DDPUserGuide

January 16, 2012

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Contents
1 DDP User Guide 5

2 Gui briefly discussed 5

3 Login as administrator 6

4 Creating A DDP Drive 6

5 Creating a Desktop 8

6 Connecting a DDP Drive to the Desktop 8

7 Extending the Capacity of a DDP drive 9

8 Drive Directories 10

9 Edit Drive 11

10 Search 12

11 Drive Info 12

12 Duplicate Drive 12

13 Rescanning, its purpose 13

14 Changing the Administrator’s Password 13

15 Deleting Drives 14

16 Settings Page 14
16.1 Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
16.1.1 Workflow Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
16.1.2 Default new drive options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
16.2 Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
16.2.1 From . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
16.2.2 Smtp Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
16.2.3 Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
16.2.4 Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
16.3 Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
16.4 Special . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
16.4.1 Logfile... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
16.4.2 Make Service Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
16.4.3 Power Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
16.4.4 Restart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
16.4.5 IO Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
16.4.6 network configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
16.5 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

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 16.5.1 Volume Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
16.5.2 Disks Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
16.5.3 System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
16.6 Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

17 Status 30

18 Raidcard Settings 30

19 Capacity Calculation and Usage 31

20 Login in using Terminal or Putty 32

21 How to get on the internet also 32

22 Bandwidth Limiting 33

23 Time Synchronisation 34

List of Figures
1 Login as Aministrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Login as administrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3 Drives Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4 Create Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5 Desktop page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6 Connect page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7 Extend Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8 Create Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9 Edit Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
10 Quotum Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
11 Search page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
12 Drive Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
13 Duplicate Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
14 Changing the Administrator’s Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
15 Deleting a Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
16 Access to Settings/Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
17 Access to Settings/Quotum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
18 Access to Settings/Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
19 Access to Settings/Special . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
20 Access to Settings/IOMonitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
21 Access to Settings/Portconfiguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
22 Access to Settings/Network Alert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
23 Access to Settings/Portal Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
24 Access to Settings/Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
25 Access to Settings/Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
26 Access to RaidcardEthernetSettings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
27 Access to RaidcardSNMPTraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

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28 DesktopBandWidthLimiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

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1 DDP User Guide
Before using this manual the iSCSI, AVFS and XWindows software on at least
one Desktop should be installed. Operating the DDP is done on the desktop
using the DDP Graphical User Interface (Gui). This manual describes, how
DDP virtual drives are created, how they can be made visible for the clients to
connect to, how DDP drives can be organized in drive directories, how drive’s
capacities can be extended, edited, deleted, how to create and edit users and
groups and how to use the settings page.
The DDP works with the concept of DDP drives. In the Connect page DDP
drives have a r/w, readonly and/or r/w without delete connection point and can
be connected (mounting proces) to one a more desktops. The word DDP drive
is identical to the word workspace of some companies or the word Volume. In
general only the connect page is available to users. All other pages are available
after login as administrator. The factory setting for the administrator name is
admin and the password is initial.
Today the DDP can have 128 drives mounted, 100 desktops per drive and
100 desktops. The current maximum number of DDP drive mounts per desktop
is 15.

2 Gui briefly discussed

The figure shows the different DDP pages. The Connect page is where the
Desktop icons and a selection of DDP drive icons are shown. The top shows 6
tabs: Connect, Desktops, Drives, Users, Groups, Settings and Status.

Figure 1: Login as Aministrator

There is the Login/Logout option which allows logging in/out as adminis-

trator or user. Next to Login/out one finds Options which allows a complete
Rescan of the system. Because you are not yet logged in as administrator, the

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message “This page is only available when logged in as administrator (“admin”)
is shown on the screen.
The first step is to login as administrator to create a DDP drive using the
Drives page and enter a Desktop name in the Desktops page.

3 Login as administrator

Figure 2: Login as administrator

To login as administrator do one of the following:

• Select Login.

• Type the name admin.

• Type the admin password which comes with your DDP such as initial.

or:

• Select the Drives page.

• Type the password.

So now the next step: creating a DDP drive.

4 Creating A DDP Drive

DDP drives are created from the pool of storage. The pie on the right top corner
shows the available capacity. DDP drives are not physical drives. A DDP drive
is defined by a filesystem that is all. The pool of storage is virtualized. This
means that each DDP drive when used, accesses all physical drives in the system
simultaneously. The default filesystem to choose is AVFS, which stands for

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the Ardis Virtual File System, our metadata controller. AVFS has a capacity
limit of 2000 GB (2 TB). When format options is selected (see picture) other
formats are available. Most are there for generic reasons except: network and
Large AVFS. When Network is selected as format an NAS/SMB/CIFS share
is created with automatically appears on all computers connected to the DDP.
When capacities beyond 2 TB are needed the format: Large AVFS must be
used.
Large AVFS can not be used with Pro Tools. Large AVFS can not
be used with Windows XP, 32 bit.
DDP drive names must be between 3 and 15 characters. The
character allowed are standard letters and numbers, - and :.

