59.7.3.1 Metadevices management

What is a metadevice?
A cloud-device is a logical representation of a physical storage resource within an Etere system, which can be a group of volumes (individual disk storage areas) represented on a system as a single, logical disk.

Metadevices are actually virtual devices used as physical slices. The use of metadevices is fully supported by Etere, and it significantly improves the storage process on its various levels when used for either join or divide physical devices, its most relevant advantages includes the following:
➢Reduction of cost - Allows the use of a single storage device as multiple devices (distribution) or vice versa (expansion).
➢Enhance the reliability - By distributing media between different locations, its security is improved.
➢Flexible configuration - Use selective metadevices to fit specific needs.
➢Improved access-times - By using a single device, access-times become shorter.
➢Functional organization - Use metadevices for specific tasks and specific media types.

Available functions
The "Etere Resources Editor" provides the following functions for the management of metadevices within the system:

management_of_metadevices

Add new cloud-device - Creates a new metadevice.
Edit cloud-device - Modify the selected metadevice.
Delete cloud-device - Removes the selected metadevice from the system.
If the metadevice contain metadata, you must first copy the metadata to another location and perform a logical deletion of metadata with ingest, before you can remove the metadevice from Resource Editor.
NB: In case a resource is removed, all its associated paths belonging to other devices will be automatically placed in the System Storage.
Set cloud-device offline - Set the selected metadevice as offline and set all its volumes and metafiles stored as "unavailable" (e.g. unable to be transmitted).
Metadevices with offline volumes will be displayed as follows:
•completely offline: All paths of the metadevice are set as offline.
•partially offline: Only some paths of the metadevice are set as offline.
Set cloud-device online - Set the cloud-device to "online" and set all its stored metafiles available.
Move to system storage - Removes the selected path from the metadevice, making it available for association.
View associated files - Displays a list of metafiles currently linked to the selected metadevice.
Updates workflow actions list - Updates all the workflows related to the selected metadevice with the new/changed properties.
Expand all - Show all the paths within all the metadevices.
Collapse all - Show only all the metadevices, hidden all the paths.
Refresh - Updates the list of metadevices.

Note: The button available in the top of the window allows opening the "Media Folders" configuration section. This section explained how to use the Etere's Resources Editor module for managing metadevices in your system, thus allowing you to graphically create, display, or edit your metadevice configuration. Keys operations explained in this chapter includes how to:

Topics in this chapter
Create a Cloud-device
Join Disks into a single Cloud-device
Divide one Disk into Cloud-devices
Set a Space Limit for a Cloud-device
Use a Metadevice via Workflow
Migration between cloud-devices
Moving paths between cloud-devices
Add AWS S3 Storage device