IBM VSC Automates Storage Provisioning

© 2014 IBM Corporation
Software-Defined Storage Provisioning
using IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage
Center
Christian Bolik – TPC Development
12 May 2014

Edge 2014 Session sSV19: Storage Provisioning using IBM VSC
Agenda
 Typical storage provisioning challenges
 How VSC 5.2.1 addresses those challenges
 The three phases in VSC storage provisioning: Setup, planning, execution
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„Storage provisioning using VSC is
significantly faster, smarter, and safer
than manual storage provisioning.“

3
Servers
• ESX servers
• Apps, DB’s, file systems
• Volume managers
• Host bus adaptors
• Virtual HBAs
• Multi-path drivers
What You Need to Manage SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center can help
with the VSC
Storage Analytics
Engine
All that TPC offers plus…
File and DB Scans and
Analytics
Advanced SAN Planning and
provisioning based on best
practices
Proactive configuration history
(*change management)
Configuration Best Practices
Performance optimization
Tiered Storage Optimizer
TPC functions
 Single management
console
 Heterogeneous storage
 Health monitoring
 Capacity mgmt.
 Provisioning
 Fabric management
 FlashCopy support
 Storage System
Performance
Management
 SAN Fabric Performance
management
 Trend Analysis
 DR & Business Continuity
 Applications & Storage
 Hyperswap Mgmt.
Storage Networks
• Switches & Directors
• Virtual devices
Storage
• Multi-vendor storage
• Storage array provisioning
• Virtualization / Vol. mapping
• Block + NAS, VMFS
• Tape libraries
Replication
• FlashCopy
• Metro Mirror
• Metro Global Mirror
… and more
Virtual Storage Center = TPC + „Storage Analytics Engine“ + SVC + FCM
TPC = Tivoli Storage Productivity Center
SVC = SAN Volume Controller
FCM = FlashCopy Manager

Storage provisioning defined
 Providing new, or additional storage capacity to an application
 Applications usually have certain service level requirements
– Performance, availability, security, ...
 Storage capacity may be needed in the form of block volumes (LUNs), or NAS shares
– Or, more recently, in the form of HTTP-delivered „object storage“
 Typically, an application owner submits a storage provisioning request to a storage admin
– ...and then often needs to wait days or weeks for the request to be fulfilled.
4

5
Storage provisioning
challenges
Storage provisioning using VSC

Typical admin challenges related to storage provisioning
 Where to place the new volume / the new share?
– So that application requirements are met
– Taking into account host connectivity
– Considering affinity requirements
– Honoring authorizations (who may provision from what)
– All while keeping load balanced and utilization optimized across the storage
infrastructure
 Time-consuming, multi-step configuration process:
– Volume (or share) creation and configuration
– Add host connection (or export)
– Update zoning
– Configure multi-pathing on the server
– Rescan SCSI bus on server to have new volume show up
6

How VSC addresses these storage provisioning challenges
 Where to place the new volume / the new share?
– So that application requirements are met Service Classes
– Taking into account host connectivity Exploiting TPC‘s knowledge of SAN fabrics
– Considering affinity requirements A server‘s volumes are colocated
– Honoring authorizations (who may provision from what) Capacity Pools and Service
Class authorizations
– All while keeping load balanced and utilization optimized across the storage
infrastructure Exploiting TPC‘s capacity and performance monitoring and analytics
– Combined into automated and optimal volume and share placement
 Time-consuming, multi-step configuration process:
– Volume (or share) creation and configuration
– Add host connection (or export)
– Update zoning
– Configure multi-pathing on the server
– Rescan SCSI bus on server to have new volume show up
– All steps are automated end-to-end
7

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Phase 1: Setup
Storage provisioning using VSC:
Setup – Planning – Execution

Bare minimum setup for storage provisioning using VSC
Limitations of this minimal setup:
 Cannot check host connectivity, or configure zoning during provisioning
– Would need to add switches to TPC to enable.
 Cannot configure multi-pathing or rescan SCSI bus on servers
– Would need to deploy agents (SRAs) on servers to enable.
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1. Add storage devices to TPC that
should be provisioned from:
3. Define agentless servers that should
be provisioned to:
2. Define service classes which can be
provided by the storage devices:

More extensive setup for storage provisioning using VSC
 Add storage devices that should be provisioned from
 Add switches (typically this means CIMOMs, like Brocade Network Advisor) that provide the
SAN fabrics connecting servers and storage devices
 Define agentless servers and/or deploy Storage Resource Agents (SRAs) on servers that
should be provisioned to
 Add hypervisors for VMware ESX/ESXi/vCenter servers that should be provisioned to
 Group storage resources that can be provisioned from into capacity pools
– E.g. creating one capacity pool per group, department, etc.
 Define service classes which can be provided by the storage devices,
– Optionally restrict each one to one or more capacity pools and/or users, as appropriate
10