• Select Create Drive.

• Determine the capaciteit. The default format is AVFS with capacity up to

2000 GB (2 TB).

• Select a Drive Group. This option is only there when the DDP is delivered
with Drive Groups (DG’s).

• Select a user or users or groups and select access rights. Only available
when the optional Workflow Manager is activated. See for that the Workflow
Manager’s manual.

• Press Create. After a short while the newly created drive appears in the list.

Figure 3: Drives Page

Do not use uppercase. Only use 0-9, a-z, and . , - as special

characters.
It is now time to enter desktop names.

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 Figure 4: Create Drive

5 Creating a Desktop
After the desktop name has been entered on the desktop. The desktop name
has to be entered in the DDP. This is done in the Desktop page. Because we
use iSCSI as the block IO communication the desktop name must be proceeded
by iqn. So the format is iqn.desktopname.
Do not use uppercase. Only use 0-9, a-z, and . , - as special
characters.

• Select Add Desktop.

• Enter iqn.xxx where xxx is the desktop name.

After the desktop name has been entered a connection (mount) between the
desktop and a DDP drive can be made.

6 Connecting a DDP Drive to the Desktop

Select the Connect screen and notice that only the desktop(s) are shown. Also
notice that the desktop you are at has a green boundary. If not either the
desktop name in the DDP database is not identical to the desktop name entered
on the desktop itself or you forgot to reboot the desktop. To make a connection

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 Figure 5: Desktop page

a DDP drive must show up in the connect screen as well. A DDP drive has to
be made visible.

• Select the Drive page. Login as administrator if necessary.

• Click on the active box of the drive which should appear in the Connect
screen.

• Select the Connect page.

• Use your mouse and start at the grey connection point of the Drive and
move the mouse to the connection point of the desktop. The grey square
stands for the R/W connection.

• Watch you blue (waiting to be mounted) line turn green (mounted). The
yellow drive icon should now be on the Mac screen. On Windows the drive
appears in My Computer

The grey point is R/W; the red point RO and the blue point R/W without
delete. When a connection is made an identical new connection point appears
unless R with W exclusive mode is set.
Okay now suppose the DDP drive made is almost full? In that case the
capacity of the drive can be extended. Extending is possible as long as the
storage pool has capacity available. The pie shows the status.

7 Extending the Capacity of a DDP drive

Before the capacity of a drive can be extended it has to clear that the drive is
unmounted (no connection should be there in the Connect page).

• Select Extend Drive.

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 Figure 6: Connect page

• Enter a value. AVFS can be extended up to 2 TB; Large AVFS Drives can
currently be up to 64 TB.

• Press Expand.

Although it maybe tempting in general it is not a good idea to use one huge
DDP drive. For the performance and functionality offered by the DDP it is
advisable to define a number of DDP drives tasks, users and/or projects based.
That way the management of who has access to what at certain stages of the
workflow is straightforward. That way no separate server with Active or Open
Directory is required.
To manage your DDP drives, so called Drive Directories can be created in
the DDP database, as follows:

8 Drive Directories
As many Drive directories and directories within directories (subdirectories) as
needed can be made.

• Select Create Directory.

• Enter name and comment.

• Press Create. The directory appears on the top of the screen.

With drag and drop DDP drives can be moved in or out of a particular
directory. These directories can be used to create overviews and organize work-
flow.

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 Figure 7: Extend Drive

9 Edit Drive
In the Drive page and then Edit Drive the drive name can be renamed and
information can be added to the comment field. Also quotum management
can be activated and a quotum value can be entered using the slider. When
the quotum is reached a Notification email will be send to the email addresses
entered in the Notification window in the Settings-Email page of the DDP Gui.
The quotum value can be preset in the Settings-Options page. That way each
newly created drive automatically gets that quotum value.
Check Disk
In the event that the filesystem of an AVFS drive must be repaired you can
activate Check Disk.
AVFS
Underneath AVFS, The Ardis Virtual File System, HFS+ is used. When
Check Disk is not able to repair the AVFS DDP drive the following procedure
can be done as a next step:

• Purchase Diskwarrior from Allsoft (www.allsoft.com) and install this on

a Mac desktop.

• Disconnect the drive to be repaired from all desktops.

