This document contains information about:
In addition to this document, you should read the following documents before using Aperi:
These documents are available at: http://www.eclipse.org/aperi/documentation/
When people discuss the benefits of open source software, one of the first things to come up is "more eyeballs": when there are more people carefully looking at and contributing to the code, it leads to better, more usable software. A number of changes have been made by the community in Aperi R0.4, including significant improvements to Aperi's installation process. This section describes all the changes for this release, provides a link to any known limitations, and explains how to join the Aperi community.
The installation process for Aperi has been significantly improved for this release. In previous releases, the Aperi installer was run from a command line and required you to manually download and copy required third-party files. In this release, an interactive, graphical user interface has been added to the installer to help simplify and streamline the installation process. Additionally, the number of third-party files that you are required to manually install has been reduced.
See the installation instructions for information on how to download and install Aperi R0.4.
The SAN Simulator is a tool that enables you to simulate a SAN environment through software. You can create a SAN configuration, add devices to the SAN, create arbirtrary connections between devices, and remove connections between devices. Using this tool to create a simulated SAN environment can help when you:
The SAN Simulator provides an increase in productivity and efficiency for Aperi development and testing by removing the dependence on device availability. See the installation instructions for information on how to download and install the SAN Simulator.
You can now use Aperi Storage Manager to discover and collect data about virtual machines. You can install a Data agent on each virtual machine that you want to monitor and then run probes to collect data about the storage resources presented to those virtual machines. Aperi displays each virtual machine as an explandable node under Data Manager > Reporting > Asset > By Computer in the navigation tree. Expand a virtual machine's node to view detailed information about its virtualized storage resources.
You can now use Aperi Storage Manager to discover and collect data about XEN virtual machines (guests) running under Linux. Xen is an open source technology that enables you to deploy Windows and Linux virtual machines using the Xen Hypervisor and XenBus controller. The Xen Hypervisor is a thin layer of software which can host multiple virtual machines that run independently of each other while sharing hardware resources.
Install a Data agent on each Xen virtual machine that you want to monitor and then run probes to collect data about the paravirtualized block devices presented to those virtual machines. Aperi displays each Xen virtual machine as an explandable node under Data Manager > Reporting > Asset > By Computer in the navigation tree. Expand a Xen's node to view detailed information about its XenBus controller, disks, and filesystems or logical volumes.
You can now launch the report viewer in an embedded browser window within the Aperi GUI framework when running under Linux/UNIX. Previously in R3, the report viewer was launched into an external browser window.
Aperi now supports IBM DS CIMOM version 5.2. To configure Aperi for use with this CIMOM, start the user interface and go to Administrative Services > Agents > CIMOM and click Add CIMOM. Enter information about the CIMOM and click Save. You then run a discovery job to determine the devices managed by that CIMOM. Once those devices are discovered, you can run probe jobs to gather information about those managed devices and view that information through Aperi's reporting facilities.
Aperi now supports Europa (Eclipse 3.3).
New Flash tutorials are available on the Aperi Website at this location. These tutorials will highlight some key features of Aperi, including installing Aperi components, running discovery and probe jobs, and using the SAN Simulator.
To view a list of known issues in Aperi, or to file your own bug report or enhancement request, please visit: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/
Aperi R0.4 was tested on Windows 2003 Enterprise Server, SUSE Linux Enteprise Server 10 (SLES10), and Linux RedHat 3.0. Any testing in addition to these platforms would be considered a valuable contribution to the Aperi effort and we recommend recording a Bugzilla at https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/.
A single database instance serves as the repository for storage data collected by Aperi Storage Manager agents. This database repository can run under the following relational database systems: Apache Derby or IBM DB2. Both databases are fully supported for use with the product.
The Aperi Storage Manager team recommends using IBM DB2 in large environments to ensure consistent performance as the amount of data managed by the repository database increases.
Note: The ability to assign volumes to hosts is not available in Aperi R0.4. Aperi installations support volume creation, but not host assignment. Check for this limitation to be addressed in a future release.
If you would like to join the Aperi Community, we would welcome your participation. Please visit our project website at http://www.eclipse.org/aperi and sign up for the aperi-dev and aperi-news mailing lists. Please get involved by and telling us what you'd like to do with Aperi.
Aperi Storage Manager (C) Copyright IBM Corp. 2007. All Rights Reserved
All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials are made available
under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0 which accompanies this distribution,
and is available at http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html.
Copyright © 2008 The Eclipse Foundation. All Rights Reserved
