The H4000 Essential User Interface

The H-Series UI (user interface) is used to monitor system status and to change configuration settings after initial configuration. This section describes the interface and how to use it.

 

The web-based H-Series UI.
  1. Open a browser and access the H-Series UI log in page using the management IP address for the controller you want to log in to (you can log in to either controller's UI):

  1. Enter admin for the user, and the password for the admin user.

    2. Note: The admin user is currently the only user account in the H-Series UI.

  2. Click LOGIN.

There are a few options provided in the H-Series UI top navigation:

Item Description
1

"Home" or main page link (default H-Series UI view; opens the CLUSTER page) See CLUSTER page .
2 Collapse/Expand Left Side Navigation panel
3 Opens the CLUSTER page; the default H-Series UI view. See CLUSTER page .
4 Opens the system HEALTH page. See HEALTH page.
5 Opens the system PERFORMANCE page. See PERFORMANCE page.
6 Opens the system CONFIGURATION page. See CONFIGURATION menu options.
7 Opens the system TASKS page. See TASKS page.
8 Opens the system ALERTS page. See ALERTS page.
9 Opens the system LOGS page. See LOGS page.
10

Displays the currently logged-in user, and opens a drop-down menu. Options:

  • Change password for the admin user account
  • Log out of the H-Series UI for the controller node specified by the URL used for this interface.
11

Opens the Profile/Logout drop-down menu. Options:

  • Change password for the admin user account
  • Log out of the H-Series UI for the controller node specified by the URL used for this interface.
12

Opens the Settings drop-down menu. Options:

  • About - provides important system information including installed system software versions, the system's serial number, and many other pieces of information about the system, and specific details for controller nodes A and B.
  • Help - opens the Quantum Documentation Portal page at:

    • https://www.quantum.com/documentation

  • Support - opens the Quantum Global Support Services web site
  • Tool Tips - which allows you to toggle user interface tips on or off
  • Theme - allows you to toggle the theme from dark (right) or light (left)

"Home" or main page link (default H-Series UI view; opens the CLUSTER page) See CLUSTER page .

Cluster page (Controller B – top)

Item Description
1 Current activity for Block Storage running on Controller B.
2 Current activity for the StorNext VM running on Controller B.
3

Icon that indicates the HA state for the StorNext VM running on Controller B. In the example screenshot above, Controller B is operating as "secondary" (running state icon does not have a plus sign ["+"] next to it). See About StorNext VM state icons.
4 If this UI was running on Controller B, there would be an icon here to opens the UI login page for Controller A.
5 This button opens Cloud-Based Analytics for this system, when CBA is configured.
6 This button displays additional system hardware information for Controller B.
7 This button displays additional information about this controller's block storage VM (QCSP).
8 This button opens Cloud-Based Analytics for this system, when CBA is configured.
9 This button displays information about the StorNext "node 2" VM running on Controller B.
10 This button displays information about the status of network ports, the StorNext release running on the system, status of high-availabilty (HA)/failover, StorNext services, etc. for the StorNext "node 2" VM running on Controller B.
11 This button allows you to shut down the StorNext VM (when running), and to start the StorNext VM (when not running).

Cluster page (Controller A – bottom)

Item Description
1 Current activity for Block Storage running on Controller A.
2 Current activity for the StorNext VM running on Controller A.
3 Current activity for the CatDV VM running on Controller A.
4

Icon that indicates the HA state for the StorNext VM running on Controller A. In the example screenshot above, the running state icon has a plus sign ["+"] next to it, which indicates it IS operating as "primary". See About StorNext VM state icons.
5 Since there is an icon in this location, it indicates the UI is running on Controller A. This icon opens the UI login page for Controller B.
6 This button opens Cloud-Based Analytics for this system, when CBA is configured.
7 This button displays additional system hardware information for Controller A.
8 This button displays additional information about this controller's block storage VM (QCSP).
9 This button opens Cloud-Based Analytics for this system, when CBA is configured.
10 This button displays information about the StorNext "node 1" VM running on Controller A.
11 This button displays information about the status of network ports, the StorNext release running on the system, status of high-availabilty (HA)/failover, StorNext services, etc. for the StorNext "node 1" VM running on Controller A.
12 This button allows you to shut down the StorNext VM (when running), and to start the StorNext VM (when not running).
13 This icon opens the CatDV login page.
14 This button displays information about the CatDV VM running on Controller A.
15 This button displays information about the CatDV software running on Controller A.
16 This button allows you to shut down the CatDV VM (when running), and to start the CatDV VM (when not running).