• Deselect the AVFS active box. AVFS will be switched of and the drive is a
bare HFS+ drive now

• Select Diskwarrior, select the drive and repair options and start.

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 Figure 8: Create Directory

• When Diskwarrior is finished activate AVFS again and connect.

When there are only PC/Windows desktops and Check Disk does not help
please ask Ardis Technologies for a service connection. That way Ardis Tech-
nologies can do the possible file system repair remotely for you.
Defragment at next run
When this box is activated the DDP drives switches to a defrag mode and
the drive can not be used for other activity. When there are dpx/cineon/tiff
folders on the DDP drive these folders will be defragmented on the next run. In
the Settings page-Scheduling a next run can be set as an one time start process
or a schedule can be entered. Also- Defrag selected drives- must be set. To use
the DDP drive again for other activity the defrag box must be cleared.

10 Search
When there are many DDP drives but (part of) the name is known a particular
drive can be located using incremental search. Pressing the Search button again
brings back the Drives page.

11 Drive Info
Pressing this button shows in addition to other information when the DDP
drive was last used.

12 Duplicate Drive
Duplicate Drive means that DDP drive’s parameters plus the file system selected
is duplicated to ease the creation of other DDP drives.
Duplicate Drive does not copy any data!

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 Figure 9: Edit Drive

13 Rescanning, its purpose

To update the drives page with relevant information.

• Select Options.

• Press Rescan.

14 Changing the Administrator’s Password

• Select Users.

• Select Admin.

• Select Edit User.

• Type the new password.

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 Figure 10: Quotum Management

• Press Edit. You are still logged in as admin with the original password. When
you quit and log in again the new password becomes effective

15 Deleting Drives
• Select Delete Drive.

• Activate “Accept” to make sure that this is what you want and press
Delete.

16 Settings Page
The Settings Section consist of the Options, Profile, Email, Backup, Special,
Hardware and Scheduling subsections. We will discuss each subsection sepa-
rately now.

16.1 Options
16.1.1 Workflow Manager
Enable Workflow Manager is greyed out if you have not purchased this. If you
purchased the Workflow Manager the active box has to be activated and the

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 Figure 11: Search page

DDP has to be restarted for the Workflow Manager to take effect. See further
the DDP’s Workflow Manager Administration UserGuide.
When you change Enable Workflow Manager the DDP must be
restarted. Please disconnect DDP drives before doing so.

16.1.2 Default new drive options

This means that attributes which can be set are used when new drives are
created. The quotum which is activated and defined here will be used with
every new drive created. The quotum value can be defined using the slider.
The quotum setting thus defined then shows up when the Edit Drive window
is opened.
When the quotum limit is reached an Email is send to the Email address(es)
entered in the Settings page and then Email and then the notifications window.
The quotum which can be activated and set in Edit Drive is specific for that
drive.

16.2 Email
For notifications and error reporting Email addresses can be entered in this
page.

16.2.1 From
In this field the DDP’s Email address can be entered. When the company name
is Anyname and the email address is info@anyname.com the DDP address may
be something like ddp@anyname.com.

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 Figure 12: Drive Info

16.2.2 Smtp Server

Please enter your Smtp Server’s address here. This must be a fixed IP address
in the format: 172.16.0.4. We strongly advice not to use a text address here.
The reason being that NIC2 ( or another NIC) then needs to be permanently
connected to a DHCP server with the guarantee that the DHCP subnet does
not conflict with the other subnets.

16.2.3 Notifications
To add or remove Email addresses:

• In the DDP Settings page select Email.

• Select Add or Remove e-mail underneath the Notifications window.

• Enter an e-mail address in the window.

• Press Apply.

• Press OK.

To Test if the Email are received press Test. The following messages can be
received in the notifications field in the Settings-Email page:

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 Figure 13: Duplicate Drive

Quotum limit reached: message:

Drive over capacity! Drive: piep Capacity: 10015997 kb Free space: 6657608
kb Quota: 10
Also backup status: Information about what has been backed up via a
Backup DDP and when. See further the ArchiveDDP UserGuide.

16.2.4 Errors
To add or remove Email addresses:

• In the DDP Settings page select Email.

• Select Add or Remove e-mail underneath the Notifications window.
• Enter an e-mail address in the window.
• Press Apply.
• Press OK.

To Test if the Email will be received press Test. The following messages can
be received in the Errors field in the Settings-Email page: DDP Backup errors.
See further the ArchiveDDP UserGuide.

