# First steps
This chapter contains step-by-step instructions to create a VPSA
and then to configure its storage properties from the Zadara’s
Provisioning Portal.
## Register a Zadara Account
To register for a new Zadara account, go to
[https://manage.zadarastorage.com/register/](https://manage.zadarastorage.com/register/) and complete the registration form.
If you wish to provision your new VPSA in a private
location please use the URL provided by Zadara for the local Provisioning Portal
instance.
## Creating a VPSA
1. Log on to your **Zadara Provisioning Portal** at
[https://manage.zadarastorage.com](https://manage.zadarastorage.com), or at your private cloud, using
your username/email and password.
2. Click **Create New Service**.
The **Create Zadara Service** dialog opens.
Select:
* [Storage Array](#creating-a-vpsa-storage-array) to create a hybrid
VPSA Storage Array.
* [Flash Array](#creating-a-vpsa-flash-array) to create a
performance-optimized VPSA Flash Array with built-in inline data reduction support.
Click **Next** to progress to your selection.
### Creating a VPSA Storage Array
Scope: VPSA Storage Array
The **Create Storage Array** definitions dialog opens after selecting **Storage Array** in the
Provisioning Portal’s **Create Zadara Service** dialog.
1. **Select Provider and Define Name** dialog:
Enter the following fields:
1. **Provider Group** - Select the cloud provider group for your deployment.
2. **Provider** - Select the provider site for your deployment.
3. **VPSA Name** – Give the VPSA a name.
This is how it will appear in the Cloud Console and in the VPSA GUI.
If you plan on having multiple VPSAs, you might want to give
it as detailed a name as possible.
4. **VPSA Description** (Optional) – Give the VPSA a description.
Click **Next** to continue to the **Select Engine Type and Drives**
configuration.
2. **Select Engine Type and Drives** dialog:
Enter the following fields:
1. **Engine Type** – The Zadara IO engine type defines
the compute characteristics of your VPSA’s Virtual Controllers (VCs).
Each engine type defines the following characteristics:
- Number of CPUs that are assigned to your VPSA’s VCs.
- Amount of RAM that is assigned to your VPSA’s VCs.
- Default size of protected SSD Cache.
When selecting the IO engine, take into account the capacity planned for this
VPSA. Each engine has a limit to the number of drives it can support, and to the
total raw capacity of the VPSA.
You can change the Zadara engine type (upgrade or downgrade) at any
time throughout the lifetime of your VPSA according to your
application’s needs, on condition that you stay within the maximum limits
of the engine type you are moving to.
2. **Flash Cache** - (for VPSA Storage Array engines larger than 200) -
From the dropdown, select the amount of flash cache to allocate to the
VPSA. Note that each VPSA engine is provided with a minimum amount of
cache memory. The extended cache is allocated in 200GB increments.
3. **Drive Quantities** – Select the type and number of drives that you
would like allocated to your VPSA.
- The Zadara Cloud Orchestrator allocates dedicated drives.
- Drives are allocated from as many different SNs as possible to
provide maximum redundancy for your VPSA’s RAID groups.
- There is a limit to the number of drives per Zadara IO engine type.
The larger the engine is, the more drives you can add.
There is also a limit to the total raw capacity of all drives.
Make sure that the total capacity of all selected drives
is within the limit.
The following table lists the maximum drives per VPSA
Storage Array engine type:
| **IO Engine Type** | **Maximum # of Pools** | **Maximum # of Drives** | **Maximum Raw Capacity** |
|----------------------|--------------------------|---------------------------|----------------------------|
| 200 | 3 | 5 | 24 TB |
| 400 | 3 | 10 | 70 TB |
| 600 | 3 | 20 | 140 TB |
| 800 | 3 | 30 | 180 TB |
| 1000 | 3 | 40 | 240 TB |
| 1200 | 3 | 60 | 300 TB |
| 1600 | 3 | 80 | 400 TB |
| 2400 | 3 | 80 | 800 TB |
| 3600 | 3 | 80 | 1000 TB |
4. **Create RAID-10** – By default, at VPSA creation time RAID-10 pools are
automatically created, one pool per type of selected drive.
