Introduction to storage arrays – Dell PowerVault MD3220i User Manual

Page 8

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8

Introduction

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• Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux

Enterprise Server.

NOTE:

Operating system installations can be either native or hypervisor guest

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NOTE:

Supported hypervisors include Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer,

and VMware. For information about the supported versions, see the Support
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at support.dell.com.

• Administrator or equivalent permissions

Introduction to Storage Arrays

A storage array includes various hardware components, such as physical disks,

RAID controller modules, fans, and power supplies, gathered into enclosures.

An enclosure containing physical disks accessed through RAID controller

modules is called a storage array.
One or more host servers attached to the storage array can access the data on

the storage array. You can also establish multiple physical paths between the

host(s) and the storage array so that loss of any single path (for example,

through failure of a host server port) does not result in loss of access to data

on the storage array.
The storage array is managed by MDSM running on a:

• Host server—On a host server, MDSM and the storage array communicate

management requests and event information using iSCSI ports.

• Management station—On a management station, MDSM communicates

with the storage array either through an Ethernet connection to the

storage array management port or though an Ethernet connection to a

host server. The Ethernet connection passes management information

between the management station and the storage array using iSCSI ports.

Using MDSM, you can configure the physical disks in the storage array into

logical components called disk groups and then divide the disk groups into

virtual disks. Disk groups are created in the unconfigured capacity of a storage

array. Virtual disks are created in the free capacity of a disk group.

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