VMTurbo

EMC VNX Support: EMC SMI-S Provider Installation and Setup

To remotely access and manage EMC VNX block-level storage (Clariion systems only), EMC recommends
connecting to the environment through the EMC SMI-S provider. Operations Manager uses the SMI-S
provider as a mediation point to discover and collect data from block-level disk arrays/pools and the
controllers/storage processors in the VNX storage environment.
This document describes how to set up the EMC SMI-S provider to work with the Array Provider only. These
instructions are for installation and setup on a Windows Operating System, where our example is 64-bit
2012 with 4 Gb RAM, 2 vCPUs, and 10 Gb Disk Space on the hosts C: drive.
Note: If you are running a Vblock environment or have UCS Converged Fabric, you may have a Cisco SMI-S
provider set up which only communicates with the UCS environment. The EMC version is required for
storage. Since providers use the same TCP port, is it best to install the EMC provider on its own system.

Prerequisites
This document assumes you will host the provider on a machine running the supported version of an
Operating System of Windows or Linux. Please refer to the SMI-S Provider v4.6 Release Notes,
documentation, Table 7, for supported platforms and details of installation and configurations:
https://developer-content.emc.com/developer/devcenters/storage/snia/smi-
s/downloads/SMI_Provider_RN.pdf . In our example we are using Windows OS 64-bit 2012 with 4 Gb RAM,
2 vCPUs, and 10 Gb Disk Space on the hosts C: drive, and we will install the SMI-S Provider from EMC on
this virtual machine. TIP: Save the host machines address Operations Manager uses this address to
communicate with the SMI-S provider.
Note: You must install the EMC SMI-S provider on a machine that is not hosting other VNX processes or
other SMI-S providers.
Before you begin, download the SMI-S provider. Navigate to the EMC Powerlink support site and log in
(create an account if necessary). When youve logged in, Choose Downloads from the Support menu. To
display the available SMI-S provider downloads, search for SMI-S Provider for the operating system you
will be using.
VMTurbo has tested Operations Manager with version 4.6.1 of the provider, but 4.6.2 should also work. For
these instructions, download the SMI-S Provider 4.6.1 for SMI-S for Windows x64.

Installing the SMI-S Provider

To install the provider, run the installer on the hosting machine as an administrator.
Use the installers default options. If the installer requires you to install other items, be sure to install them
as needed. The EMC installer will allow you to complete the installation of prerequisites:



Choose the location to install the provider:

Be sure to only install an Array Provider:

When you have set the parameters, begin the installation:


The installation will take a few minutes to complete.

Adding Disk Arrays/Pools to the SMI-S Provider
After you have installed the provider, you must add the disk arrays/pools that you want the provider to
manage by providing the pools Storage Processors (both A and B). This is necessary for Operations
Manager to discover these disk arrays/pools through the provider.
Run TestSmiProvider.exe and select the default options:

Note: In this example we accepted the default settings for the SMI-S providers logon credentials
(admin/#1Password). The credentials you set here are the credentials you must give to Operations
Manager when you specify this SMI-S provider as a target.

Use the addsys command to add the disk arrays/pools to the provider:

Specify the IP addresses of the Clariion Block-Level Storage Processors (both A and B):

Provide credentials to the added Storage Processors, then wait until the process returns Output.
Output = 0 means the addsys command succeeded:


Adding the EMC SMI-S Provider as a VMTurbo Operations Manager Target
Now that you have the EMC SMI-S provider installed and configured, you can use it as a VMTurbo
Operations Manager target.
Note: The protocols and ports used are UDP port=427 and TCP port=5988-5989, and these ports need to be
allowed through a firewall if one is running on the OS of the SMI-S Provider.
In Operations Manager, navigate to the Admin view, and choose Target Configuration from the fly-out
menu to add a new target.
In the Target Configuration dialog box, add the EMC SMI-S provider. Give the IP address of the machine that
hosts the provider, and give valid logon credentials for the SMI-S Provider (the SMI-S Provider admin user):

After you add the SMI-S provider as a target, click Rediscover.

When discovery completes, the associated storage entities should be visible in the Inventory view. These
entities should include Storage Processors (Storage Controllers), Storage Pools and Raid Groups (Disk
Arrays), and LUNS (Storage, data stores) associated to the virtual workload utilizing it.

You may now go to the VMTurbo User Interface to being managing and maintaining your virtualized
environment, that includes EMC VNX storage, in the Desired State. The following screenshot shows the
rendering of a VNX block-level storage system of 2 Storage Pools with 5 LUNS in the VMTurbo Inventory
View, and an action on one of the LUNS from one Pool to another, which will result in improved Workload
Distribution of the VMs accessing these disk arrays.