The pool includes all the selected drives of each type.
If you want to create different pools settings, uncheck this checkbox,
and manually create your RAID groups and pools as described in
[Creating RAID Group, Pools, and Volumes](#creating-raid-group-pools-and-volumes).
Click **Next** to continue to the **Advanced Services** configuration.
3. **Advanced Services** dialog:
Enter the following fields:
1. **Container Services Engine** – The Zadara Container Services (ZCS)
Engine defines the compute resources of the VPSA’s Virtual
Controllers that are allocated for Docker containers within this
VPSA. Refer to [Containers](containers.md#managing-container-services) for
details about Zadara Container Services.
2. **File Lifecycle Management** - Enable file lifecycle management and
analytics.
3. **Fibre Channel Support** – Check this checkbox if you will be
connecting hosts to this VPSA over FC SAN.
Click **Next** to continue to review and confirm your selections.
4. **Review and Confirm** dialog:
1. After selecting the VPSA characteristics, review the displayed summary.
You can click **Back**
to return to previous dialog screens to modify
your previous selections.
2. Press the **Create** button to confirm the VPSA creation request.
- The requested VPSA will appear in the Provisioning Portal’s
Service Inventory list, with the **Awaiting Approval** status.
- Completing the VPSA creation requires the approval of a Zadara
Storage Cloud admin. Once approved, the new VPSA takes only a few
minutes to launch. During that time you’ll see your VPSA with the
**Launching** status and spinner, until launched.
5. **VPSA First Access**:
1. When the VPSA is ready, you’ll receive an email with a temporary
passcode at your registered email address.
2. To access the VPSA GUI, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA
and under **Properties**, click the **Management Console** link.
3. Use your registered username or email address and the temporary
passcode to enter the VPSA GUI. You will be immediately prompted to
set a new password for your VPSA user account.
### Creating a VPSA Flash Array
Scope:VPSA Flash Array
The **Create Flash Array** definitions dialog opens after selecting
**Flash Array** in the Provisioning Portal’s **Create Zadara Service** dialog.
1. **Select Provider and Define Name** dialog:
Enter the following fields:
1. **Provider Group** - Select the cloud provider group for your deployment.
2. **Provider** - Select the provider site for your deployment.
3. **VPSA Name** – Give the VPSA a name.
This is how it will appear in the Cloud Console and in the VPSA GUI.
If you plan on having multiple VPSAs, you might want to give
it as detailed a name as possible.
4. **VPSA Description** (Optional) – Give the VPSA a description.
Click **Next** to continue to the **Select Engine Type and Drives**
configuration.
2. **Select Engine Type and Drives** dialog:
Enter the following fields in the VPSA Flash Array’s
**Select Engine Type and Drives** dialog:
1. **Engine Type** – The Zadara IO engine type defines
the compute characteristics of your VPSA’s Virtual Controllers (VCs).
Each engine type defines the following characteristics:
- Number of CPUs that are assigned to your VPSA’s VCs.
- Amount of RAM that is assigned to your VPSA’s VCs.
When selecting the IO engine, take into account the capacity planned for this
VPSA. Each engine has a limit to the number of drives it can support, and to the
total raw capacity of the VPSA.
You can change the Zadara engine type (upgrade or downgrade) at any
time throughout the lifetime of your VPSA according to your
application’s needs, on condition that you stay within the maximum limits
of the engine type you are moving to.
2. **Drive Quantities** – Select the type and number of drives that you
would like allocated to your VPSA.
- The Zadara Cloud Orchestrator allocates dedicated drives.
- Drives are allocated from as many different SNs as possible to
provide maximum redundancy for your VPSA’s RAID groups.
