Pass the EMC Converged Infrastructure D-PWF-OE-00 Questions and answers with CertsForce

A Storage Pool is a logical entity that aggregates the capacity of physical devices.

Define the Protection Domain (Option A): The Storage Pool hierarchy is strict. You must first create a Protection Domain (PD), which groups the SDS nodes. The Storage Pool is then created within that Protection Domain. You cannot create a Storage Pool without this parent container.

Assign drives with similar performance characteristics (Option B): This is a critical configuration requirement. PowerFlex stripes data across all drives in a pool. If you mix NVMe and SATA drives in the same pool, the fast NVMe drives will wait for the slow SATA drives, dragging the entire pool's performance down to the lowest common denominator (the "straggler" effect). Therefore, standard procedure is to create separate pools for separate media types (e.g., "Performance_Pool" for NVMe, "Capacity_Pool" for HDD).

Note: In the context of PowerFlex exams, there is often a distinction between "Lifecycle Management" (PowerFlex Manager) and "Block Storage Operations" (GUI/Presentation Server).

GUI (Option C): The PowerFlex Web UI (often accessed via the Presentation Server or the unified dashboard in v4) is the primary tool for Day-to-Day tasks. This includes mapping volumes to hosts, taking snapshots, monitoring IOPS, and checking capacity usage. It provides the visual topology of the storage.

PowerFlex Manager (D): While modern versions unify this, historically and in exam logic, PFxM is the tool for deployment, upgrades, and hardware alerts (Lifecycle), whereas the "GUI" is for storage management.

The CLI (B) is used for scripting and advanced tasks, but the GUI is the standard for general daily operations.

The order of operations for a PowerFlex upgrade is strict and dictated by the software architecture.

Metadata Managers (MDM): The MDM is the "brain" of the cluster. It holds the cluster map and configuration. It must be upgraded first (Primary, then Secondary, then Tie-Breakers) so that it can understand the newer protocol versions and manage the upgrade of the subsequent components. An older MDM cannot manage a newer SDS.

Storage Data Servers (SDS): Once the MDMs are upgraded, the storage nodes are upgraded one by one (or fault set by fault set).

Storage Data Clients (SDC): Finally, the host-side drivers are updated.

Therefore, A (Metadata Managers) is the correct first step. Fault Sets (C) are logical groups, not software components to be upgraded.

Protection Domain (Option B): The Protection Domain (PD) is the parent container in the PowerFlex hierarchy.

Hierarchy: Protection Domain $\rightarrow$ Storage Pool $\rightarrow$ Device (Disk).

Logic: A Storage Pool cannot exist in a vacuum; it must belong to a specific Protection Domain. The PD defines which group of SDS nodes the pool spans. You must create the PD first, add SDSs to the PD, and then create the Storage Pool inside that PD.