# Storage Nodes
One of Command Center’s key roles is to enable cloud infrastructure management,
in which Storage Nodes (SN) are a core component.
Command Center provides comprehensive management and monitoring capabilities
for the cloud’s Storage Nodes, including all aspects of:
- Ongoing maintenance
- Upgrade management
- Hardware addition and retirement
- Health checks
- Performance monitoring
## Understanding The Storage Node Dashboard
The Storage Node dashboard presents information regarding its configuration,
status and resource utilization.
Navigate to the dashboard by clicking **Storage Nodes** in Command Center’s
left menu panel, and then select a specific Storage Node from the cloud
inventory.
The Storage Node dashboard contains multiple panels, each providing
information on a specific aspect of the SN configuration and status:
### Resource Utilization
Provides a current reflection of SN hardware resources and their level of
utilization.
### Drive Utilization
Provides a breakdown of the SN drive inventory by type and role, and displays
the level of utilization per drive group.
### Services
Displays the list of services running on the SN and their current status.
In the event that the Status is not **Normal** for any services on the
Storage Node, the affected services are also indicated by a tooltip on the
cloud’s Storage Nodes grid.
### Node Information
Displays SN hardware, configuration and status information such as: SW version,
uptime and serial number.
### Network
Displays SN networks and configured IP addresses.
### Resource Scheduling
Displays information regarding the availability of the SN’s resources
such as VCPUs and disk drives,
that can be allocated for newly provisioned VPSA/VPSA Object Storage entities
by the cloud’s orchestration framework.
### NIC Information
Displays hardware and configuration information on the SN data path network
card.
### CPU Information
Displays information on the SNs processors.
### License
Displays SN licensing information.
### Storage Adapter Information
Displays information on the SN internal RAID adapter.
## Monitoring Storage Node Performance
Command Center provides a real-time monitoring framework for Storage Node
performance.
Monitoring is available in the selected SN’s **Performance** tab.
Performance statistics displayed per Storage Nodes include :
* Storage Node CPU utilization
* Storage Node memory consumption
* Network bandwidth distribution (read/write)
* Average IO service time per IO type
* IO throughput distribution
The monitoring interval can be changed.
Supported monitoring intervals:
* 1 seconds
* 10 seconds
* 1 minute
* 1 hour
* 1 day
Click the **Auto-Refresh** toggle to activate or disable the automatic
display of updated monitoring data on reaching the monitoring interval.
## Performing Storage Node Operations
### Changing Storage Node Resource Scheduling Configuration
A Storage Node contains compute and storage resources(CPU, RAM and disks)
that are allocated for virtual controllers of VPSA and VPSA Object Storage
entities.
Allocation of SN resources for the creation of virtual controllers, and
allocation of disks from SN to virtual controllers
can be enabled or disabled using Command Center.
To modify a Storage Node resource allocation policy go to the
**Resources Scheduling** panel in the SN dashboard.
- Click on **Enable** or **Disable** for **Drive Scheduling**, to enable or
disable allocation of disks from this SN to virtual controllers.
- Click on **Enable** or **Disable** for **VC Scheduling**, to enable or
disable creation of avirtual controller on this SN.
Changes in the SN scheduling policy are immediately applied.
### Creating Storage Node Zsnap
To trigger manual creation of a Zsnap for a Storage Node:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Create Zsnap**.
4. In the popup dialog, provide a prefix for the Zsnap and click
**Create Zsnap** to confirm creation of the Zsnap.
### Install and import new drives in a Storage Node
Cloud storage capacity expansion is performed by installing drives in the
Storage Node, and then importing the newly installed drives into the SN.
The import operation encapsulates hardware discovery and SN/cloud inventory
update.
To import newly installed physical drives into a Storage Node:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Import Drives**.
4. In the popup dialog, click **Confirm** to confirm the import drives
operation.
A resource scan will be performed and any newly installed disks will be imported.
The output from the import operation will be presented in a new popup window.
### Perform Storage Node drive configuration check
Command Center can trigger a Storage Node drive configuration check, in
which the SN drive configuration is validated against the OS drive
configuration.
To perform a drive configuration check:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Check Configuration**.
4. In the popup dialog, click **Confirm** to confirm the drive configuration check
operation.
The configuration check will be immediately performed and its output displayed
on a new popup dialog.