- There is a limit to the number of drives per Zadara IO engine type.
The larger the engine is, the more drives you can add.
There is also a limit to the total raw capacity of all drives.
Make sure that the total capacity of all selected drives
is within the limit.
The following table lists the maximum drives and capacity
per VPSA Flash Array Engine type:
| **IO Engine Type** | **Maximum # of Pools** | **Maximum # of Drives** | **Maximum Raw Capacity** | **Maximum Provisioned Capacity** |
|----------------------|--------------------------|---------------------------|----------------------------|------------------------------------|
| H100 | 1 | 60 | 280 TB | 140 TB |
| H200 | 2 | 80 | 440 TB | 220 TB |
| H300 | 2 | 120 | 800 TB | 400 TB |
| H400 | 2 | 140 | 1000 TB | 500 TB |
The high tier (also known as tier 0) is the more performant tier of
the VPSA, and comprises in-array SSD/NVME drives.
The low tier (also known as tier 1) is the capacity-oriented tier of
the VPSA.
It can be implemented via in-array SATA/NLSAS drives, or by
connectivity to a remote object storage container.
- **SSD Storage Class**: The number of SSD type drives for Tier 0 (high tier).
- **HDD Storage Class**: The number of HDD type drives for Tier 1 (low tier).
For more information on tiers see **Tiers** in
**Understanding Storage Pools**.
3. **Create RAID-10** – By default, at VPSA creation time RAID-10 pools are
automatically created, one pool per type of selected drive.
The pool includes all the selected drives of each type.
If you want to create different pools settings, uncheck this checkbox,
and manually create your RAID groups and pools as described in
[Creating RAID Group, Pools, and Volumes](#creating-raid-group-pools-and-volumes).
Click **Next** to continue to the Advanced Services configuration.
3. **Advanced Services** dialog:
Enter the following fields:
1. **Container Services Engine** – The Zadara Container Services (ZCS)
Engine defines the compute resources of the VPSA’s Virtual
Controllers that are allocated for Docker containers within this
VPSA. Refer to [Containers](containers.md#managing-container-services) for
details about Zadara Container Services.
1. **File Lifecycle Management** - Enable file lifecycle management and
analytics.
2. **Data Reduction Bundle** - Enable support for:
- Inline data compression
- Inline data deduplication
Click **Next** to continue to review and confirm your selections.
4. **Review and Confirm** dialog:
1. After selecting the VPSA characteristics, review the displayed summary.
You can click **Back**
to return to previous dialog screens to modify
your previous selections.
2. Press the **Create** button to confirm the VPSA creation request.
- The requested VPSA will appear in the Provisioning Portal’s
Service Inventory list, with the **Awaiting Approval** status.
- Completing the VPSA creation requires the approval of a Zadara
Storage Cloud admin. Once approved, the new VPSA takes only a few
minutes to launch. During that time you’ll see your VPSA with the
**Launching** status and spinner, until launched.
5. **VPSA First Access**:
1. When the VPSA is ready, you’ll receive an email with a temporary
passcode at your registered email address.
2. To access the VPSA GUI, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA
and under **Properties**, click the **Management Console** link.
3. Use your registered username or email address and the temporary
passcode to enter the VPSA GUI. You will be immediately prompted to
set a new password for your VPSA user account.
## Creating RAID Group, Pools, and Volumes
By default a new VPSA is created with all its drives configured in RAID Groups,
and a Pool per each drives type. If the automatic pools satisfy your needs,
go directly to the volumes creation below.
Otherwise follow the RAID Group and Pool creation instruction:
1. Create a RAID Group to define the level of data protection needed.
For more details, see [Creating a RAID Group](raid-groups.md#creating-a-raid-group).
2. Create a storage pool by using aggregated capacity from one or more RAID Groups.
For more details, see [Creating a Pool](pools.md#creating-a-pool).
