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| Prev | Systems perspective | Next |
In the System perspective, the left pane shows a tree view of the system and storage objects detected by the Storage Foundation for Windows software. The tree view displays the hierarchical relationships of the objects. The node at the top of the tree represents the Storage Foundation for Windows client that you are connected to. In the screen below, the client is connected to "localhost." The objects under this node are the managed servers that the client is connected to and managing. In the screen below, there is only one managed server node, a server named "jktestmachine."
Below each managed server icon are the following object categories:
The tree view can be expanded by clicking on a plus sign (+) in front of an object icon. When the tree view is fully expanded, all the objects have a minus (-) sign in front of them. By clicking on a minus sign at any level, you can collapse an object down to that level. The fully collapsed tree shows only the top-level object.
Right-clicking on an object in the tree view brings up a context menu that is appropriate to that object.
The following is additional information about the storage object categories under each managed server node.
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Cache |
Cache area is the storage space allocated on the SSD(s) for caching. It is used to store cache data corresponding to any caching-enabled volume. |
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CD-ROMs |
Any CD-ROM drives recognized by Storage Foundation for Windows as existing on the computer you are managing. |
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Disk groups |
A disk group is a grouping of disks within Storage Foundation for Windows. The two types of disk groups are basic and dynamic. See Disk groups overview. |
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Disks |
Disks are physical disks or logical disks recognized by the Windows operating system. Depending on the type of disk, a disk may be enabled to support thin provisioning and storage reclamation. Thin provisioning is a technology to efficiently allocate storage for a disk. Thin provisioning allocates physical storage only when actual data is written to the disk. Some disks that are enabled for thin provisioning also provide storage reclamation. Storage reclamation is the operation that decreases the physical storage allocation once data is deleted from the disk. A disk that supports thin provisioning is represented with a disk icon that includes a red colored sector. A disk that supports thin provisioning and storage reclamation is represented with a disk icon that includes a green colored sector with an asterisk (*). |
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Enclosures |
Enclosures are physical objects that contain one or more physical disks. For example, the disks may be contained in arrays or JBODs. Also the disks may be internal to your server. |
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Saved Queries |
Saved Queries refers to queries that were saved with the Search feature of SFW. If you saved queries with the Search feature, then this node would display the results of the saved query. See Search. |
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Volumes |
A volume is a logical entity that is made up of portions of one or more physical disks. A volume can be formatted with a file system and can be accessed by a drive letter or a mount point. Storage Foundation for Windows works with basic and dynamic volumes. A volume may be either read only or read/write. The icons for read-only volumes include a picture of a padlock to differentiate them from read/write volumes. Not all commands available in Storage Foundation for Windows for read/write volumes are enabled for read-only volumes because specific commands require write access to the volume. Check the access mode of a particular volume if a command is not available. |
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DMP DSMs |
On the servers that are configured for support of Microsoft multipath input/output (Microsoft MPIO) solution, a node for DMP DSMs appears. Completely expanding the DMP DSMs node displays DSM nodes being used, nodes of arrays being controlled by the DSM, and the disks contained in the array. These nodes let you manage the settings for the arrays and disks configured for Microsoft MPIO. See DMP overview. |
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Applications |
On the servers that are running VSS-aware applications, such as Microsoft SQL Server, a node for Applications appears. SFW provides an option of taking snapshots with Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). The VSS snapshot method lets you take snapshots of VSS-aware applications, such as Microsoft SQL Server, while the application files are open. When VSS-aware applications do not exist, the snapshot is taken with the SFW FlashSnap method (VM method). |
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iSCSI |
On the servers that are connected to an iSCSI SAN, the following nodes may appear:
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