16.3 Backup
There are many ways to backup the DDP drives. To backup the DDP with any
of the standard solutions is straightforward when the backup facility runs via

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 Figure 14: Changing the Administrator’s Password

Figure 15: Deleting a Drive

one of the desktops to which also the DDP is connected. The backup application
then uses this desktops and the archive program backs up DDP drives as with
any drive or share.
Ardis Technologies also offers a mirror/archive/backup solution which con-
sists of an Archive DDP. The Archive DDP must at least have the capacity of
the production DDP. The Archive DDP is directly connected to the Production
DDP. The backup process is fully automated and scheduled. Depending on the
DDP version and the GbE or 10 GbE connection between both the backup
bandwidth can be 300 MB/s.
There is a separate manual for the optional Backup DDP solution. See
further the ArchiveDDP UserGuide.

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 Figure 16: Access to Settings/Options

16.4 Special
16.4.1 Logfile...
Send Logfile... uses the Error email address which has been setup in Settings-
Email. The logfile can be simple, medium or large. The Information sampled
in the Status page is Emailed. When no errors are there the command history
is shown.

16.4.2 Make Service Connection

For Redundant DDP’s see the DDPRedundantInstallationGuide how
to setup a Service Connection.
“Make Service Connection” is very important. In the case of an issue it
allows the DDP to make contact with Ardis Technologies allowing Ardis Tech-
nologies to login and advise what to do. To be able to use “Service Connection”
one of the DDP Ethernet ports must be connected to Internet. NIC2 is factory
set to DHCP for that and when a DHCP server is there and when the ethernet
cable to NIC2 is connected during DDP power up and port 22 outgoing (secure
shell port) is released service connection should work.
Make sure that NICx ports (where x can be 1 and onwards) all are
on different subnets. This must also be guaranteed for NIC2. When
NIC2 is used with DHCP, the IP address released by the DHCP
server for NIC2 must also be in a unique subnet.
The raidcard nic(s) are factory set to fixed IP addresses: 172.16.5.10x (
where x is 0 and onwards) and uses the 100 Mbit/s ethernet protocol. It is
good practise to have these raidcard ports fixed with IP addresses from the

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 Figure 17: Access to Settings/Quotum

same subnet the service connection uses. See for that the section Raidcard
settings.
Setting of Raidcard IP address(es) has no practical effect on the
DDP’s IP addresses

To setup Service Connection with the DDP Gui using a DHCP server:
Using the preconfigured NIC2 is the most straightforward procedure to setup
a service connection.

• Connect an ethernet cable to NIC2. NIC2 should be reachable by the DHCP

server. Most internet modems do have a DHCP server on board.

• (Re)start the DDP.

• Make sure port 22 outgoing (ssh port) is open on the Gateway, Modem
or Firewall. When you connect to an internet modem port 22 is open as is.

• Press Service Connection.

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 Figure 18: Access to Settings/Email

• Call Ardis technologies on 0031-26-3622337 to find out if SC was success-

ful.

If NIC2 is set to DHCP and connected and if there is no DNS

server this may lock the DDP. Make sure both DHCP and DNS
server are installed
To setup Service Connection using a fixed IP address
In this case: before the above mention procedure can be followed the IP
address and Gateway for the NIC designated must be set. Do this in Settings-
Special-network configuration. After that proceed with the procedure above.
What to do when this all does not work?
In that case we have to go beyond the graphical interface and fall back on
the command line interface using either Terminal on Mac or Putty on PC or
using a monitor and keyboard connected directly to the DDP. If a monitor with
a VGA connector and a usb or ps2 keyboard is available you can get into the
DDP this way. The user name is root and password: aap.
We describe a setup where only cables between NIC1 and NIC2 are connected
to a switch. First make sure that NIC1 is within a different subnet then your
DHCP net. NIC1 is factory set to 172.16.5.4 with subnet mask 255.255.0.0.
DDP’s known and fixed IP address upon delivery. To use Terminal or Putty
do the following:

• Make sure your computer’s IP address is in the same subnet as NIC1.

• Open Terminal on MAC or DOS command, CommandPrompt on PC. In

Applications-Utilities on the Mac and in Programs- Accessories in PC.

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 Figure 19: Access to Settings/Special

• Type: ping 172.16.5.4. To check if there is a phyical connection. The screen

shows now: 64 bytes from 172.16.5.4: icmpseq=0 ttl=64 time=0.121 ms or sim-
ilar and on PC: reply from 172.16.5.4 and so on. You can stop the pinging on
MAC with Ctrl C.

• Open Terminal or Putty. Putty must be first installed on PC.

• Type: ssh root@172.16.5.4. This is to logon to the DDP with user name: root.

• Type: aap (password). When another question pops up first, answer this with
yes. You are logged in to the DDP now.