3. Create an iSCSI / FC / NFS / SMB Thin Provisioned Volume to be used by
your servers.
For more details, see [Creating and Deleting a Volume](volumes.md#creating-and-deleting-a-volume).
4. Add a server. The server object represents the host using the storage volume.
Follow the instructions depending on the OS and connectivity of your
server: [Adding a Server](servers.md#adding-a-server)
5. Attach the Volume to a Server.
For more details, see [Attaching & detaching Volumes to Servers](volumes.md#attaching-detaching-volumes-to-servers)
**Congratulations!** You have a new VPSA provisioned and ready to use.
The following sections describe the various capabilities
and services of your VPSA in detail.
## Managing your VPSA’s resources
You create, add, change, delete and manage the resources comprising your VPSAs via
**the Zadara Provisioning Portal**.
This section describes the operations available in the Provisioning
Portal ([https://manage.zadarastorage.com](https://manage.zadarastorage.com)).
### Adding and removing Disk Drives
To add drives to your VPSA go to the Provisioning Portal, select
the VPSA, and from the **Actions** dropdown select **Add Drives**.
- Select the number of drives from each available drive type you wish
to add to your VPSA, and press **Add**. Keep in mind the RAID
Groups you are going to build.
- This operation requires the approval of a Zadara Storage Cloud Admin.
Once approved, you’ll see the number of drives in the Provisioning Portal
update accordingly. If you then refresh the **Drives** page in the
VPSA GUI, the new drives will be displayed.
You can remove unused drives (indicated by the **Available** status) from
within the VPSA.
In the VPSA GUI, go to the **Drives** page, select the drive you wish to
remove and press **Remove**.
If you wish to remove a drive that is part of a RAID Group, you first
need to replace it with another drive as described in [Replacing a Drive](drives.md#replacing-a-drive).
### Managing Zadara Engines
The Zadara IO Engine type defines the following characteristics of your
VPSA’s Storage Controllers:
- **Dedicated CPU and memory resources** - These are dedicated solely
to your VPSA. These resources are not shared with any other VPSA
or tenant within the Zadara Storage Cloud.
- **Flash Cache Size** (VPSA Storage Array only) -
Each VPSA is provisioned with a Flash Cache
partition to be used for both metadata and read/write caching. The
SSD cache partition is protected using RAID-1, where each mirror copy
resides on a different SN, thus ensuring cache resilience to SN
failure. Each Engine type is provided with a base SSD cache partition size.
You can request additional flash capacity for caching. For more
details see [Adjusting Flash Cache (VPSA Storage Array)](#adjusting-flash-cache-vpsa-storage-array).
- **Maximum number of drives** – The maximum number of drives that can
be allocated to each VPSA engine type.
The following Zadara IO Engines are available for VPSA Storage Array:
| **IO Engine Type** | **Dedicated Compute Resources** | **Base Flash Cache** | **Max # of Drives** | **Max Raw Capacity** |
|----------------------|-----------------------------------|------------------------|-----------------------|------------------------|
| 200 | 2 CPU, 6 GB RAM | 20 GB | 5 | 24 TB |
| 400 | 4 CPU, 12 GB RAM | 20 GB | 10 | 70 TB |
| 600 | 6 CPU, 20 GB RAM | 40 GB | 20 | 140 TB |
| 800 | 8 CPU, 28 GB RAM | 60 GB | 30 | 180 TB |
| 1000 | 10 CPU, 36 GB RAM | 80 GB | 40 | 240 TB |
| 1200 | 12 CPU, 52 GB RAM | 100 GB | 60 | 300 TB |
| 1600 | 16 CPU, 68 GB RAM | 120 GB | 80 | 400 TB |
| 2400 | 24 CPU, 100 GB RAM | 180 GB | 80 | 800 TB |
| 3600 | 36 CPU, 144 GB RAM | 240 GB | 80 | 1000 TB |
The following Zadara IO Engines are available for VPSA Flash Array:
| **IO Engine Type** | **Dedicated Compute Resources** | **Maximum # of Drives** | **Maximum Raw Capacity** | **Maximum Provisioned Capacity** |
