Dell PowerStore Operate flashcards
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32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- PowerStore appliance
- A 2U base enclosure with two active-active nodes and NVMe drives, optionally expanded with 2U NVMe expansion enclosures; multiple appliances can form a scale-out cluster.
- Active-active nodes
- Both nodes in a PowerStore appliance serve I/O simultaneously and share the same drives; if one node fails, its resources fail over to the peer without host reconfiguration.
- PowerStore cluster
- A scale-out grouping of up to four PowerStore appliances managed as one system with a single management IP; volumes and file systems are presented cluster-wide.
- Unified vs block-only
- Unified PowerStore appliances serve both block (FC/iSCSI/NVMe/TCP) and file (SMB/NFS) protocols; block-only appliances serve block protocols only and do not host NAS servers.
- PowerStore Manager
- The HTML5 management GUI for PowerStore, used for initial configuration, provisioning, monitoring, and upgrades; equivalent operations are available via pstcli and the REST API.
- Initial Configuration Wizard
- The setup workflow in PowerStore Manager that configures management IP, DNS, NTP, and admin credentials after the appliance is discovered by the Discovery Tool.
- Management vs data network
- PowerStore requires a management network for GUI/API access and a separate data network for host I/O and replication; separating them improves security and performance.
- NTP requirement
- Synchronized time is mandatory for replication, certificate validation, and event timestamps; configure reliable NTP sources during initial setup.
- Multipath for HA
- Hosts must use MPIO for iSCSI or native NVMe multipath for NVMe/TCP, logging in to target portals on both nodes of each appliance to survive path failures.
- Thin provisioning
- PowerStore volumes are thin by default: logical size is provisioned immediately while physical space is consumed only as data is written, so subscription must be monitored.
- Protection policy
- A reusable object combining snapshot rules (frequency and retention) and replication rules; a volume or volume group is assigned one protection policy.
- Snapshot vs clone
- A snapshot is a point-in-time copy that can be refreshed or restored; a clone is an independent writable copy. Both are space-efficient and consume space only for changed blocks.
- Volume group
- A collection of related volumes managed together so snapshots and replication produce a crash-consistent set across multiple LUNs, such as database data and log volumes.
- Host group mapping
- Access control that maps volumes to one or more hosts or a host group via initiators; LUN IDs are assigned per host or host group.
- FC zoning
- Fibre Channel zoning pairs host HBA WWPNs with PowerStore node target ports; single-initiator, single-target zones isolate traffic and simplify troubleshooting.
- iSCSI target portals
- Hosts log in to iSCSI portals on both nodes of each appliance and use MPIO with ALUA-aware settings so paths fail over automatically.
- NVMe/TCP ANA
- NVMe/TCP uses Asymmetric Namespace Access states to tell hosts which paths are optimized; hosts use native NVMe multipath for failover.
- NAS server
- A file-service object on a Unified appliance with its own IP address and DNS settings; file systems are created under it and exported via NFS or SMB.
- NFS export policy
- A rule set controlling which hosts may mount an NFS export and with what access; NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 are supported depending on PowerStoreOS release.
- Asynchronous replication
- PowerStore native replication copies writes to a remote system on a schedule defined by the RPO; it requires a remote system connection and sufficient destination capacity.
- Replication failover
- Promoting a destination volume to serve I/O after a source failure; after failback, replication is re-established and the RPO is re-evaluated.
- Snapshot retention
- The count or age limit that determines how long snapshots are kept; retention controls space consumption as source data changes and prevents pool exhaustion.
- Volume group snapshot
- A crash-consistent point-in-time copy of all volumes in a volume group, used for applications whose data spans multiple LUNs.
- Remote system connection
- The configured link between source and destination PowerStore systems (FC or IP) required for replication, with compatible PowerStoreOS versions on both sides.
- Performance metrics
- PowerStore reports IOPS, bandwidth, latency, and queue depth per volume, host, appliance, and node; compare nodes to detect imbalance and hotspots.
- Alert forwarding
- PowerStore alerts can be sent via SNMP traps, SMTP email, and syslog; SupportAssist can also forward alerts and logs to Dell support automatically.
- Capacity subscription
- The ratio of logically provisioned capacity to physical capacity; monitor it with pool free space to avoid thin-provisioning over-subscription.
- Non-disruptive upgrade
- A PowerStoreOS upgrade performed through PowerStore Manager that keeps I/O available when the path is supported; it requires healthy nodes and sufficient free space.
- Configuration backup
- A backup of PowerStore management configuration to an external server; it is used to restore management settings, not to recover user data.
- Support log collection
- Collecting alerts, performance data, and configuration through PowerStore Manager or the service CLI for analysis by Dell support during troubleshooting.
- RBAC roles
- PowerStore role-based access control assigns built-in roles such as Administrator and Storage Administrator to users; apply least privilege and map directory groups to roles.
- Encryption at rest
- Self-encrypting drives combined with a KMIP key manager protect data at rest; back up keys before enabling encryption to avoid permanent data loss.