Format of User Templates

A user template consists of a list of capabilities and rules. Associated with each capability is a list of parameter-value pairs that define default parameter values for the capability. The format of a typical user template specification is shown here:

user_template usertmplt_tname {
  description "string"
  descriptionid id
  capability capability1 {
   attribute_name:type = default_value
   ...
  }
  capability capability2 {
   attribute_name = default_value
   ...
  }
  ...
  rules {
   rule1
   rule2
   ...
  }
};

This definition has the following important components:

usertmplt_name Defines the name of the user template, for example, MyReliableReplication, and MySWSnapshot.

description Describes a user template in English.

descriptionid References the message catalog where localized versions of the description may be found, and provides an index number for the description in the catalog.

capability Indicates the capabilities that are provided by volumes created from the user template.

attribute_name Defines the name and value of a parameter.

rules Specifies the start of the section that contains the rules for selecting and laying out storage, and which implement the capabilities that the user template provides. See Rules.

For a formal definition of user_template in the ISP language, see User Template.

For example, consider a capability named HardwareReplication that has two variable parameters that specify the source and the destination:

capability HardwareReplication {
var source:string
var destination:string
};

In addition, the capability named Reliable, provides reliability by creating a mirrored volume:

capability Reliable {
var NMIRS:int
};

Rules can also be specified to user templates, as shown in these examples that could be used for creating application volumes for database tables and indexes:

user_template DB_Table {
  description "Makes mirrored volume for a database table"
  capability DataMirroring {
   NMIRS = 2
  }
  rules {
   confineto "VendorName"="EMC"
  }
};

user_template DB_Index {
  description "Makes high performance volume for a database index"
  capability Striping {
   NCOLS = 8
  }
  rules {
   confineto "VendorName"="EMC"
  }
};

The user template, DB_Table, can be used to create a mirrored volume with two plexes, but is restricted to using only EMC disks. Similarly, the user template, DB_Index, can be used to create a striped volume with eight columns, and is also restricted to using only EMC disks.


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Product: Storage Foundation Guides
Manual: Storage Foundation 4.1 Intelligent Storage Provisioning Administrator's Guide
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