|----------------------|-----------------------------------|---------------------------|----------------------------|------------------------------------|
| H100 | 12 CPU, 72 GB RAM | 60 | 280 | 140 TB |
| H200 | 24 CPU, 116 GB RAM | 80 | 440 | 220 TB |
| H300 | 36 CPU, 176 GB RAM | 120 | 800 | 400 TB |
| H400 | 48 CPU, 236 GB RAM | 140 | 1000 | 500 TB |
More about VPSA Flash Array capacities: [Understanding Pool’s Capacity](pools.md#understanding-pool-capacity)
The following Zadara Container Services Engines (see:
[Containers](containers.md#managing-container-services)) are available:
| **Zadara ZCS Engine Type** | **Dedicated compute resources** |
|------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
| 01 | 2 CPU, 512 MB RAM |
| 02 | 2 CPU, 1 GB RAM |
| 04 | 4 CPU, 2 GB RAM |
| 06 | 6 CPU, 4 GB RAM |
| 08 | 8 CPU, 8 GB RAM |
To change both types of Zadara Engines, in the Provisioning Portal
select the VPSA, and from the **Actions** dropdown select **Change Engine Type**.
When selecting any engine larger than 200 you can also select the
required flash cache size for that engine. For Flash Cache limits see
[Adjusting Flash Cache (VPSA Storage Array)](#adjusting-flash-cache-vpsa-storage-array).
Completing this operation requires the approval of the Zadara Storage
Cloud Admin.
The Zadara Engine upgrade/downgrade process may take a few minutes.
During that time, the VPSA status will change to **Upgrade Pending**.
When the process completes, the VPSA status will change back to **Ready**.
### Managing Virtual Networks
The Zadara cloud provides a flexible and dynamic virtual networking
infrastructure that can be tailored to meet multiple storage architecture
and use cases.
Each cloud tennant is allocated with one or more “Virutal Networks” which
is a set of available IP addresses within a specific network segment.
Virtual networks are allocated for a specific cloud tenneant and within a
specific avilable cloud VLAN.
The below diagram depicts the relationship between cloud tenants, virtual
networks and VLANs:
In case a VPSA serves as storage for servers on different networks,
the VPSA can be plugged on multiple “Virtual Networks”. Both block volumes and NAS
shares can simultaneously be exposed through one or more Virtual Networks.
Each VPSA is created with a primary network for its front end (hosts connectivity).
This network is routable and is mandatory.
You can manage your virtual networks from the Zadara Provisioning Portal.
In the Provisioning Portal, click your account at the top right,
and in the dropdown, click **Network Management**.
To create another virtual network press **Next**, and fill in the requested parameters such as:
CIDR, Gateway, IP Range, and whether IPv4 or IPv6 should be used.
You can add and remove secondary networks to the VPSA. The VPSA internally maintains
a “Virtual Networks Interface” (VNI) that connects into each virtual networks.
To add a Virtual Network Interface, in the Provisioning Portal
select the VPSA, and from the **Actions** dropdown
select **Add Virtual Network Interface**.
To remove a Virtual Network Interface, in the Provisioning Portal
select the VPSA, and from the **Actions** dropdown
select **Remove Virtual Network Interface**.
### Assigning Public IPs
By default you cannot access the VPSA from the public Internet for security and privacy reasons.
The VPSA Front-End IP address which is used for VPSA
management (via GUI and REST API) and for data IO workload (host
connectivity via iSCSI/NFS/SMB protocols), is allocated on the Zadara
Storage Cloud “Front-End” network 10GbE interface which is routable only
from the Cloud Servers network. Servers outside of your Cloud Servers
network cannot reach this IP address. This means you cannot access your
VPSA GUI from the Internet.
