Rename and/or label logical volumes

Hi all,

I have a question but it might as well be or become a proposition towards Open-E.

We are using a DSS208 storage appliance as a iSCSI target for some VMware hosts. Since each host now hosts around 5 virtual machines (some are testing and mock-up machines, hence the 'around' :)) and we want each virtual guest to stay on its own storage volume, the number of logical volumes created is increasing rather rapidly.

For now, the volumes are still manageable by keeping a table of 'which volume contains what' and, of course, mapping each volume to a identifiable iSCSI volume helps alot. I am afraid, however, should the number of logical volumes increase further and should more than just one person start working on them, then administration becomes a burden and error-prone (you do _not_, for example, want your Exchange server to mount its own databases but fail to mount its log files volume or mixup the system volumes of two Domain Controllers!).

So ... is there a way to rename logical volumes so the names of the volumes can make sense to us human beings? Is there a CLI command I am unaware of or is there an option somewhere hidden in the GUI? If not, would it be possible, even if only through a CLI, to provide that option to (registered, i.e. commercial) DSS users?

Suggestions and/or remarks welcome!

regards,

Bob de Vries
AbTS - Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Have you tried rename the target. change the name and the alias!!!!
or you are talking about the names in the configuration under the VG tab??

@ SuperSAN:

Thnx for your response. Yes we renamed the targets, in fact that is what I meant by 'mapping each volume to an identifiable iSCSI volume helps alot'. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough on that.

And indeed I was talking about the volume names in the VG tab. They are named automatically and use a scheme with an incrementing four digit, zero padded suffix.

I am afraid that we start losing track when looking at 30+ volumes and would like to either a) be able to change the naming scheme or b) use a custom name for certain volumes so they are identifiable.

thank you for any help/suggestions on this matter!

Hi ppl,

The worries we had about losing track of logical volumes if naming them in the VG tab is not possible were justified unfortunately :(

We're currently using ten volumes that are published as iSCSI targets and cutting one of them out (e.g. reconfiguring, merging or splitting up) makes identifying which logical volume contains what a tough cookie.

Does anyone share this problem? Do any of you have an idea or does open-e have a solution? We'd be glad to make maintaining our logical volumes more easy and less error-prone!

thnx in advance for any thoughts!

cheers, AbTS

Hi AbTS

Currently we do not have the feature to modify the Logical Volume for the naming conventions available, yet.

Only option now is to Name the Targets or have multiple Volume Groups.