### Upgrading Storage Node Version
A Storage Node Version upgrade can be performed as part of a complete cloud
upgrade workflow from Command Center’s main dashboard or from
the Storage Node dashboard.
The upgrade from the SN dashboard is useful when the cloud upgrade process
is performed gradually as a multiple milestone process.
To upgrade a Storage Node from the SN dashboard:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Upgrade Version**.
4. In the **Upgrade Storage Node** dialog:
1. From the dropdown listing available versions, select the
**Version** to install.
2. Click **Upgrade** to confirm the Storage Node Version upgrade.
During the SN Version upgrade process, the status is displayed on
Command Center’s main dashboard.
The upgraded Storage Node’s **Services** panel will present all services as
**Offline**.
When the workflow is finished, the Command Center dashboard displays
the **Completed** status for the Storage Node Version upgrade.
### Upgradinging Storage Node Utilities Version
Storage Node utilities can be upgraded in a dedicated process via Command
Center’s SN dashboard.
To upgrade Storage Node utilities from the SN dashboard:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Upgrade Utilities**.
4. In the **Upgrade Storage Node Utilities** dialog:
1. From the dropdown listing available versions, select the
**Version** to install.
2. Click **Upgrade** to confirm the Storage Node Utilities upgrade.
During the SN Utilities upgrade process, the status is displayed on
Command Center’s main dashboard.
When the workflow is finished, the Command Center dashboard displays
the **Completed** status for the Storage Node Utilities upgrade.
### Upgrading Storage Node Disk Drives/RAID Controller Firmware
Command Center can be used to trigger an update of a Storage Node disk drive
firmware or RAID controller firmware.
Disk drive/RAID controller firmware are bundles with a specific SN software
distribution and are updated according to each SW version’s supported levels.
To update Drive/RAID controller firmware for a Storage Node:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Upgrade Drives & Adapter Firmware**.
4. In the **Upgrade Drives & Adapter Firmware** dialog:
1. Select the elements for which you would like to perform the FW
upgrade:
* Disk Drives
* Intel Optane Drives
* RAID controller
2. In the text box, enter the word “**UPGRADE**” and click **Upgrade**
to confirm the Storage Node firmware upgrade.
During the SN firmware upgrade process, the status is displayed on
Command Center’s main dashboard.
When the workflow is finished, the Command Center dashboard displays
the **Completed** status for the Storage Node firmware upgrade.
### Evacuating all Virtual Controllers from a Storage Node
To immediately free all Storage Node compute resources, you can use Command
Center to evacuate all virtual controllers running on it.
Evacuation of virtual controllers is useful for preparation of activities
such as hardware maintenance or refresh.
To evacuate all virtual controllers from a Storage Node:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Evacuate Virtual Controllers**.
4. In the **Evacuate Node Virtual Controllers** dialog:
In the text box, enter the word “**EVACUATE**” and click
**Evacuate VCs** to confirm the Storage Node Virtual Controllers evacuation.
### Evacuating all drives from a Storage Node
In the event of decommisioning a Service Node, its drives should be
evacuated.
The result is the Service Node’s drive data is tranferred from the Service
Node’s drives to new locations on a replacement Storage Node.
To evacuate all drives from a Storage Node:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Evacuate Drives**.
4. In the **Evacuate Node Drives** dialog:
In the text box, enter the word “**EVACUATE**” and click
**Evacuate Drives** to confirm the Storage Node drives evacuation.
### Reboot a Storage Node
To reboot a Storage Node:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Reboot**.
4. In the **Reboot Storage Node** dialog:
1. To override the restrictions, and force the reboot, mark the
**Force Reboot** checkbox.
2. In the text box, enter the word “**REBOOT**” and click
**Reboot** to confirm the Storage Node reboot.
### Shutdown a Storage Node
To shut down a Storage Node:
a Storage Node:
1. Navigate to the Storage Node’s dashboard.
2. On the **Resource Utilization** panel, click **Actions**.
3. From the dropdown, select **Shutdown**.
4. In the **Shutdown Storage Node** dialog:
1. To override the restrictions and force the shutdown, mark the
**Force Shutdown** checkbox.
2. In the text box, enter the word “**SHUTDOWN**” and click
**Shutdown** to confirm the Storage Node shutdown.