Creating Volumes, Initiator Groups and Mapping them in XtremIO

The past 2 weeks I have been able to get my hands on XtremIO. Overall I am very impressed to say the least. I am going to do a series of posts to show you guys how a Storage Array with so much power can be so simple. I am going to start with how To Create LUN’s, Initiator Groups and then Map them together. Enjoy!

Step 1

Login to XtremIO and go to the Configuration Tab. Your Volumes will be on the left and your Initiator Groups show up on the right

Step 2

On the Volumes tab select Add

Step 3

Several settings here so I will go over the not so obvious ones.

Size. When you put in the size option you have a few choices. 1m will give you 1 MB, 1g will give you 1GB and 1t will give you 1TB.

Type. You have the option of selecting the LB size and offset. Most of the time you will select Normal (512LBs) because, well Windows can be a little messy

Small IO Alerts. You can be alerted if the IO size is less the 4kb

Unaligned IO Alerts. You can be alerted when IOs are out of alignment

VAAI TP Alerts. Alert can be triggered in VMware when the storage array has met its Storage Capacity. I recommend setting this to Enabled.

Step 4

You have the option to add multiple Volumes. Let’s be realistic, who adds just 1 Volume?

Step 5

Options are pictured below. The Start Index is the number it will start with that will be appended to the end of the volume name

Step 6

Create Your Volumes

Step 7

The volumes you created now show up under the Volumes Tab

Step 8

No that you Volume’s are created lets add some Initiator Groups. On the Initiator Groups Tab select Add

Step 9

Name Your Initiator Group and Add each Initiator. I like to setup 1 host per Initiator Group. Name each Initiator and select the correct port address

Step 10

Finish!

Step 11

Your Initiator Groups Tab now shows your new group

Step 12

Now it’s time to map your Volumes to your Initiator Groups. You can change the Volume ID and it will mirror that number on the Initiator Group. Hit Apply.