• Type: ifconfig Eth1. Eth1 is the same as NIC2. If Eth1 does not show an IP
address type: ifup Eth1 and check ifconfig again. This way there is no need to
restart the DDP each time while doing this.

• Type ping www.google.com if a DNS server is available. If no DNS server

is available type ping www.google.com in the terminal program on a computer
with internet access to resolve the google’s IP address (maybe for example:
74.125.77.99). Then while logged on to the DDP type ping 74.125.77.99 to test if
the DDP has internet access. If this does not function the IP address of NIC2 is
not released for internet access Please solve this problem first. Then when that
functions:

• Check if port 22 outgoing is enabled for the DDP.

• Then while still logged in to the DDP type: connect-to-internetThat is the

same as pressing the Service Connection button.

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 • If you believe it should function now call Ardis Technologies at 0031-26-
3622337.

Other ways to allow Ardis Technologies to logon remotely to the DDP

When your company does not allow a Service Connection to be setup and
your company has their own policy a VPN can be setup based on your se-
curity requirements. alternatively a wireless GSM/UMTS connection can be
organized.
It is important to note that for service a remote connection which
allows access to the DDP for diagnostics and update purposes is
mandatory

16.4.3 Power Down

You can power down the DDP this way in a normal fashion. Alternatively when
you briefly press the power down button on the front of the DDP the DDP will
also switch off normally. There maybe a situation when the DDP does not react
to the remote power down or the quick pressing of the power down button on
the front of the DDP (crash situation). In that case please keep the power down
on the front of the DDP pressed until the DDP switches off. Then switch the
DDP on again and contact your dealer or Ardis Technologies.

16.4.4 Restart
Restart reboots the DDP in a normal safe fashion.

16.4.5 IO Monitor
The IO monitor shows a time based overview of the sustained bandwidth
from/to the Drives, the bandwidth per Drive Group, the total network band-
width and the bandwidth per DDP port.
On standalone DDP’s Eth0 is the same as NIC1, eth1 as NIC2 etc. On
Redundant DDP’s, DDP consisting of DDPHeadM and DDPHeadS, Eth0 stands
for Fallback1, eth1 is the same as NIC1, eth2 as NIC2 and so on.

16.4.6 network configuration

On standalone DDP’s Eth0 is the same as NIC1, eth1 as NIC2 etc. On Redun-
dant DDP’s, DDP consisting of DDPHeadM and DDPHeadS, Eth0 stands for
Fallback1, eth1 is the same as NIC1, eth2 as NIC2 and so on. In the network
configuration panel, IP addresses, subnet masks, the mode (manually, DHCP or
disabled) and the MTU can be set. The big windows is called the eth Windows.
That Windows shows the IP address and the connection status (disconnected,
1Gb/s, 100 Mb/s, 10 Gb/s)of the ports themselves. The other attributes which
port specific are in the pulldown selectors and text boxes on the right. They
show attributes per port. All GbE ports are factory set to an MTU of 1500.
The 10 GbE ports are factory set to 9000. Depending on the settings of a
switch for 10 GbE an MTU of 1500 or 9000 (jumbo frames) can be entered.

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 Figure 20: Access to Settings/IOMonitor

There can be only one Gateway address. A gateway allows access to the outside
world. For a gateway to be reachable the gateway address must within one of
the DDP’s subnets. Changes typed in one of the fields can be saved with Ap-
ply. When Revert is pressed the change you typed are undone in the pulldown
and text boxes and the original values are shown again. Once Apply is done
Revert is not effective anymore. It is best to set DDP IP addresses using this
interface and not use the command line interface. The Gui displays messages
when violations occur. See the pictures for that.
Make sure that under no circumstances two ports are in the same
subnet. There maybe communication then at one moment and none
at the next
When the option Disabled in the Configure pull down box is selected and
Applied to an ethernet port the message (down) appears next to the port name.
Although not shown the IP address is still the same as it was shown before.
The picture Network Alert shows an Alert which appears when you try to
enter a second IP address in the same subnet. The option is given to con-

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 Figure 21: Access to Settings/Portconfiguration

tinue because you may do this on purpose while entering all addresses. The
diagnostics itself is shown next to the Gateway text box.

