Remote access

This topic provides an overview of the Remote Access feature and explains the activities required to plan for it.

The master console provides remote access to the storage engines. Remote access allows IBM® Support Center to diagnose problems with your system. Remote access support can help to greatly reduce service costs and shorten repair times, which in turn reduces the impact of any failures on your business.

Remote access gives IBM support personnel full access to the SAN File System or SAN Volume Controller through the master console, including querying and controlling the metadata servers and clients, and accessing metadata, log, dump, and configuration data. Remote access does not allow access without authentication. You must initiate a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, using VNC from the master console, to allow IBM support personnel to remotely access the master console. From the master console, the support personnel can establish a connection to the SAN File System metadata servers or SAN Volume Controller nodes. However, you can monitor that access and disconnect the session at any time.

In response to an error condition, you initiate a secure connection to the IBM VPN server using the VPN connection software on the master console called IBM Connection Manager. You must send the customer connection ID for the newly created connection to the IBM support personnel. The IBM support personnel initiates a secure connection to their VPN server, and then establishes a secure connection to the master console over the VPN tunnel using the customer connection ID and an account on the master console. Finally, IBM support personnel can access the SAN File System metadata server or SAN Volume Controller node through SSH.

The following figure shows the remote access architecture:
Figure 1. Remote access architecture
Graphic illustrates how the VPN connection between the customer and IBM support

Parent topic: Concepts

Related reference
Accessing SAN File System components

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IBM TotalStorage SAN File System v2.2