Understanding storage systems

What storage systems are

NetApp storage systems (filers, FAS appliances, and NearStore systems) are all storage systems--also sometimes called filers or storage appliances--that serve and protect data using protocols for storage area network (SAN), Internet small computer system interface (iSCSI), and network attached storage (NAS) networks. For information about storage system product families, see http://www.netapp.com/products/.

In iSCSI and FCP networks, storage systems are targets that have storage target devices, which are referred to as LUNs (logical units). Using the Data ONTAP® operating system, you configure the storage by creating LUNs. The LUNs are accessed by hosts, which are initiators in the storage network.

What Data ONTAP is

Data ONTAP is the operating system for the storage system. It provides a complete set of storage management tools through its command-line interface and through the FilerView® interface and DataFabric® Manager interface.

Data ONTAP supports a multiprotocol environment. You can configure a storage system as a target device in an iSCSI network using the SCSI protocol over TCP/IP (using the iSCSI service) and in a SAN network using the SCSI protocol over FCP (using the FCP service) to communicate with one or more hosts. You can also configure a storage system as a storage device in a NAS network using Network File System (NFS), CIFS, HTTP, and File Transfer Protocol (FTP). You can configure a single storage system to serve data over all these protocols.

Ways to administer a storage system

You can administer a storage system by using the following methods:

Command line
FilerView
DataFabric Manager. You must purchase the DataFabric Manager license to use this product.

Command-line administration

You can issue Data ONTAP commands at the storage system's console, or you can open a Telnet or Remote Shell (rsh) session from a host. An Ethernet network interface card (NIC) is preinstalled in the storage system.

When using the command line, you can get command-line syntax help from the command line by entering the name of the command followed by help or ?. You can also access the online manual (man) pages by entering man command_name. For example, if you want to read the man page about the lun command, you would enter the following command: man lun.

For more information about storage system administration, see the Data ONTAP Storage Management Guide.

FilerView administration

As an alternative to entering commands at the command line or using scripts or configuration files, you can use FilerView to perform many common tasks. FilerView is the graphical management interface for managing a storage system from a Web browser or for viewing information about the storage system, its storage units (such as volumes), LUNs, and adapters, and statistics about the storage units, iSCSI, and network traffic. FilerView is easy to use, and it includes Help that explains Data ONTAP features and how to use them.

Launching FilerView

To launch FilerView, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Open a browser on your host.
2	Enter the name of the storage system, followed by /na_admin/ as the location for the URL. Example If you have a storage system named toaster, enter the following URL in the browser: http://toaster/na_admin. Result The Network Appliance^TM online administrative window is displayed.
3	Click FilerView. Result If the storage system is password protected, you are prompted for a user name and password. Otherwise, FilerView is launched, and a screen appears with a list of topics in the left panel and the system status in the main panel.
4	Click any of the topics in the left panel to expand navigational links.