Create a Clustered Data ONTAP NFS Volume

 

Goal

This workflow automates the creation of a new Clustered Data ONTAP volume in a selected Storage Virtual Machine and will export them via an export policy.

·         Using a listed Export Policy (from the specified Storage Virtual Machine) will allow you to leverage an existing set of export rules.

·         Providing a new Export Policy name will allow you to create a new Export Policy and 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 based on space requirements for the volume. The volume will be configured in a space efficient way (i.e thin provisioning and deduplication will be enabled and configured on the volume)

 

Volume Input parameters:

 

 

1)       Cluster* (required): The Clustered Data ONTAP storage system where you would like the volume created.

2)       Storage Virtual Machine* (required): A Storage Virtual Machine on the selected cluster where the volume will be provisioned.

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

4)       The 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 (required): You can use the aggregates to be included in the Aggregate List. Now 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.

Note: ONTAP 9.4 and earlier does not support the creation of FlexGroup on the FabricPool.

5)       Volume Name* (required): The name you would like to use for the volume.

6)       Volume Size (GB)* (required): The usable size of the volume in GB. The total volume size is automatically calculated within the workflow to accommodate for snapshot space.

7)       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 Storage Virtual Machine’s namespace under the root of the namespace as /<volumename>.

8)       Encrypt Volume (optional): Supports the Volume Granular Encryption functionality. It is unchecked by default. This functionality is only supported on FlexVol volumes. Selecting the Encrypt Volume checkbox will encrypt the volume.

 

 Export Input parameters:

 

1)       Export Policy to select (required):  If a new name is provided, then a new Export Policy will be created with the Export rules provided in the next input selection. The various export rules on the different export policies on the Storage Virtual Machine is also provided in the drop down to aid in selecting the right export policy.

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

Example to specify 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

 

The workflow will result in creating a Clustered Data ONTAP volume on the selected Cluster and Storage Virtual Machine from those that are available to you in your environment.  The new volume will leverage the selected Export Policy or create a new Export Policy and Export Rule Specification if a new Export Policy name is specified. The volume will be exported over NFS can be accessed by clients using Storage Virtual Machine: /<mount_path>.

Example1: If a volume vol_data is provisioned in the Storage Virtual Machine 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

Example2: If a volume vol_data is provisioned in the Storage Virtual Machine 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 Storage Virtual Machine, ensure the following:

·         Storage Virtual Machine should be in running state.

·         Storage Virtual Machine should have NFS as an allowed protocol and NFS service should be configured on the Storage Virtual Machine.

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

3)        If the workflow cannot find a resource (Storage Virtual Machine, aggregate, capacity etc.) an appropriate error message will be displayed.

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