A typical use case requiring Public IP addresses is when you’re running
Asynchronous Remote Mirroring between two VPSAs in different regions,
between on premise and cloud deployments or even between different Cloud
Providers for Disaster Recovery (DR). Communication between the VPSAs is
done via an authenticated and encrypted channel over the public
Internet, thus requiring Public IPs.
To assign a Public IP address to your VPSA, go to the Provisioning Portal
and press the **Assign Public IP** link. You can see the
assigned IP address in your VPSA details in the Provisioning Portal
and in the VPSA GUI, under **Settings > General > Public IP**. To remove it,
click **Remove Public IP** in the Provisioning Portal.
### Adjusting Flash Cache (VPSA Storage Array)
Scope: VPSA Storage Array
Each VPSA is provisioned with a base flash cache partition, which is
utilized by the VPSA for both metadata and read/write caching. The
initially assigned default SSD cache size is also the minimal cache size
for a given Zadara Engine. The flash cache partition is protected using
RAID-1, where each mirror copy resides on a different SN, thus ensuring
cache resilience to multiple types of failure.
On top of the base flash cache described above, you can add an extended cache.
The VPSA extended flash cache size is elastic, so you can increase or decrease
the cache size according to the needs of your workload.
Each Engine type has a minimum (default) and maximum SSD Cache size,
as shown in the table below:
| **Zadara Engine** | **Base Flash Cache** | **Default Extended Flash Cache Size** | **Max Extended Flash Cache Size** |
|---------------------|------------------------|-----------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
| 200 | 20 GB | 0 GB | 0 GB |
| 400 | 20 GB | 200 GB | 400 GB |
| 600 | 40 GB | 400 GB | 800 GB |
| 800 | 60 GB | 600 GB | 1200 GB |
| 1000 | 80 GB | 800 GB | 1600 GB |
| 1200 | 100 GB | 1200 GB | 2400 GB |
| 1600 | 120 GB | 1600 GB | 3200 GB |
| 2400 | 180 GB | 1600 GB | 3200 GB |
| 3600 | 240 GB | 1600 GB | 3200 GB |
To change the Extended Flash Cache size for your VPSA, in the Provisioning Portal
select the VPSA, and from the **Actions** dropdown select **Change Flash Cache**.
### Enabling or Disabling Data Reduction Bundle
Scope: VPSA Flash Array
The Data Reduction Bundle provides the option to activate one, both or
neither of inline compression and deduplication per Volume in a VPSA Flash
Array.
A VPSA Flash Array’s Data Reduction Bundle can be enabled or disabled at
any time.
#### Enabling Data Reduction Bundle
To enable the ability to configure a VPSA Flash Array’s Volumes’
inline compression and deduplication options:
1. In Zadara’s Provisioning Portal, go to **Console > Service Inventory**
and locate the VPSA in the inventory list.
2. Click the VPSA to select it, and from its **Actions** dropdown select
**Enable Data Reduction Bundle**.
3. To activate inline compression and deduplication on the VPSA’s existing
Volumes:
1. In the VPSA’s UI, go to the **Volumes** page.
2. Select the Volume from the Volumes list, and in the south pane’s
**Properties** tab set the **Compress** and **Dedupe** properties
to **Enable**.
3. Repeat this procedure for all Volumes in the VPSA that should have
inline compression and deduplication.
#### Disabling Data Reduction Bundle
To disable the ability to configure a VPSA Flash Array’s Volumes’
inline compression and deduplication options:
1. In Zadara’s Provisioning Portal, go to **Console > Service Inventory**
and locate the VPSA in the inventory list.
2. Click the VPSA to select it, and from its **Actions** dropdown select
**Disable Data Reduction Bundle**.
### Upgrading your VPSA
From zStorage 23.09, the self-service VPSA software update process is
available in Zadara’s Provisioning Portal.
The self-service option streamlines and accelerates the VPSA update
process.
