Starting the Array Manager Console Dell OpenManage™ Array Manager 3.4
Starting the Array Manager Console
The Array Manager console provides a graphical way to see all the objects in your system. The Array Manager console display shows a tree view on the left and an expanded view of a selected tree view item on the right.
Array Manager allows you to customize your console layout and make a custom product that is more convenient to use. You can add or remove display categories, customize headers, resize columns, and change colors of the graphical layout.
The Array Manager console can be launched on a Windows system using either the Start menu or the command line.
See the following sections for starting the Array Manager console:
You can start Array Manager on a Windows system using the Start menu. The Array Manager console launches with storage connected to the local system displayed in the tree view.
To start Array Manager from the Windows Start menu:
You may also wish to view the following related sections:
You can start Array Manager on a Windows system using the command line. The Array Manager console launches with storage connected to the local system displayed in the tree view.
To start Array Manager from a command line:
amconsole $user:UserName password:Password
You may also wish to view the following related sections:
When starting Array Manager from the command line, you can specify that a particular controller be highlighted in the tree view. Highlighting a controller may be useful when the system is attached to multiple controllers and you only need the status of a particular one. For example, you may have received an error message regarding a controller. You might also be using another management application that has identified a problem with a controller. In these cases, you may wish to launch Array Manager with the controller highlighted so that you can quickly obtain more information regarding the controller's status.
To start Array Manager with a controller highlighted:
amconsole $device:"ControllerName" user:"UserName" password:"Password"
or if the controller is attached to a remote system, then enter:
amconsole $computer:"ComputerName" user:"UserName" password:"Password" domain:"DomainName" device:"ControllerName"
Elements of the controller name should be separated by a space. When using spaces, enclose the item containing spaces in quotation marks. For example, to start Array Manager with a PERC 2 /Si controller selected in the tree view, enter:
amconsole $device:"perc 2/si controller 0" user:UserName password:Password
You may also wish to view the following related sections:
When launching Array Manager with a remote connection, the Array Manager tree view displays the local system and the remote system with their attached storage.
To start Array Manager with a remote connection:
amconsole $computer:"ComputerName" user:"UserName" password:"Password" domain:"DomainName"
You may also wish to view the following related sections:
In Windows 2000, Array Manager is available as one of the programs or utilities in the Computer Management window.
To access the Computer Management from the Windows Start menu:
The Array Manager console display has the following features:
If you are viewing Array Manager running on an NT 4.0 computer, you will see two tabbed views in the right pane, General and Events, as shown in the screen below.
Array Manager Console Display in Windows NT
On the other hand, on Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003, the Array Manager console displays four tabs: General, Events, Disk View, and DM View, as shown in the screen that follows.
Array Manager Console Display in Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003
For more detail on the tabbed views, see the topic The Right Pane later in this chapter.
 |
Note For NetWare® users, the Array Manager console provides a graphical way to see other NetWare servers and storage objects. Because Array Manager does not support disk and volume management on NetWare servers, you will not see the Disks and Volumes storage objects in the console view of those servers. |
The left pane shows the objects detected by the Array Manager software. In the example screen below, the local computer object, 82ALX, is at the top. The other major storage objects are Arrays, Disks, and Volumes. By clicking the plus sign (+) in front of a storage object, you can see the subordinate storage objects under that object.
Array Manager Console, Left Pane
Arrays represent the physical and logical (virtual) storage subsystems connected to a controller.
Disks represent the disks recognized by a Windows operating system. This can include regular hard disks, CD-ROM drives and other removable media, and virtual disks created through Array Manager.
Volumes include dynamic RAID volumes created in Array Manager, primary and extended partitions, logical drives associated with extended partitions, and RAID volumes created in NT 4.0 Disk Administrator.
