Add Cluster to System Manager

In my last post we walked through installing the ONTAP simulator on ESX. If you're following along, you should have a single node running 8.2.1 Cluster Mode. This post we will go through adding our cluster to System Manager so that we can perform some management tasks through the GUI. While I prefer the command line, especially in 7-mode, there are some tasks in Cluster Mode I find System Manager almost indispensable for.

This post assumes the following:
1. You have a running cluster that you can access via SSH to the cluster management LIF.
2. You have installed OnCommand System Manager 3.1 on the system you're managing the storage cluster from.

Step 1. We will need to enable SNMP on the cluster to allow System Manager to discover the cluster. Beginning in Ontap 8.2 SNMP versions 1 and 2c are disabled by default.
You need to SSH to the cluster management LIF (could also use console) and use the command line to accomplish this. Once logged into the cluster we will use the "system snmp community" command to create a new SNMP community named "public" as illustrated below.

miamicl::> system snmp community add -community-name public -type ro
miamicl::> system snmp community show

miamicl

        ro  public

Step 2. Now that we have created the "public" SNMP community in the cluster we can discover and add it to System Manager. Open System Manager and near the top left corner there is an icon labeled "Discover". Click "Discover".

In the "Discover Storage Systems" dialog box, enter your cluster management IP address, and click discover. It will take a few seconds to discover the cluster, but it should show up. Highlight it and click "Add Selected Systems"

Step 3. Let's login and see what we have to play around with. Your System Manager window should now have your cluster showing. Highlight it and click "Login"

Login as admin and use the admin password you used during cluster setup, and click "Sign In" And you should see something like this:

Now as you can see there are no aggregates, volumes, vservers (SVMs) or any way for the cluster to serve any data. In the coming posts we will work on that and begin to explore just what we can do with some of the features of Data ONTAP.