The IBM® System Storage™ DS Open Application Programming Interface (API) is a nonproprietary storage management client application that supports routine LUN management activities, such as LUN creation, mapping and masking, and the creation or deletion of RAID 5 and RAID 10 volume spaces. The DS Open API supports these activities through the use of the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S), as defined by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).
The DS Open API helps integrate configuration management support into storage resource management (SRM) applications, which allow customers to benefit from existing SRM applications and infrastructures. The DS Open API also enables the automation of configuration management through customer-written applications. Either way, the DS Open API presents another option for managing storage units by complementing the use of the IBM System Storage DS Storage Manager web-based interface and the DS command-line interface.
You must implement the DS Open API through the IBM System Storage Common Information Model (CIM) agent, a middleware application that provides a CIM-compliant interface. The DS Open API uses the CIM technology to manage proprietary devices as open system devices through storage management applications. The DS Open API allows these storage management applications to communicate with a storage unit.
The DS Open API supports the IBM System Storage DS8000 and the IBM System Storage DS6000, and the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server. It is available for the AIX, Linux, and Windows operating system environments and must be used on storage units that have fibre-channel ports.