Figure 22: Access to Settings/Network Alert

portal config

A portal must be defined if you need more bandwidth then 110 MB/s while
connected to a 1GbE network. Portal here stands for a group of at least two
ethernet ports sharing the bandwidth. For Windows use iSCSI Initiator 2.0.7
and AVFS driver 2.0.9 and onwards. For Mac use iSCSIPrefs 1.2.6 and AVFS
package 2.0.16 and onwards. Any number of portals can be made and each
portal can contain 2 or more subnet IP addresses.
The bandwidth of 1 GbE line (1000 Mbit/s) is limited to approximately 110

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MB/s. For higher bandwidths optionally 10GbE cards can be installed/used.
However most desktops these days have two 1GbE ports. If the bandwidth
requirement is above 100 MB/s but below 200 MB/s (all relevant uncompressed
HD format fall in this range) both 1GbE ports can be paired using our MCS
technology (Multiple Connections per Session).
To initialize MCS on the DDP for 2 x GbE ports using NIC1 (eth0) and
NIC3 (eth2) of the DDP:

• Set NIC1 of the PC or Mac in the same subnet as NIC1 on the DDP for
example.Verify that one of these DDP NIC’s from this portal group is also the
address entered in iSCSIPrefs on Mac or entered using AVFSSetup.exe on PC.
Under this condition you can combine other NIC’s as well.

• Set NIC2 of the PC of Mac in the same subnet as NIC3 on the DDP for
example.Both nics on the desktop are in different subnets now.

• Select eth0 (NIC1).

• Select Portal Group in Network Configurations.

• Type “1”Can be any number, 1,2,3 and so on. Only a number.

• Press Apply.

• Repeat these steps for NIC3.

• Restart the DDP.

DDP Updates before February 8, 2011: When a portal group is

defined on the DDP it is mandatory to connect all portal group lines
to the Desktops. If not DDP drives may appear at random. DDP
updates from February 8, 2011: With MCS active you can now also
have one connection instead of 2 or 3. See below how to set that up.
Except entering IP addresses for NIC’s in different subnets, there are no
other settings required on PC/Windows.
To check MCS on PC with 2 x GbE ports:

• Select the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator (see the appropriate manuals for that).

• Connect a DDP drive to the Desktop via the DDP Gui.

• Check in Targer-Details of the iSCSI initiator that “connection count” is

set to 2 (or more). If that is not the case please check the setup procedure
again.

• Select connections in the initiator and check that Round Robin is selected.

• Run the Aja Speedtests and check with IO Monitor.

To use one connection on PC with MCS active on DDP:

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• Open Dos Command or open Run.Make sure you have entered IP addresses
for both Desktop and DDP.

• Type: “ ping DDP IP address”. Check that there is communication with the
DDP.

• You can now use the DDP.

To set MCS for Mac with 2 x GbE ports:

• Login as user with administrative rights.

• Select iSCSIPrefs-Options.

• Set MaxConnections to 2.

• Close Options.

• Restart the Mac.

To check MCS on Mac:

• Connect a DDP drive to the desktop.

• Open iSCSIPrefs.

• Select Server and in the window hightlight the IP address of the DDP.

• Press Connect and click on the arrow in front of the DDP’s IP address.

• Select the drive and press Disks. Verify that Connections is 2/2.

• Run the Aja Speedtest and check with IO Monitor.

To use one connection on Mac with MCS active on DDP

• Open Terminal.Make sure you have entered IP addresses for both Desktop and
DDP.

• Type: “ ping DDP IP address”. Check that there is communication with the
DDP.

• You can now use the DDP.

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 Figure 23: Access to Settings/Portal Groups

16.5 Hardware
The Settings-Hardware page is a (preventive) maintenance page. Each DDP has
one or more raidcards. The raidcards communicate with the Drives and control
the Volumes with particular raid levels and other infomation. The raidcard can
be controlled using IE for PC or Firefox on Mac via their own ethernet port
(not all raidcards in DDP4D, DDP6D and DDP8D have their own ethernet
port; they are accessed via NIC1). The raidcard’s ethernet port is 100 Mbit/s
and the factory settings are 172.16.5.10x. With x is from 0 to n. The raidcard
can also be controlled via its CLI (Command Line Interface). Also SNMP traps
can be entered via the CLI or Webbrowser. The traps can be made available
to HP Openview or Nagios for example. The Hardware page in the DDP Gui
displays CLI information graphically. The action buttons trigger specific CLI
commands.

