GUI – Entering the storage array credentials

The storage array credentials are used to connect to the IBM® storage system or systems, which your VMware platforms use for storage provisioning.

About this task

From the Spectrum Control GUI you can set or change the current storage array access credentials that are used for accessing all the IBM storage arrays.

Important:

An identical storage admin user account with identical credentials (the same username and password) must already be predefined on all the IBM storage arrays that you intend to use. Spectrum Control can use only a single array management account for accessing all the different storage arrays that you use. For more information about how to define a storage admin account on your IBM storage arrays, refer to the relevant storage system management tools documentation.
Setting the storage credentials on Spectrum Control allows you to add the IBM storage arrays on the next step.
If the array management account is defined on a directory server, see Checking the format of directory-based storage array credentials.

Note: The same operations are available from the CLI as well, as explained in CLI – Adding or removing storage array credentials.

Procedure

Click the Settings button and select Storage Credentials from the Settings menu. The Storage Credentials dialog box is displayed. The dialog box presents the currently defined storage array username in the User name configuration box.
Figure 1. Current storage array username (for all storage arrays)
Enter the username and password of the storage admin user that was defined on all your IBM storage arrays.
If the storage admin user account is defined on a directory server, select the Directory account check box. If the storage admin user account is locally-defined on the storage system, clear the check box.
Click Apply.

What to do next

You can now start adding storage arrays. Spectrum Control will use the credentials that you have set in order to connect to the storage arrays that you add.

Attention: During regular operation, whenever a directory-based storage admin fails to log in (from the Spectrum Control side) to any storage array that is in use, Spectrum Control immediately locks the storage admin user account and all storage arrays become inaccessible on the Spectrum Control side. This is to prevent repeated login attempt failures after which the directory server blocks that user account. In such a case, set the storage array credentials again to unlock the storage admin account on the Spectrum Control side, with either the same credentials or with updated credentials. The equivalent action in the Spectrum Control CLI is to use the force credentials options, as described in CLI – Adding or removing storage array credentials.