Block Storage

  1. From the customer portal, click Storage, Block Storage OR from Bluemix Catalog click Infrastructure->Storage->File Storage.
  2. Click on Order Block Storage in the top right corner of the screen.
  3. Select Performance from the Select Storage Type drop-down list.
  4. Click the Location drop-down list and select your data center.
    • If you selected a data center with improved capabilities (denoted with an * in the drop-down), you will have the option to choose between Monthly or Hourly Billing.
      1. With hourly billing, the calculation of the number of hours the block LUN existed on the account is performed at the time the LUN is deleted or at the end of the billing cycle, which ever comes first. Hourly billing is a good choice for storage that is used for a few days or less than a full month. Hourly billing is only available for storage provisioned in these select data centers.
      2. With monthly billing, the calculation for the price is pro-rated from the date of creation to the end of the billing cycle and billed immediately. There is no refund If a block LUN is deleted before the end of the billing cycle. Monthly billing is a good choice for storage used in production workloads that use data that needs to be stored and accessed for long periods of time (month or longer). NOTE: Monthly billing type is used by default for storage provisioned in data centers that are not updated with improved capabilities.
  5. Select the radio button next to the appropriate Storage Size.
  6. Enter the IOPS in the Specify IOPS field.
  7. Click Continue. You are shown the monthly and prorated charges with a final chance to review order details. Click Previous if you want to change your order.
  8. Click the I have read the Master Service Agreement checkbox and click the Place Order Button.
  9. Your new storage allocation should be available in a few minutes.

Managing Block Storage

Authorize hosts to access to Block Storage

“Authorized” hosts are hosts that have been given access rights to a particular LUN. Without host authorization you won’t be able to access or use the storage from your system. Authorizing a host to access your LUN generates the Username, Password, and iSCSI qualified name (IQN), which is needed to mount the multipath I/O (MPIO) iSCSI connection.

Note: You can only authorize and connect hosts that reside in the same datacenter as your storage. If you have multiple accounts, you cannot authorize a host from one account to access your storage on another.

  1. Click Storage -> Block Storage, and click on your LUN Name.
  2. Scroll to the Authorized Hosts section of the page.
  3. Click the Authorize Host link on the right side of the page. Select the hosts that can access that particular LUN.

View the list of hosts authorized to a Block Storage LUN

Use the following steps to view the list of hosts authorized to a LUN.

  1. Click Storage -> Block Storage, and click on your LUN Name.
  2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the Authorized Hosts section.

Here you will see the list of hosts which are currently authorized to access the LUN and, specifically for iSCSI, the authentication information needed to make a connection –Username, Password, and IQN Host. The Target address is at the top of the Storage Detail page. For NFS it’s described as a DNS name and for iSCSI the IP address of the Discover Target Portal.

View the Block Storage to which a host is authorized

You can view the LUNs to which a host has access to, including information needed to make a connection – LUN Name, Storage Type, Target Address, capacity and location:

  1. Click Devices -> Device List from the customer portal and click the appropriate device.
  2. Select the Storage tab.

You will then be presented with a list of storage LUNs that this particular host has access to, all grouped by storage type (block, file, other). From the respective Action menus you can authorize additional storage or remove access.

Mount and Unmount Block Storage

Refer to the following articles with details for mounting and unmounting Block storage from a host.

Revoke a host's access to Block Storage

If you want to stop the access from a host to a particular storage LUN you can revoke the access. Upon revoking access, the host connection will be dropped from the LUN and neither operating system nor applications will be able to communicate with the LUN.

Note: To avoid host side issues, unmount the storage LUN from your operating system before revoking access to avoid missing drives or data corruption.

You can revoke access from either Storage from the Device List or the Storage views.

Revoke access from the Device List:

  1. Click Devices, Device List from the customer portal and double-click the appropriate device.
  2. Select the Storage tab.
  3. You will then be presented with a list of storage LUNs that this particular host has access to, all grouped by storage type (block, file, other). Select the respective Action menu next to the LUN that you want to revoke access from and click Revoke Access.
  4. You will be asked if you want to revoke the access for a LUN because the action cannot be undone. Click Yes to revoke LUN access or No to cancel the action.

Note: If you want to disconnect multiple LUNs from a specific host, you will need to repeat the Revoke Access action for each LUN.

Revoke access from the Storage View:

  1. Click Storage, Block Storage, and select the LUN from which you want to revoke access.
  2. Scroll down to the** Authorized Hosts** section of the page.
  3. Click the Actions drop-down arrow next to the host whose access is to be revoked, and select Revoke Access.
  4. You will be asked if you want to revoke the access for a LUN because the action cannot be undone. Click Yes to revoke LUN access or No to cancel the action.

Note: If you want to disconnect multiple hosts from a specific LUN, you will need to repeat the Revoke Access action for each host.

Cancel a storage LUN

If you no longer need a specific LUN, you can cancel it. In order to cancel a storage LUN, it's first necessary to revoke access from any hosts.

  1. Click Storage, Block Storage.
  2. Click the Actions drop-down arrow for the LUN to be cancelled and select Cancel Block Storage.
  3. You will be asked to confirm if want to cancel the LUN immediately or on the anniversary date of when the LUN was provisioned. Click Continue or Close. Note: If you select the option to cancel the LUN on its anniversary date, you can void the cancellation request prior to its anniversary date.
  4. Click the Acknowledgment checkbox and click Confirm.

See a provisioned Block Storage LUN details

You can view a summary the key information for the selected storage LUN including additional snapshot and replication capabilities that have been added to the storage.

  1. Click Storage, Block Storage.
  2. Click the appropriate LUN Name from the list.

Identify my Block Storage on my invoice

All LUNs will appear on your invoice as a line item; Endurance will appear as “Endurance Storage Service” and Performance will appear as "Performance Storage Service" The rate will vary based on your storage level. You can then expand on Endurance or Performance to see that it is Block Storage.