16.5.1 Volume Operations

The default setup for each DDP in audio are Raid5 sets of 4 drives and for video
and film Raid5 sets of 8 drives. There are also deviations. The DDP6D has
a raid5 set of 6 drives both for audio and video. In raidcard terminology one
would say that there are raid 5 volumes created for example on 8 drives, hence
the word volume in the Hardware page. Do not confuse this volume naming
with a DDP drive. A DDP is a virtual object defined by a file system. That
is all. A DDP drive is highly virtualized and have no direct connection with a
volume as defined by the raidcard.
get volumes info
When this button is pressed all raidcard volumes are displayed with param-
eters such as capacity, raid level, stripesize, number of disks. It may take a
view seconds before the information appears. With Clear Output the window

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 Figure 24: Access to Settings/Hardware

is cleared. Cancel and Apply have no meaning because “get volumes info” is
an action button.
start volumes check
Start volumes check begins to write and read every block of each disk drive
of each volume. Disk drive blocks which after retries fail are deallocated. It
is clear that this volume check procedure takes much time. It is best done
during nights or weekend. The volume check process can be scheduled in the
Scheduling page.
It is adviced to run a volume check monthly. It is preventive
maintenance activity It is good practise to enable SMART info during
a scheduled run and administer these. That way smart result can be
compared the check has a low priority so can continue during a daily
operation. If you feel that it influences the daily operation too much
the stop volumes check button can be pressed
When the smart read error rate suddenly changes in a period it could indi-
cate that the drive is slowly breaking down.
stop volumes check
Pressing “stop volumes check” interrupts the volume check procedure. When
“start volume check” is pressed again the process start again from the begin-
ning.
edit drive group names
A number of raid volumes are combined in a drive group (DG). DDP drives
are created from these DG’s. A DG simultaneously accesses the number of
disk drives in a DG. This is defined as: Number of Drives in a DG = Number
of Volumes x Number of Disk Drives in a Volume. A Drive Group that way
determines the bandwidth of each DDP drive. DG names are factory set but the

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names can be altered using “edit drive group names”. The Number of Drives
in a DG are factory set but can be adapted to your requirement before usage.

16.5.2 Disks Operations

Disk drive operations are operations performed on each physical hard disk in
the DDP separately.
disks and SATA SMART info
Currently both options display the same information. The smart infor-
mation is relevant for preventive maintenance. Smart information is best to
be regarded as relative information. When the information is sampled on a
monthly basis and in a period suddenly the read error rate increases close to
the treshold it maybe an idea to replace the drive beforehand.
Performance of the DDP can be negatively influenced by a drive
on the verge of breaking down.

16.5.3 System
The following is information from the raidcard system.
system events
Via the raidcard browser or CLI levels of system event notifications can be
set. When this button is pressed the history of all raidcard events is displayed.
hardware info
This displays firmware and other information of the DDP chassis itself.

16.6 Scheduling
In the scheduling page volume check and or defragmentation can be sched-
uled. For defragmentation to be scheduled a DDP drive has to be selected for
defragmentation in Edit Drive.
To activate any of the parameters on this page Apply must be
pressed.

17 Status
The status page will redefined in the future.

18 Raidcard Settings
Redundant DDPs consisting of two DDPHeads have a different setup
for the Raidcards. See the DDPRedundantInstallationGuide for that.
As already explained the raidcard can be accessed via IE or Firefox using a
100 Mbit/s ethernet connection, CLI or via Setting-Hardware. The factory
default IP address of the first raidcard is 172.16.5.100. Additional raidcards
have addresses 172.16.5.10x with x = 1,2 etc. It is important that during
installation the proper IP address, the SMPT server IP address and Email

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 Figure 25: Access to Settings/Scheduling

addresses are entered. That way the raicard sends event notifications to these
addresses. Also SNMP traps can set for that purpose.

Figure 26: Access to RaidcardEthernetSettings

19 Capacity Calculation and Usage

The capacity of DDP drives and the DynamicDrivePool pie presented are based
on the way manufacturers calculate their Drive capacities. This is done as
follows: 1 TB = 1000 GB = 1000 x 1000 MB = 1000 x 1000 x 1000 KB =
1000 x 1000 x 1000 x1000 Bytes. The capacities shown in My Computer on
Windows, or with Get Info on Mac and also on Linux are calculated with 1024.
This means that a capacity shown in DDP of 1 TB = 10**12 Bytes but 10 **

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 Figure 27: Access to RaidcardSNMPTraps

12 bytes on a computer comes out with 10 ** 12/(1024 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024)

= 10 **12/(1,1 x 10 ** 12) = 0,91 TB.
So lets say a DDP24D is purchased for video with 24 x 1 TB drives. It is
delivered with raid 5 protection on each 8 drives. This means that the effective
capacity is 21 TB. This results on the Desktop in a usable capacity of max: 19,1
TB. It is also good practice to limit the capacity usage to max. 90 percent. So
the actual usable capacity will be then 16/17 TB.

20 Login in using Terminal or Putty

To login to the DDP via a terminal or Putty do the following:

• Open Terminal or Putty.

