Create a storage pool

This page describes how to create a storage pool.

Before you begin

Consider the following requirements before you create a storage pool:

  • You must complete the following steps before you can create a storage pool:

    1. Select or create a project in Google Cloud and enable billing.

    2. Enable private services access for the VPC you intend to use. You can also enable private services access as part of the storage pool creation if you are using the Google Cloud console.

    3. If you want to use customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK), create a CMEK policy first.

    4. If you want to use Active Directory, create an Active Directory policy first.

  • You can only assign a CMEK policy during storage pool creation unless you choose to use the EncryptVolumes function to encrypt all existing volumes in a region with CMEK policy after creation.

  • You can only change the description, capacity, and labels after creation.

  • Once an Active Directory policy is attached to a storage pool, it cannot be detached.

  • Storage pool capacity is subject to a location-based quota of 25 TiB. If you need more capacity, request a quota increase for the Storage pool capacity (GiB) per location quota. For more information, see NetApp Volumes quotas.

Create a storage pool

Use the following instructions to create a storage pool using the Google Cloud console or Google Cloud CLI.

Console

  1. Go to the NetApp Volumes page in the Google Cloud console.

    Go to NetApp Volumes

  2. Click Storage pools.

  3. Click Create.

  4. In the Storage pool details section, complete the following actions:

    1. Enter a name for the pool in the Name field. The name must be unique for each project.

    2. Optional: enter a description for the pool in the Description field.

  5. Select a location for the pool.

  6. Select a service level:

    • Flex

    • Standard

    • Premium

    • Extreme

  7. For the Flex service level, configure the following options:

    • Type: you can select either the File or Unified type.

    • ONTAP Mode: for the Flex Unified service level, click Enable ONTAP Mode to enable ONTAP-mode.

    • Availability: select either zonal or regional availability.

      • For zonal availability, you need to specify the zone to use.

      • For regional availability, you need to specify a primary zone and a replica zone.

  8. Optional: for the Flex Unified, Premium, and Extreme service levels, enable the Large volume option to create large volumes.

  9. Enter the capacity for the storage pool in the Capacity field.

  10. Optional: for the Flex Unified and Flex File in custom-performance enabled regions, complete the following steps for the storage pool:

    1. Enter the throughput for the storage pool in the Throughput field.

    2. Enter the IOPS for the storage pool in the IOPS field.

  11. In the Set up connections section, select the VPC you want to use. If you haven't peered your VPC, click Set up connection and complete the following steps:

    1. Enable the Service networking API.

    2. Click Use an automatically allocated IP range or to choose a CIDR manually, click Select one or more existing IP ranges or create a new one.

    3. Review your selections.

    4. Click Create connection.

      After peering is complete, a notification appears that indicates VPC peering is successful.

  12. In the Active Directory policy section, complete the following steps:

    1. Select the Assign an Active Directory policy to the storage pool checkbox to provision a storage pool for volumes that use LDAP, Kerberos, or any SMB protocol variations.

    2. Select a policy from the Active Directory policy list.

    3. For Flex Unified in ONTAP-mode, configure Active Directory at the ONTAP level.

  13. If you plan to use NFS protocol combinations, select the Enable LDAP checkbox. When you select this option, you can only create LDAP-enabled NFS volumes in the pool. You need to configure Active Directory LDAP to provide UNIX user information. If you want to create NFSv3 or NFSv4 volumes that use regular AUTH_SYS authentication, don't select the Enable LDAP checkbox.

    For Flex Unified in ONTAP-mode, configure the LDAP setting at the ONTAP level.

  14. In the Encryption section, complete the following steps:

    1. Select Google-managed encryption key or Customer-managed encryption key (CMEK).

    2. If you select Customer-managed encryption key (CMEK), select a CMEK policy.

  15. To enable auto-tiering, select the Allow auto-tiering checkbox.

    • For Premium and Extreme pools: auto-tiering can be enabled during pool creation or for existing pools. For volumes you create in these pools, you can enable auto-tiering on a per-volume basis; by default, it is disabled. Standard pools don't allow auto-tiering.

    • For Flex Unified (Preview) and Flex File custom-performance zonal pools (generally available (GA)): you must enable auto-tiering during pool creation. For Flex Unified, you can't enable it on existing pools. All volumes in the pool are automatically created with auto-tiering enabled, unless you disable it at volume creation. Creating such a pool also requires you to specify the size of the hot tier using the Hot tier threshold parameter. For more information, see Performance and hot tier sizing.

      • Optional: you can enable auto-increase for the hot tier if it reaches capacity. The hot tier threshold can't be decreased.

  16. Optional: click Add label to enter relevant labels for reporting and querying purposes from the Labels section.

  17. Click Create.

gcloud

Create a Standard, Premium, or Extreme storage pool

Create a storage pool:

gcloud netapp storage-pools create POOL_NAME \
  --project=PROJECT_ID \
  --location=LOCATION \
  --capacity=CAPACITY \
  --service-level=SERVICE_LEVEL \
  --network=name=NETWORK_NAME

Replace the following information:

  • POOL_NAME: the name of the pool you want to create. Your pool name must be unique per location.

  • PROJECT_ID: the name of the project you want to create the storage pool in.

  • LOCATION: the location of the pool you want to create.

  • CAPACITY: the capacity of the pool in GiB.

  • SERVICE_LEVEL: the service level for your storage pool: Flex, Standard, Premium, or Extreme.

  • NETWORK_NAME: the name of the VPC.

Create a Flex Unified storage pool with auto-tiering in preview

Create a storage pool:

gcloud beta netapp storage-pools create POOL_NAME \
  --project=PROJECT_ID \
  --location=LOCATION \
  --capacity=CAPACITY \
  --service-level=Flex \
  --network=name=NETWORK_NAME \
  --type=UNIFIED \
  --mode=ONTAP \
  --total-iops=IOPS \
  --total-throughput=THROUGHPUT \
  --allow-auto-tiering=true \
  --hot-tier-size=HOT_TIER_SIZE  \
  --enable-hot-tier-auto-resize=ENABLE_HOT_TIER_AUTO_RESIZE

Replace the following information:

  • POOL_NAME: the name of the pool you want to create. Your pool name must be unique per location.

  • PROJECT_ID: the name of the project you want to create the storage pool in.

  • LOCATION: the location of the pool you want to create.

  • CAPACITY: the capacity of the pool in GiB.

  • NETWORK_NAME: the name of the VPC.

  • THROUGHPUT: the throughput of the storage pool in MiBps.

  • IOPS: the IOPS of the storage pool.

  • HOT_TIER_SIZE: the size in GiB of the hot tier.

  • ENABLE_HOT_TIER_AUTO_RESIZE: Optional: set to true to enable auto-resizing of the hot tier.

    Optional: for the Flex Unified service level, you must set mode as ONTAP to enable ONTAP-mode.

For more information about additional optional flags, see Google Cloud SDK documentation on storage pool creation.

What's next

Manage storage pools.