Determine the operating state of both StorNext VMsWith H-Series UI 1.6.0 or later, you can now quickly determine if the StorNext VM is operating as primary and secondary:If server icons are orange or red, or if both are green but they are both "secondary", wait until they are both green and on has become "primary" before performing additional configuration tasks.Make sure both StorNext VMs are green, in the "Running" condition, and one is "primary" and one is "secondary".StorNext VM "primary state" icon:Notice that StorNext is "Running" (green), and if you move your mouse cursor and hover over the icon with the plus "+" sign, you will see a popup indicating that this StorNext VM is "primary".StorNext VM "secondary state" icon:Notice that StorNext is "Running" (green), and if you move your mouse cursor and hover over the icon without a plus "+" sign, you will see a popup indicating that this StorNext VM is "secondary".The StorNext VM operating as primary has a running state icon with a plus sign ("+"). The StorNext VM operating as secondary has a running state icon without a plus ("+") sign.
If both StorNext VM icons do not have a plus sign ["+"] next to them, that indicates the VMs are in process of booting, where neither is yet operating as primary. It could also occur during an HA failover, and neither VM is currently operating as primary. In either case, you will need to wait until at least one of the StorNext VMs is operating as primary for that controller to be fully functional.

This page provides a few different panels which display various aspects of the system's overall health, including aggregate numbers for the two controller nodes, combined into a table view of hardware components, such as fans, power supplies, storage drives, swraid devices, etc.

This page provides a few different panels which display various aspects of the system's overall health, including aggregate numbers for the two controller nodes, combined into a table view of hardware components, such as fans, power supplies, storage drives, swraid devices, etc.

See PERFORMANCE in the Monitor the System section of the System Operations page.

Item Description
1

Click this to access the default/home view for the H4000 Essential (the "Cluster" view)
2

Click this to access the management network configuration settings, used to access the user interface for both controller nodes

For instructions on how to configure the management network, see Change management network settings.
3

Click this to access the network port and time & date configuration settings used by the StorNext VM (virtual machine) associated with this controller node. This can be configured to use NTP servers, or manual date/time settings. See Configure StorNext VM System Settings.
4 Click this to access the page to configure the NAS VIP used for the StorNext NAS share used for CatDV media.
5 Click this to access the page to configure the CatDV network IP settings, used to access the CatDV UI.
6

Click this to access the status of all external and internal system interfaces specific to the controller or the block storage; there are four tabs, one for each of these interface categories.
7

Click this to access a view of the storage arrays. If an additional JBOD needed to be added, this is the configuration screen that would be used. (Note: this screen appears similar to the Health > Storage screen, with the additional option to add a "RAID SET".

For instructions on how to add a JBOD to the configuration, see Add a JBOD to an array.

For general information about the storage page, see Storage page overview.
8

Click this to set the time/date configuration for the H4000 Essential. This can be a single NTP server, a set of NTP servers, or manual time/date for the system.

For instructions on how to change time settings on the system, see Configure Time for the H4000 Essential.
9

Click this to configure the CBA (Cloud-Based Analytics) server connection.

For instructions on how to configure CBA, see Enable/Disable Cloud-Based Analytics (CBA).
10

Click this to configure the IPMI/BMC IP addresses and passwords for each controller node.

For instructions on how to configure the IPMI/BMC IP addresses, see Configure the IPMI/BMC network settings and passwords.
11

Click this to upgrade the H4000 Essential software.

For instructions on how to update the H4000 Essential software, see Upgrade the H4000 Essential.
12

Click this to update the StorNext VM software running on Controller A and the StorNext VM software running on Controller B.

For instructions on how to update StorNext VM software running on the H4000 Essential, see Update StorNext VM Software.
13

Click this to update the CatDV software running on the system.

For instructions on how to update the CatDV software running on the H4000 Essential, see Update the CatDV software.
14

Click to upload an SSL certificate. You can do one of the following:

  • Upload a certificate file and a key file.

  • Upload a PEM chain file.

On this page, you can see the current storage configuration on the system, and make necessary changes.

