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Considerations for discovering arrays

Read the following considerations before you discover and add storage arrays in the network.

For the DE Plugin for vCenter to display and manage storage resources, you must discover the storage arrays you want to manage in your organization's network. You can discover and then add a single array or multiple arrays.

Discovering multiple storage arrays​

If you choose to discover multiple arrays, you enter a network IP address range and then the system attempts individual connections to each IP address in that range. Any storage array successfully reached appears in the DE Plugin for vCenter and you can then add them to your management domain.

Discovering a single storage array​

If you choose to discover a single array, you enter the single IP address for one of the controllers in the storage array and then add that array to your management domain.

Note
The DE Plugin for vCenter discovers and displays only the single IP address or IP address within a range assigned to a controller. If there are alternate controllers or IP addresses assigned to these controllers that fall outside of this single IP address or IP address range, then the DE Plugin for vCenter will not discover or display them. However, once you add the storage array, all associated IP addresses will be discovered and displayed in the Manage view.

User credentials​

As part of the discovery process, you must supply the administrator password for each storage array you want to add.

Certificates​

As part of the discovery process, the system verifies that the discovered storage arrays are using certificates by a trusted source. The system uses two types of certificate-based authentication for all connections that it establishes with the browser:

  • Trusted certificates

    You might need to install additional trusted certificates supplied by the Certificate Authority if one or both controller certificates are expired, revoked, or missing a certificate in its chain.

  • Self-signed certificates

    Arrays can also use self-signed certificates. If you attempt to discover arrays without importing signed certificates, the DE Plugin for vCenter provides an additional step that allows you to accept the self-signed certificate. The storage array's self-signed certificate will be marked as trusted and the storage array will be added to the DE Plugin for vCenter.

    If you do not trust the connections to the storage array, select Cancel and validate the storage array's security certificate strategy before adding the storage array to the DE Plugin for vCenter.