Block Storage Provisioning and Management

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Block Storage Provisioning and Management

Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:• Describe configuration guidelines for provisioning storage• Configure and manage storage objects

Block Storage Provisioning and Management 1



This lesson covers the following topics:• General considerations• Storage Pools and RAID Groups• LUNs

Lesson 1: VNX Storage Objects



General Considerations for Configuring Storage• Drive types

Drives selection should be based upon the expected workload FLASH for extreme performance SAS for general performance NL-SAS for streaming, aging data and archives, and backups

• RAID levels Match the appropriate RAID level with the expected workload

RAID 1/0 for heavy transactional random writes (> 25%) RAID 5 for medium-high performance, general workloads, and

sequential I/O RAID 6 for NL-SAS read-based workloads and archives



Pool vs. RAID Group

Extreme Performance Tier (SSD)

Performance Tier (SAS)

Capacity Tier (NL-SAS)

RAID 1/0: (4+4)

RAID 5: (8+1) RAID 5: (8+1)

RAID 6: (14+2)

Pool Example

RAID 1/0: (4+4)

RAID 5: (8+1)

RAID 6: (14+2)

RAID 5: (4+1)

RAID 6: (6+2)

RAID Group 0

RAID Group 1

RAID Group 2

RAID Group 3

RAID Group 4

RAID Group Examples



Pool Considerations

Pools can contain a few or hundreds of disks• Spreads workloads over many resources• Can contain a single drive type (homogeneous) or multiple drive

types (heterogeneous)• Building blocks for FAST VP operations

RAID Configuration is moved from the pool level to the tier level• Users can select RAID protection by tier• Mixed RAID types supported within a Pool• Once the tier is created, the RAID Configuration for that tier in that

pool cannot changeMulti-Pool Support• Separate workloads for different I/O profiles• Dedicate resources for performance goals



RAID Group Considerations

•Limited to a single drive type and a maximum of 16 drives per RAID group

Drive count

•Drives can be selected from the same bus (horizontal) or different busses (vertical)

•Best practice is to use horizontal selection

Drive location

•Used on 4 +1 RAID 5 groups when the predominant workload is large-block random read activityLarge

element size



Thick LUNs

Capacity of a thick LUN, is distributed equally across the disks in the pool

• Full capacity allocated at time of creation

Capacity of a thick LUN, same as the user capacity seen by the server

Uses slightly more capacity than user data



Thin LUNsCapacity visible to the server is independent of the available physical storage in the pool

Competes with other LUNs in the pool for the pool’s available storage

A thin LUN can run out of disk space if the pool to which it belongs runs out of disk space

A thin LUN uses slightly more capacity than the amount of user data written to it due to the metadata



Classic LUNs

Created on RAID Groups

All space allocated at creation time

• LBAs are physically contiguous

Predictable performance and data layout

Support active-active host access• Simultaneous access through SPA and SPB• Trespassing of LUNs no longer required




During this lesson the following topics were covered:• General considerations• Storage Pools and RAID Groups• LUNs

Lesson 1: Summary




This lesson covers the following topics:• Creating Storage Pools• Creating LUNs• Displaying and monitoring storage objects

Lesson 2: Managing Storage Objects

11Block Storage Provisioning and Management


Provisioning Storage with Unisphere

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The Pools tab is selected by default



Creating a Storage Pool

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Multiple combo boxes will be shown

for the level of performance that can be achieved with the installed disk types



Creating a Pool LUN

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Thin LUNs are created by default. To create a Thick LUN uncheck the

Thin box.



Displaying Pool Properties (General Tab)



Displaying Pool Properties (Disks Tab)



Displaying Pool Properties (Advanced Tab)



Displaying Pool Properties (Tiering Tab)



Displaying Pool LUN Properties (General Tab)



Displaying Pool LUN Properties



Creating a Storage Pool: RAID Group (General Tab)

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Users have the option to manually select the disks for

the RAID Group



Creating a Storage Pool: RAID Group (Advanced Tab)



Creating a RAID Group LUN (General Tab)



Creating a RAID Group LUN (Advanced Tab)



Displaying RAID Group Properties



Displaying RAID Group LUN Properties (General Tab)



Displaying RAID Group LUN Properties




During this lesson the following topics were covered:• Creating Storage Pools• Creating LUNs• Displaying and monitoring VNX storage

Lesson 2: Summary



SummaryKey points covered in this module:• Described characteristics of VNX storage objects such as pools,

LUNs, disks, and RAID Groups.• Considerations for employing the different storage object

options• Both thick and thin LUNs can share the same pool• Steps to create Pool and RAID Group storage pools, and thin and

thick LUNs from these pools.


Documents

Block Storage Provisioning and Management