Note: When you use write-cache (write-back cache) on logical volumes in your H-Series product, initiator applications that care about data consistency should always flush the cache when necessary (via SYNCHRONIZE CACHE). The target-side write-back cache software auto-commits cache metadata at a regular time interval and when a blocks-written quantity threshold has been reached, however, in the event of a storage array power loss or firmware crash, the application must flush the cache for any critical writes (for example, data is not guaranteed to be on stable media until an fsync() occurs). If this behavior is not acceptable, you can remove write-cache for the logical volume(s) by running the remove_vol_cache QBSP shell command.

If you create a striped logical volume (a logical volume that uses more than one physical volume [PV]), the stripe size across each PV is equal; if the unit of measure, for a value of a given size, is percentage (%), then the process uses the smallest amount of free/available on one PV, and multiplies this by the number of selected PV’s.

Item Description
1 Select Physical Volume button – when you click this button, all the physical volumes (8 are configured on the system by default) are displayed. Click one of the physical volumes to view which physical disks make up that volume in the RAID array graphic at the bottom of the above image (item 9 above).
2 Manage Physical Volumes button – use this to add or remove physical volumes, to detach all degraded drives, or attach all drives ready to be added to the RAID.
3 Time interval button – use this to change the refresh interval for the CONFIGURATION > Storage page
4 "Refresh now" button – refreshes the array display immediately when clicked.
5

All elements related to the storage array. If there were additional JBODs, they would be listed after the RAID array shown above (light blue box above).

Includes items 6-9 below:
6 Volume Group managed by Controller A (green box above). See Volume Group visual overview.
7 Volume Group managed by Controller B (orange box above). See Volume Group visual overview.
8 Information about the RAID array (purple box above).
9

Chassis drives diagram – this is a visual representation of the physical chassis with drives numbered from 1 to 12 (for 12 drive chassis) or 24 (for 24-drive chassis; yellow box above). Drives in blue with a green indicator are 100% healthy, configured drives.

Caution: Quantum recommends leaving the storage configuration unchanged after initial configuration. ONLY change this if absolutely necessary (such as if settings change within your network ecosystem). The system was optimized during initial configuration for your network and storage environment. You could adversely affect efficiency of the system if these settings are changed incorrectly.

Each "Volume Group" is presented in the F-Series UI graphically as follows:

Item Description
1 Volume Group name and letter (first group, as shown, is the "A" volume group; the controller that manages this group has the same name as the volume group, Controller "A")
2 Volume Group (provides total storage in use, and free, if applicable)
3 Logical Volume for this volume group (in this example, there is one; could be many)
4 Physical Volume/Raid Set (in this example: the first of four)
5 Physical Volume/Raid Set (in this example: the second of four)
6 Physical Volume/Raid Set (in this example: the third of four)
7 Physical Volume/Raid Set (in this example: the fourth of four)

  1. Click the Select Physical Volume button:

  2. Choose a physical volume to highlight in the chassis drives diagram on the page.

    3. The selected physical drives that make up the physical volume are highlighted in a light blue shade, as indicated in the green box below:

  3. Deselect the physical drives by clicking the Deselect button:

    4. The drives will return to their normal view state:

Since this example is a 24-drive system, the storage is organized into:

  • Volume Groups ("RAID"). There are two volume groups in the system comprised of 2 x 12-drive, (1 Volume Group for each set of 12 NVME drives in the system, each of which is managed by its own controller, either Controller A, or Controller B). The following how the 12 physical storage drives per Controller are associated with the Volume Groups shown above them in the F-Series UI:

  • Logical Volumes (LUNs) - from the factory, each RAID is configured as a single logical volume
  • Physical Volumes (RAID sets)

Click on one of the different volume types to see to view information about that volume type, and perform actions on that volume.

Item Description
1 Click on this area to open the "Logical Volume" dialog.
2 Information displayed for the "Logical Volume".
3 Close button for the "Logical Volume" dialog.

Caution: Quantum recommends leaving the storage configuration unchanged after initial configuration. ONLY change this if absolutely necessary (such as if settings change within your network ecosystem). The system was optimized during initial configuration for your network and storage environment. You could adversely affect efficiency of the system if these settings are changed incorrectly.

Item Description
1 Click on this area to open the "Logical Volume" dialog.
2 Information displayed for the "Logical Volume".
3

Delete button used to delete the "Logical Volume".