VPSA owners can now determine VPSA update schedules at their own convenience.
The self-service software update can be run immediately, or scheduled to
run in 30 minutes from the current time, up to 7 days from the current date
and time.
In the **Service Inventory** list of the Provisioning Portal’s
Console, the `Update Available!` badge displays next to the VPSA’s
**Service Type**.
To update a VPSA:
1. In the Provisioning Portal, in the Console’s Service Inventory list,
either click the eligible VPSA’s `Update Available!` badge, or
click the VPSA row to open the VPSA’s details pane on the right,
and in the **Actions** dropdown menu, select **VPSA Software Update**.
The update process runs checks to verify that the VPSA’s state
allows an upgrade. For example, if the VPSA’s state is `Degraded` or
the VPSA is running an older software version that cannot be upgraded
directly, a relevant message is displayed directing users to contact
Zadara Support.
On successful verification of the VPSA for the self-service update,
the **VPSA Software Update** dialog opens. The VPSA’s current running
version is displayed, as well as the new zStorage software version that
is available for update, together with the link to its release notes.
This is followed by a brief description of the flow of the marked update
process (**Now** or **Schedule an update for later**).
2. Select the update schedule:
* **Now**
1. Enter your Provisioning Portal login password, and click
**UPDATE**.
The `Update software version started` message is displayed.
2. Click **OK** to close the dialog.
* **Schedule an update for later**
1. Enter a date and time, in the range of 30 minutes from the
current time, up to 7 days from the current date and time.
The default is one hour from the current time.
2. Enter your Provisioning Portal login password, and click
**UPDATE**.
To **reschedule** a scheduled VPSA upgrade:
1. Click the eligible VPSA’s `Update Available!` badge, or
click the VPSA row to open the VPSA’s details pane on the
right, and in the **Actions** dropdown menu, select
**VPSA Software Update**.
2. In the **Reschedule VPSA Software Update** dialog that opens,
select one of:
* **Now**
The previously scheduled update had already updated the standby
controller with the new software version, in preparation for its
scheduled failover.
Select **Now** to trigger an immediate failover to the
standby controller to complete the update, during which IOs
are paused for several seconds, and resume automatically.
* **Schedule an update for later**
The previously scheduled update had already updated the standby
controller with the new software version, in preparation for its
scheduled failover.
Enter a new date and time to reschedule the failover to the
updated standby controller, in the range of 30 minutes from
the current time, up to 7 days from the current date and time.
3. Enter your Provisioning Portal login password.
4. Click **Reschedule** to apply the new schedule, or **Cancel**
to remain with the original schedule.
The self-service update process:
* Logs the self-service VPSA software update request in the Provisioning
Portal’s access logs.
* Sends an automatic email notification to VPSA owners on completion of
the VPSA software update, advising them of the successful VPSA software
update.
### Hibernating your VPSA
You can hibernate your VPSA when it is not in use for some period of
time in order to reduce its associated service cost. While the VPSA
is in a hibernated state you will only be billed for the drives, not
the engine. Hibernating a VPSA involves the process of deleting its
Virtual Controllers (the VPSA) while maintaining the data drives and
all the necessary metadata to resume its operation at a later stage.
**No data is lost!** The hibernated VPSA is not accessible to any
GUI or REST API commands, nor will it present any iSCSI or NFS / SMB
volumes. Resuming a hibernated VPSA only takes a few minutes.
To change the Extended Flash Cache size for your VPSA, in the Provisioning Portal
select the VPSA, and from the **Actions** dropdown select **Hibernate**.
To resume access to the VPSA, in the Provisioning Portal
select the VPSA, and from the **Actions** dropdown select **Restore**.
### Deleting your VPSA
The VPSA owner can delete their VPSA using Zadara’s Provisioning Portal in
case it is no longer needed. The delete operation will delete all VPSA entities
such as volumes,pools,raid-groups,drives and server records.