• Type: ssh root@DDP IP address. DDP address which is in the same subnet
as this desktop.

• Type: yes when a question appears where this is required. Does not always
appear.

• Type: aap the factory password.

• You are logged on to the DDP.

21 How to get on the internet also

It is of importance that the bandwidth between the desktops and DDP is guar-
anteed. The DDP therefore preferably should be set up with fixed IP addresses.
The DDP setup also prefers the use of subnets instead of VLAN or Teaming.
Use of subnets has the advantage that bandwidth demand is always confined to

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a subnet. It also has the advantage that when an ethernet port or cable mal-
functions a limite number of desktops are affected and diagnosing the problem
will be quick.
Also the less undeterministic traffic happens the better it is. Whenever
possible office, internet and other non-DDP data traffic should run via a differ-
ent ethernet port. Most desktops these days have two GbE ports. When the
bandwidth of 1GbE port will suffice for the type of work performed the other
port (NIC2) can be used for internet and other access. Of course when MCS
or laptops are used this is not possible. However even if you have one GbE
port, multiple IP addresses can be entered for that port. You then have at least
a partial separation from the switch onwards between the DDP data and the
office data. Another option is to use additional ethernet cards or usb2ethernet
devices.

22 Bandwidth Limiting
The DDP is expected to sustain sufficient bandwidth for non drop frame based
playback and recording. In addition typical IO processes such as copying or
rendering are happening. In contrast with a continuous stream of data like with
playback these processes are highly irregular with peak bandwidth reaching the
port’s wire speed. A fast render machine connected may be silent for 1 second
and then give a short 1 second burst of data thereby overloading a shared GbE
port for example. The differences between these two types of behavior can be
easily observed by looking at the IO Monitor. To control interference between
sustained bandwidth and IO processes bandwidth limiting can be helpful. The
DDP offers bandwidth control on the iSCSI block IO level. This means that
settings of the bandwidth limits are subject to negotation between the target
and the source. This way both for up and download bandwidth can be adjusted
without any loss of TCP/IP frames. Both up and download bandwidth can be
set independently per desktop. The procedure is as follows:

• Make sure no DDP drive is connected to the desktop.

• Select Add or Edit Desktop.

• Activate Down or Up Speed Limit or both.

• Type a value in MB(ytes)/s or use the arrows.

• Press Change.

A good testing tool here would be the Aja speedtest. A practical con-
sideration when controlling the bandwidth is to take between 1,5-2 times the
sustained data rate on playback as the upper limit for download. When there
is no recording the upload bandwidth can be lower of course. Because desktops
these days are fast processes such as copying and rendering can be as quick
as the network port allows. A MacPro with a 1 GbE connection to the DDP
during rendering or copying can get as high as 117 MB/s or even up to 1000

33
MB/s when 10 GbE is used. Of course anybody wants to have these processes
done as quickly as possible. However each DDP is specified to provide a cer-
tain throughput. These throughput must be divided between the sustained
streams and other processes.By limiting the bandwidth of these so called other
processes the total operational bandwidth can be kept within the limits of the
DDP purchased.

Figure 28: DesktopBandWidthLimiting

23 Time Synchronisation
It is good practise to connect DDP and desktops to a time server. In fact
in an Avid environment it is a necessity because scanning of the MediaFiles
directories rely on that. The obvious way is to connect DDP and desktops to
the company’s time server which connects to an NTP time server or directly to
the NTP time server most appropriate for your country via internet. When that
is not possible the DDP can be configured as time server. Also here the DDP
functions better as a time server when it has access to an NTP time server.
There is already a time server in use or available to the desktops
Via a service connection the /etc/NTP.conf file needs to be edited to al-
low connection to the proper NTP server. In this case the desktops when not
already connected to the time server must be connected to the time server.
Select System Preferences-Date And Time on the Mac and or in Control Panel-
Clock, Language and or Region-Date and Time-Internet Time-Change Settings
on Windows and pick one server from the list offered. Also Set date and time
automatically (Mac) and or Synchronize with an Internet time server (Win-
dows) must be activated.
There is no time server in use nor available to the desktops
Via a service connection the /etc/NTP.conf file needs to be edited to allow
connection to the proper NTP server or to function as a standalone time server.

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In this case the desktops when not already connected to the time server must use
the DDP as time server. The IP Address which is used to connect the desktop
to the DDP must be entered in System Preferences-Date And Time on the Mac
and or in Control Panel- Clock, Language and Region-Date and Time-Internet
Time-Change Settings on Windows. Also Set date and time automatically
(Mac) and or Synchronize with an Internet time server (Windows) must be
activated.

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