In my last screencast I make a quick introduction to ONTAP 9’s Graphical User Interface – OnCommand System Manager. System Manager is developed and updated for a long time, since ONTAP 8.3 it is already included in standard ONTAP build as a webservice that can be accessed via most modern internet browsers via cluster management IP address. However, with ONTAP 9 NetApp has re-design the GUI, completely modifying the Navigation Pane. Watch the screencast (7:30 mins) to see the GUI in a nutshell.

To access a Graphical User Interface for Your ONTAP cluster, You can either access:

https://[node_mgmt_IP_address]

or

https://[cluster_mgmt_IP_address]

In this screencast I’m going through available menus and options and also briefly show You how easy it is to create a brand new volume, check or edit the namespace and share it via CIFS. To validate the work, I also accessed the share via Windows Explorer and created a test-file to provide I have a read-write access to that particular share. Of course, there are quite a few things to consider in Your every-day production environment when it comes to creating new shares. For one I do not mention anything about share permissions, or even a security style of my volume. However, this was just a brief introduction of how easy it is to start. You can also check my post about NetApp cDOT – Namespace, junction path if you are not sure what namespace is.

In Your everyday activities, operations such as aggregate creation, or SVM creation will most likely not be Your everyday tasks. In most cases, You will probably focus more on SVM management, or event/incident monitoring and troubleshooting. That’s why I have focused a little bit more on the Storage Virtual Machine management. In case of any questions please feel free to leave a comment here or on Youtube, I will try to answer as soon as possible.