Caution: Once you have configured your system storage, changes to the storage configuration WILL DESTROY DATA in an active storage environment. Make sure you intend to change storage configuration and have backups of ANY CRITICAL DATA prior to making changes, if you have data that you need to keep on the system.
4 Close button for the "Logical Volume" dialog.

Caution: Quantum recommends leaving the storage configuration unchanged after initial configuration. ONLY change this if absolutely necessary (such as if settings change within your network ecosystem). The system was optimized during initial configuration for your network and storage environment. You could adversely affect efficiency of the system if these settings are changed incorrectly.

Item Description
1 Click on this area to open the Physical Volume dialog.
2 Information displayed for the physical volume.
3 Eye button to highlight the portion of the system lower down on the page to display which drives are part of the physical volume.
4

The Delete button is used to delete the physical volume.

Note: For storage running QBSP 2.0.1, see "FAILURE" error message when trying to delete a physical volume. Update to 2.0.2 or later to delete physical volumes.

Caution: Once you have configured your system storage, changes to the storage configuration WILL DESTROY DATA in an active storage environment. Make sure you intend to change storage configuration and have backups of ANY CRITICAL DATA prior to making changes, if you have data that you need to keep on the system.
5 Close button for the Physical Volume dialog.

For systems running QBSP 2.0.1 software, deleting a physical volume is shown in the H-Series UI, but is not currently functional. If you attempt to delete a physical volume, you will see the following error message for the "Storage - remove array" TASK if you attempt to delete a physical volume. The failure is benign, it doesn't indicate a system problem, but simply does not delete the physical volume:

Workaround

This issue was fixed in 2.0.2, so you will no longer see this issue on a system running 2.0.2 or later software.

There is currently no workaround for this issue for systems running 2.0.1 software. See BLK-7955 in the Fixed issues in the 2.0.2 section of the QBSP 2.x Release Notes.

This page provides a few different panels which display various aspects of the system's overall health, including aggregate numbers for the two controller nodes, combined into a table view of hardware components, such as fans, power supplies, storage drives, swraid devices, etc.

See TASKS in the Monitor the System section of the System Operations page.

This page provides a few different panels which display various aspects of the system's overall health, including aggregate numbers for the two controller nodes, combined into a table view of hardware components, such as fans, power supplies, storage drives, swraid devices, etc.

See ALERTS in the Monitor the System section of the System Operations page.

This page provides a few different panels which display various aspects of the system's overall health, including aggregate numbers for the two controller nodes, combined into a table view of hardware components, such as fans, power supplies, storage drives, swraid devices, etc.

See LOGS in the Monitor the System section of the System Operations page.

Note: Because the StorNext VMs operate as a pair of high-availability (HA) servers that support fail-overs in the event of a controller failure. At any given time, only one VM is operating as the primary and one is operating as secondary. Because there may have been a fail-over in the past, the operating state of the VMs may be different from what you expect. The methods below can help you determine not only the current operating state of the StorNext VMs, but also their IP addresses.

Determine the operating state of both StorNext VMs

With H-Series UI 1.6.0 or later, you can now quickly determine if the StorNext VM is operating as primary and secondary:

Note: If server icons are orange or red, or if both are green but they are both "secondary", wait until they are both green and on has become "primary" before performing additional configuration tasks.

Make sure both StorNext VMs are green, in the "Running" condition, and one is "primary" and one is "secondary".

StorNext VM "primary state" icon:

Notice that StorNext is "Running" (green), and if you move your mouse cursor and hover over the icon with the plus "+" sign, you will see a popup indicating that this StorNext VM is "primary".

StorNext VM "secondary state" icon:

Notice that StorNext is "Running" (green), and if you move your mouse cursor and hover over the icon without a plus "+" sign, you will see a popup indicating that this StorNext VM is "secondary".

  1. In the H4000 Essential UI, click the "information" icon for the StorNext VM on Controller B.

    2. Example 1

    Example (information dialog for the StorNext VM on Controller B):

    In this example,this is the IP address of the StorNexVM running on Controller B.

  2. In the H4000 Essential UI, click the "information" icon for the StorNext VM on Controller A.

    3. Example 2

    Example Example (information dialog for the StorNext VM on Controller A):