In order to delete a VPSA select the **Delete** action from the **Actions**
dropdown menu in Zadara’s Provisioning Portal. The delete operation will require
an additional authentication confirmation.
Due to the sensitive nature of the delete operation, when the VPSA owner
initiates a delete operation, it will generate a delete request that necessitates
approval from a cloud administrator. Once approved, the VPSA will be permanently
deleted.
## The VPSA Interface
### Understanding the VPSA Dashboard
VPSA Dashboard is the landing page, every time the GUI opens.
It gives the overall state of the VPSA (Health, Capacity, Performance) at a glance.
The Dashboard has the following components:
1. **VPSA Info:** General information of the VPSA such as its name, engine
type and management IP address.
2. **System Health:** Shows the inventory of the objects managed by the system,
such as Pools, Volumes, Mirrors, and so on.
If all objects of a component are in the normal state,
there is a green indicator on the component’s tile.
If there is situation that needs your attention a red indicator is
shown on the component’s tile, with the number of objects requiring attention.
3. **CPU:** Shows the CPU utilization of the active Controller of the VPSA, over time.
This chart gives an indication of the load on the storage system.
4. **Capacity:** Shows the capacity state of the VPSA.
The display is different between VPSA Storage Array and
VPSA Flash Array. For the latter, it shows the capacity reduction saving.
See [Understanding Pool’s Capacity](pools.md#understanding-pool-capacity) for details.
1. Current capacity state
2. Capacity consumption over time during the last month
5. **Performance:** These charts show the aggregated performance of all Volumes.
1. Current IOPS (reads and writes) of all Volumes
2. IOPS activity during the last hour
3. Current throughput of all Volumes
4. Throughput of all volumes during the last hour
5. Current mirroring traffic of all mirrors (outbound and inbound)
6. Mirroring activity of all mirrors during the last hour
### Understanding the VPSA GUI
The VPSA GUI provides full management and control of your VPSA. It
contains the following main components (as numbered in the above
screenshot):
1. **Main Navigation Left Panel** – Traverse through the various VPSA
entities. The selected entity is highlighted.
2. **The Center Pane** – Displays a list of objects from the selected
entity type (e.g. Drives in the above screenshot example) and for
each object it displays the main properties.
3. **The South Pane** – Displays detailed information regarding the
selected object. All objects have at least 3 tabs:
1. **Properties** – Detailed properties of the object.
2. **Metering** – Typically IO workload metering info.
3. **Logs** – List of event-log messages related to that object.
4. **Logged-in username** – Displayed at the top right corner.
5. **Selected Language** – Displayed on the top bar. You can
use this drop down to change the displayed language.
## System notifications
VPSA notifications, both informational and critical, necessitating user
action, will be communicated via email to the service owner and other
designated users set to receive notifications.
System notifications are categorized based on the following priorities:
- Urgent
- High
- Normal
- Low
### Urgent priority notification
An alert that requires an immediate VPSA administrator action to ensure the
storage service health or to restore the VPSA to normal operation, for example:
* Pool free capacity state
* System is pending for Master Encryption key from the administrator
### High priority notification
An alert that requires awareness of the VPSA administrator to ensure the
storage service health or other service issues that are currently being handled
by Zadara’s support team. In some cases VPSA administrator action is required.
Example for high priority notifications:
* Volume out of free space
* Duplicate Front-End IP discovery
### Normal priority notification
An alert that requires the administrator’s attention, yet does not necessarily
have an immediate impact on the service. For example:
* Temporary Active Directory domain controller connectivity issue
* VPSA connectivity issue to a server that was set with connectivity test
option
### Low priority notification
A low-priority message with no impact on service health.
While the message may require attention or action from administrators,
its lower priority status indicates that it poses minimal
or no threat to the current state of the service and can be addressed at the
convenience of the administrators without causing service disruptions.
For example:
* Volume low capacity
* Volume auto-expand confirmation