This icon works exactly like the My Network Places icon in the My Computer window of a Windows operating system.
|
Note The My Network Places icon is displayed in the left pane when you start Array Manager using the Windows Start menu. This icon is not displayed when you start Array Manager using IT Assistant. |
Array Manager uses History to store a list of the most recent connections made from the computer. You may want to delete some computer names from the History list. To delete a computer name from the History list, right-click the name and select Remove Computer from the context menu that appears.
|
Note The History icon is displayed in the left pane when you start Array Manager using the Windows Start menu. This icon is not displayed when you start Array Manager using IT Assistant. |
You can use the Favorites option for easy storage and retrieval of frequently used computer names. The Favorites option lets you display and retrieve NetWare server names, as well as other computers.
|
Note The Favorites icon is displayed in the left pane when you start Array Manager using the Windows Start menu. This icon is not displayed when you start Array Manager using IT Assistant. |
For more information on the console's storage objects, see The Array Manager Storage Model section in the Storage Management Concepts chapter.
The right pane identifies the various objects and their status, and displays any error conditions that may exist. The screen below shows the right-pane console view on a Windows NT 4.0 console with its two tabbed views, General and Events.
Array Manager Windows NT Console, Right Pane
The four tabbed views in the Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 right-pane console view are shown in the following screen. It includes the General, Events, Disk View, and DM View tabs.
Array Manager Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 Console, Right Pane
The sections that follow describe the right pane's four tabbed views:
The objects you select in the console's tree view determine what parameters display in the right pane's General tab. The parameters are briefly discussed as follows:
You can change the sort order of columns. First, click a header, such as Name, and either an up or down arrow will display (indicating the current sort of the column—ascending or descending). Then click the arrow to reverse the sort. The arrow appears only for a short time. You can also right-click a header and the context menu that comes up has commands for ascending and descending sort. If you left-click or right-click a header and do not get the sort arrow or the sort menu commands, the column most likely is not sortable because it contains storage objects that are displayed in a hierarchical order.
The Events tab displays event log messages associated with storage objects.
For more information on the Events tab, see the Event Monitoring chapter.
You will see the Disk View tab in the Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 console. It will not appear if you are running Array Manager on a Windows NT 4.0 machine. The Disk View tab displays a view similar to that in Disk Administrator in Windows NT 4.0 and Disk Management in Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003. It has a graphical layout of the disks on your system, including CD-ROMs or other removable media. As with the tree view and General tab view, right-clicking on an object or portion of the window relating to an object brings up a context menu that has commands related to the object.
The DM View tab appears in the Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 console. You will not see this tab if you are running Array Manager on a Windows NT 4.0 machine. The DM View tab displays the information for the Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 Disk Management snap-in, which is also called LDM (Logical Disk Manager). Disk Management is the built-in disk and volume manager that comes with Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.
The DM View tab is inactive (dimmed) in an Array Manager console when it is connected to a local or remote Windows 2000 system. This is because Array Manager is an upgrade that replaces Disk Management during installation on a Windows 2000 system. For details, see the section More on the Array Manager and Disk Management Relationship at the end of the Overview chapter.
The reason that the DM View tab exists on a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 console is that you can remotely connect to a server with Disk Management. Once you make the connection to the server with Disk Management, the DM View becomes active. Because Array Manager and Disk Management are related products, you can connect to the server with Disk Management and view and manage its storage. Refer to the Windows Disk Management online help for details on how the function works.
To customize the Array Manager console display, you can add or remove categories, customize headers, resize columns, and change the colors in the graphical layout. Topics in this section include:
The default Array Manager tree view shows three categories: Arrays, Disks, and Volumes. (NetWare users will see only Arrays.) You can add new categories to this tree view. For example, you may want Array Groups, Basic Groups, and Dynamic Groups to be displayed under the same object in the tree view. You can add a Groups category and specify that Array Groups, Basic Groups, and Dynamic Groups be included in this category.
The new category appears in the left pane of the Array Manager console.
This function allows you to choose the headers you want to see and place them in the order in which you would like to see them.
A dialog box comes up with two panes:
Add and Remove buttons are provided to allow you to move the column headers provided by the program between each pane.
|
Note You can also change the order of the column headers by dragging a header to the right or the left in the General tab view. |
The color preference option allows you to select how you want to view particular items in the graphical layout, such as RAID-5 volumes, mirrored disks, and other managed objects.