Implementing the IBM SAN Volume Controller and FlashSystem 820

Book description

In today's 24 x 7 world, there is likely not a business on this planet, IBM® Smarter Planet® or not, that finds that their storage requirements are growing too fast and demand is starting to outpace supply. Not only this, but in this cost-conscious environment of today, the costs of managing this growth are likely to be eating into the IT budget.

One way to make better use of existing storage without adding more complexity to the infrastructure is the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller (SVC). For many years now this has helped business become more flexible, agile, and introduced an extremely efficient storage environment. SAN Volume Controller is designed to deliver the benefits of storage virtualization in environments from large enterprises to small businesses and midmarket companies.

Virtualizing storage with SAN Volume Controller helps make new and existing storage more effective. SAN Volume Controller includes many functions that are traditionally deployed separately in disk systems. By including these in a virtualization system, SAN Volume Controller standardizes functions across virtualized storage for greater flexibility and potentially lower costs.

Now, with IBM FlashSystem™ storage, SAN Volume Controller is enabled to extend its reach and benefit all virtualized storage. For example, IBM Easy Tier® optimizes use of flash storage. And IBM Real-time Compression™ enhances efficiency even further by enabling the storage of up to five times as much active primary data in the same physical disk space.

In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we show how to integrate the IBM FlashSystem 820 to provide storage to the SAN Volume Controller, and show how they are designed to operate seamlessly together, reducing management effort.

In this book, which is aimed at pre- and post-sales support, storage administrators, and people that want to get an overview of this new and exciting technology, we show the steps required to implement the IBM FlashSystem 820 in an existing SAN Volume Controller environment. We also highlight some of the new features in SAN Volume Controller that increase performance.

If you are not already familiar with the SAN Volume Controller, it is beneficial to read the following IBM Redbooks publications:
- Implementing the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller V6.3, SG24-7933
- Implementing the IBM Storwize V7000 V6.3, SG24-7938
- Real-time Compression in SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000, REDP-4859
- IBM SAN Volume Controller and IBM FlashSystem 820: Best Practices and Performance Capabilities, REDP-5027
- IBM FlashSystem 710 and IBM FlashSystem 810, TIPS1002
- IBM FlashSystem 720 and IBM FlashSystem 820, TIPS1003
- Flash or SSD: Why and When to Use IBM FlashSystem, REDP-5020

