Accusys ExaRAID GUI - Manual (Page 36)

Introduction
1-11
• RAIDGuard Central (chapter 5)
RAIDGuard Central is a software suite that helps you to manage multiple
RAID systems installed in multiple networks. It locates these systems by
broadcasting and will be constantly monitoring them. It receives events
from the systems, and stores all the events to single database. It also
provides event notification by MSN messages.
• Microsoft VDS (chapter 5)
VDS is a standard of RAID management interface for Windows systems.
The RAID system can be accessed by VDS-compliant software after you
install the corresponding VDS provider to your systems. This helps you to
manage RAID systems from different vendors using single software. But
note because VDS is limited to general functions, you need to use Web
GUI or CLI for some advanced functions of this RAID system.
1.6 Initially Configuring the RAID System
Properly configuring your RAID systems helps you to get the most out of
your investments on the storage hardware and guarantee planned
service level agreements. It also reduces your maintenance efforts and
avoids potential problems that might cause data loss or discontinued
operations. It is especially true for a powerful and flexible RAID system like
the one you have now. This section provides some basic steps and
guidelines for your reference. The initial configuration has the following
tasks:
1. Understanding your users’ needs and environments
2. Configuring the hardware settings and doing health check
3. Organizing and presenting the storage resources
4. Installing and launching bundled software (optionally)
5. Getting ready for future maintenance tasks
• Understanding your users’ needs and environments
The first step for procuring or deploying any equipment is to know the
users’ needs and environments, assuming you’ve already known much
about your RAID systems. Users’ needs include the capacity,
performance, reliability, and sharing. The environment information
includes the applications, operating systems (standalone or clustered),
host systems, host adapters, switches, topologies (direct-attached or
networked storage), disk drives (enterprise-class, near-line, or desktop)
and management networks. Extra cares are needed if you are installing
the RAID systems to an existed infrastructure under operations. Check
your RAID system supplier to ensure good interoperability between the
RAID system and the components in your environments. You will also
need to know the potential changes in the future, like capacity growth
rate or adding host systems, such that you can have plans for data
migration and reconfigurations. The quality of your configurations will