Create an ONTAP NFS Volume

Goal

This workflow automates the creation of an ONTAP volume in a selected Storage Virtual Machine (SVM), and exports them through an export policy.

· Using a listed export policy (from the specified SVM) allows you to leverage an existing set of export rules.

· Providing a new export policy name allows you to create an export policy and a set of export rules.

o Export rules have settings related to the set of hosts that can access the volume with read-only, read/write, or root permissions and the associated security style for access.

The volume will be provisioned on an aggregate in the cluster depending on space requirements for the volume. This volume will be configured in a space-efficient way (that is, thin provisioning and deduplication will be enabled and configured on the volume).

User input parameters

To execute this workflow, provide the required information in the following fields:

· Volume Details

· FlexGroup Details

· Export Details

Volume Details

1) Cluster* [Mandatory]: The ONTAP storage system where you like the volume to be created.

2) Storage Virtual Machine* [Mandatory]: An SVM on the selected cluster where the volume will be provisioned.

3) Extended Volume Style: The type of volume (FlexVol or FlexGroup) you want to create.

Note:

· For FlexVol, if the volume is ‘thick’ (that is, space guarantee is other than ‘none’), then the FabricPool will be discarded from the selection list in the ‘List Of Aggregate’ field.

· For FlexGroup, ONTAP 9.2 does not support creation of FlexGroup on the FabricPool.

4) Volume Name* [Mandatory]: The name you like to use for the volume.

5) Volume Size (GB)* [Mandatory]: The usable size of the volume in gigabyte (GB). The total volume size is automatically calculated within the workflow to accommodate for the Snapshot space.

6) Volume Mount Path (optional): Mount path by which clients will access the NFS-exported volume. If no input value is provided, the new volume will be mounted in the SVM’s namespace under the root of the namespace as /<volumename>.

FlexGroup Details

You can only use the FlexGroup Details section when you select the extended volume style as FlexGroup.

· List of Aggregate (Read only): Provides you the list of aggregates available to create a FlexGroup depending on the size of the FlexGroup to be created.

· Aggregate List* [Mandatory]: You can use the aggregates to be included in the Aggregate List. The selection can be one or more aggregates, where repetition of aggregate is allowed in the aggregate list.

· Aggregate List Multiplier: Enables you to provide the number of constituent volumes to be created per aggregate for the FlexGroup.

Export Details

1) Export Policy Name* [Mandatory]: If a new name is provided, then an export policy will be created with the export rules provided in the next input selection. The various export rules on different export policies on the SVM is also provided in the drop-down list to aid in selecting the right export policy.

2) Export Rule Specification (optional): An Export Rule Specification field is an input that combines all the export rules for the volume. These rules are added only when an export policy is being created. These rules have to be delimited with a comma ‘,’. The host can be either a host name, an IP address of a client machine, a subnet, or a netgroup name.

Example to specify the export rules: host1~sys~sys~sys,host2~krb~krb~krb. The various security flavors indicate the access mechanism for read, read/write, and root access.

Result

This workflow will result in creating an ONTAP volume on the selected cluster and SVM from those that are available to you in your environment. The new volume will leverage the selected export policy, or create an export policy and export rule specification if a new export policy name is specified. The volume will be exported over NFS and can be accessed by clients as ‘Storage Virtual Machine:/<mount_path>’.

· Example 1: If a volume 'vol_data' is provisioned in the SVM 'vs_data1' and the volume mount path is specified as '/projects/project1/data', it can be accessed by clients as 'vs_data1.domain.com:/projects/project1/data'.

· Example 2: If a volume 'vol_data' is provisioned in the SVM 'vs_data1' and a mount path was not provided during provisioning, the volume mount path will be '/vol_data'. It can be accessed as 'vs_data1.domain.com:/vol_data'.

Error Handling

1) If an error message is displayed about the selected SVM, you must verify the following:

· SVM is in a running state.

· SVM has NFS as an allowed protocol and NFS service is configured on the SVM.

2) If an error message is displayed about inability to select an appropriate aggregate, you must verify that there is at least one aggregate that satisfies capacity request.

3) If the workflow cannot find a resource (SVM, aggregate, capacity, and so on), an appropriate error message will be displayed.

4) During this workflow execution, if the workflow fails to mount the volume, verify that the mount path is valid. All the components before the last slash should already be configured.