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  3. Preface
    1. Authors
      1. Now you can become a published author, too!
      2. Comments welcome
      3. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction to IBM SAN Volume Controller and IBM FlashSystem 820
    1. 1.1 IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller
      1. 1.1.1 IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller overview
      2. 1.1.2 IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller design overview
      3. 1.1.3 SAN Volume Controller architecture and components
      4. 1.1.4 IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center
    2. 1.2 SAN Volume Controller hardware and software updates of interest to this book
      1. 1.2.1 Hardware updates for SVC
      2. 1.2.2 New features in SVC Storage Software version 7.1
    3. 1.3 Introduction to IBM FlashSystem storage systems
      1. 1.3.1 IBM FlashSystem storage system portfolio
      2. 1.3.2 Differences between IBM FlashSystem families and models
    4. 1.4 Introduction to flash solid-state technology
      1. 1.4.1 Types of flash memory used in IBM FlashSystems
      2. 1.4.2 Unique characteristics
      3. 1.4.3 Single-level cell memory
      4. 1.4.4 Multi-level cell memory
      5. 1.4.5 Solid-state drive architecture
      6. 1.4.6 Flash memory lifetime
    5. 1.5 IBM FlashSystem storage systems technology overview
      1. 1.5.1 IBM FlashSystem storage systems architecture
      2. 1.5.2 Data protection and redundancy in the IBM FlashSystem 820
      3. 1.5.3 RAID technologies
      4. 1.5.4 Flash memory protection
      5. 1.5.5 RAID rebuild process
      6. 1.5.6 Differences between IBM FlashSystem storage systems and SSD-based storage systems
      7. 1.5.7 Usage considerations for IBM FlashSystem storage systems
  5. Chapter 2. Usage considerations and scenarios
    1. 2.1 Usage considerations
      1. 2.1.1 Port assignment scenarios and related considerations
      2. 2.1.2 SAN Volume Controller Stretched Cluster
      3. 2.1.3 Port masking on SVC with IBM FlashSystem 820
      4. 2.1.4 Host multipathing
      5. 2.1.5 Considerations regarding number of FlashSystem per I/O group
    2. 2.2 Usage scenarios
      1. 2.2.1 All FlashSystem usage scenario
      2. 2.2.2 FlashSystem with SAN Volume Controller volume mirroring
    3. 2.3 SAN Volume Controller volume mirroring use cases with FlashSystem
      1. 2.3.1 Volume mirroring between two FlashSystem storage systems
      2. 2.3.2 Volume mirroring between a FlashSystem storage system and a non-flash storage system
    4. 2.4 Using FlashSystem with SVC Easy Tier
      1. 2.4.1 General considerations with Easy Tier
      2. 2.4.2 Separate FlashSystem storage pools and existing storage pools that are not using IBM Easy Tier
    5. 2.5 FlashSystem with SVC replication
    6. 2.6 Failure protection capabilities
      1. 2.6.1 FlashSystem 820 hardware failure protection
      2. 2.6.2 SVC hardware failure protection
      3. 2.6.3 SAN fabric failure considerations
  6. Chapter 3. Planning and installation of the IBM FlashSystem 820
    1. 3.1 Physical device accessibility
      1. 3.1.1 Physical layout
      2. 3.1.2 Rack placement and cabling considerations
    2. 3.2 Physical cabling
      1. 3.2.1 FC port speed settings
      2. 3.2.2 Cabling methods
      3. 3.2.3 FC cable type
      4. 3.2.4 Ethernet management cabling
    3. 3.3 Power and cooling considerations
      1. 3.3.1 Power requirements
      2. 3.3.2 Cooling requirements
    4. 3.4 Performance Guidelines
      1. 3.4.1 VMware VAAI
      2. 3.4.2 Performance Redpaper
      3. 3.4.3 Performance data and statistics collection
  7. Chapter 4. Configuration and administration
    1. 4.1 Setup and configuration of IBM FlashSystem for use with SAN Volume Controller
      1. 4.1.1 Configuring the FlashSystem management IP addresses
      2. 4.1.2 FlashSystem management tools
      3. 4.1.3 IBM FlashSystem feature licenses
      4. 4.1.4 Configuring additional network settings
      5. 4.1.5 email notifications and call home
      6. 4.1.6 Fibre Channel port settings
      7. 4.1.7 Logical unit creation and access policies
    2. 4.2 Port masking and SAN zoning configuration
      1. 4.2.1 SAN Volume Controller Fibre Channel port masking setup
      2. 4.2.2 Host Fibre Channel port masking setup
      3. 4.2.3 SAN zoning setup
    3. 4.3 SAN Volume Controller MDisk configuration
      1. 4.3.1 MDisk LUN configuration on IBM FlashSystem 820
      2. 4.3.2 Storage pool configuration guidelines
      3. 4.3.3 Quorum disk allocation
      4. 4.3.4 Storage pool extent size
      5. 4.3.5 MDisk mapping and storage pool creation using the CLI
      6. 4.3.6 MDisk mapping and storage pool creation using the GUI
  8. Chapter 5. Diagnostics, planned outages, and troubleshooting
    1. 5.1 I/O group volume migration for planned outages
    2. 5.2 FlashSystem firmware update non-disruptively with the use of volume mirroring
    3. 5.3 Volume migration to another storage pool for planned outages
    4. 5.4 Call home features of SAN Volume Controller and FlashSystem storage systems
      1. 5.4.1 SVC call home
      2. 5.4.2 IBM FlashSystem call home and event notification
    5. 5.5 Easy Tier and FlashSystem planned outages
    6. 5.6 Hardware replacement guide for IBM FlashSystem storage systems
  9. Appendix A. FlashSystem CLI commands used in the example environment
    1. Configuring the example IBM FlashSystem storage systems using the CLI
  10. Appendix B. Example environment details
    1. Example environment hardware components
    2. Example environment firmware and software levels
    3. Example environment topology
  11. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. Help from IBM
  12. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: Implementing the IBM SAN Volume Controller and FlashSystem 820
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: September 2013
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: 9780738438634