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Applications

Applications

An application is a logical namespace for grouping the volumes that belong to a single workload —— for example, a database and its transaction log, or every volume backing a particular VMware datastore. Applications don't consume storage themselves; they're an organizational layer that makes related volumes easy to find, manage, and report on together.

Volume names only need to be unique within an application. Two different applications can each have a volume named data, but you can't have two volumes named data in the same application.

Before you can create a volume, you need at least one application to create it in.

Creating an application

Create an application when you're about to provision storage for a new workload —— a new database instance, a new VM datastore, a new file share for a department, and so on. Most StorONE deployments end up with one application per workload rather than one large shared application, since it keeps volume names meaningful and keeps snapshot/replication reporting scoped to the thing you actually care about.

An application only has two properties: its name and an optional description.

Using the web interface

  1. Open Application Volumes > Applications.
  2. Click Create.
  3. Under Application Details, enter:
    • Application —— the name of the new application.
    • Description (optional) —— a free-text description. Useful for recording what the application is for, who owns it, or anything else your team finds helpful at a glance.
  4. Confirm to create the application.

Using the CLI

applications create --application=<name> [--description=<description>] [--force]
Option Description
--application=<name> The name of the application.
--description=<description> Application description.
--force Skip the confirmation prompt.

Example —— create an application named sales with a description:

applications create --application sales --description "Volumes for the sales team's file shares"

Listing applications

Using the web interface

Open Application Volumes > Applications. The list view shows every application; use the column/filter options in the toolbar to show descriptions, consistency groups, or volumes inline.

Using the CLI

applications list [--application=<name>] [--desc] [--cg] [--vols]
Option Description
--application=<name> Filter by application name.
--desc Show application description.
--cg Show consistency groups.
--vols Show volumes.

Examples

List every application along with its description:

applications list --desc

List every application with its description and the volumes it contains:

applications list --desc --vols

Show the description, consistency groups, and volumes for just the sales application:

applications list --application sales --desc --cg --vols

Editing an application

Because an application is just a name and a description, editing one only lets you change those two things —— there's nothing else to configure at the application level.

Using the web interface

  1. Open Application Volumes > Applications.
  2. Select the application and click Edit.
  3. Update the Application name and/or Description under Application Selection.
  4. Confirm the change.

Using the CLI

applications edit --application=<name> [--newname=<name>] [--description=<description>]
Option Description
--application=<name> The name of the application instance to edit.
--newname=<name> New name for the application.
--description=<description> New description for the application.

Examples

Change the description of the sales application:

applications edit --application sales --description "Sales team file shares —— East and West regions"

Rename sales to sales-east:

applications edit --application sales --newname sales-east

Deleting an application

Deleting an application deletes every volume it contains. Before you delete an application, make sure none of its volumes are still in active use —— a volume can't be deleted (and so the application can't be deleted) while it's still mapped to a host/initiator or has any SMB/NFS shares defined on it. Remove those first.

Using the web interface

  1. Open Application Volumes > Applications.
  2. Select the application and click Delete.
  3. Confirm the deletion.

Using the CLI

applications delete --application=<name> [--force]
Option Description
--application=<name> The name of the application to delete.
--force Skip the confirmation prompt.

Examples

Delete the sales-east application (with confirmation prompt):

applications delete --application sales-east

Delete it without being prompted for confirmation —— useful in scripts:

applications delete --application sales-east --force

Next: Volumes —— creating and managing the volumes inside an application.