 Capacity pools allow provisioning requests to
be targetted to a specific set of storage
resources
– Can think of capacity pools as allowing to
place boundaries around groups of storage
resources
 Storage resources which may be provisioned
from (storage systems, pools, file systems) can
be grouped into capacity pools
 Service classes may be configured to allow
provisioning only from a specific set of capacity
pools
 The use of capacity pools is
completely optional
What is a capacity pool, exactly?
11

Service classes
 Service classes in VSC serve a dual purpose:
1. Represent different capabilities present in the storage environment
2. Reflect the requirements of an application on new storage capacity
 In general, service classes enable the following:
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Mapping
Business Requirements
Infrastructure Capabilities
to
Capacity
Accessibility
Availability
Performance
Security
Retention/Compliance
Media type
Disk technologies
RAID levels
Encryption
Compression
Thin Provisioning
Copies
Access latency
Access protocols
etc....

Defining block service classes
 The storage administrator creates block service classes for
representing the different levels of service for block storage,
provided by storage systems added to TPC
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Main attributes:
 Storage tier range: if set, requires
candidate storage pools to be assigned to
a tier within the selected range
 Virtualization: if set, provision from an
IBM virtualizer (SVC or Storwize V7000)
 Thin provisioning: if set, additional related
attributes may be configured in the
„advanced“ section, e.g.:

Defining file service classes
 The storage administrator creates file service classes for
representing the different levels of service for file storage,
provided by storage systems added to TPC
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Main attribute:
 Whether to use shared or dedicated
storage
– Shared: file system from which new
share is provisioned may contain
other shares
– Dedicated: file system must not
contain other shares

Phase 2: Planning
15

Planning the configuration steps for provisioning
 When a provisioning request is submitted, VSC creates a provisioning plan, based on the
service class specified in the provisioning request
 Planning for provisioning involves the following:
– Determining on which storage resource to place the new volume or share
– Identifying which host connections to add or modify (block only)
– Determining required zoning updates and multipathing configuration changes to comply
with the service class definition (block only)
 A provisioning request may be submitted in various ways:
– Interactively by the user, using VSC‘s provisioning wizard
– Through VSC‘s SMAC API, by the VSC vSphere plugin, or by other IBM products such
as SmartCloud Storage Access (SCSA) or SmartCloud Orchestrator (SCO)
16

Launching VSC‘s provisioning wizard
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Provisioning new volumes via VSC‘s provisioning wizard
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One plan (represented
by a task) is created
per unique service
class and capacity pool
combination

Reviewing the details of a block provisioning plan
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Note: Zoning step missing here as selected server paulaner already has connectivity
to the storage system TPC selected for the new volume.

Provisioning a new share using VSC‘s provisioning wizard
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Resulting file provisioning plan
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Note the „Execute“ and „Schedule“ buttons are only available here
for administrative users. Other users would just be able to save the
plan for administrative approval (same applies to block provisioning),
unless the service class is configured to not require approval.

How VSC decides where to place the new volumes or share
 Is the specified service class restricted to one or more capacity pools?
– If yes, consider only resources which are members of any of these
 Does storage resource fulfill all service class attributes?
 Is storage resource not in error state or unreachable?
 Does storage resource still have sufficient free unreserved space?
 For volumes, does the server to be provisioned to already have volumes assigned?
– If yes, co-locate the new volumes
 For volumes, in case fabrics known to TPC, do the server and storage resource have
common fabrics?
 Out of the remaining candidates, pick the one least utilized in terms of performance (I/O)
and space
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Phase 3: Execution
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Monitoring provisioning progress
 Provisioning plans (tasks) may be executed to run immediately, or scheduled for a time in
the future
 Progress of a provisioning task can be monitored via the task details:
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All configuration steps are logged in detail in the provisioning task
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Accessing the new volume or share on the server
 Block:
– Rescan bus unless agent installed
– Windows: initialize disk, choose whether to
convert to dynamic disk
– Format volume with a file system if desired
 File:
– Mount the share on the server
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Summary and
Outlook
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Benefits of using VSC for storage provisioning
 Less time-consuming and less error-prone than manual provisioning due to extensive
automation
 Smart storage placement, based on observed space and performance utilization, storage
health status and storage capabilities
 Self-service storage provisioning with administrative review and approval
...or, in summary:
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„Storage provisioning using VSC is
significantly faster, smarter, and safer
than manual storage provisioning.“

What‘s next for storage provisioning using VSC
 SVC stretched-cluster-aware provisioning
 Integration of replication configuration
 Quota definition and enforcement for service classes and capacity pools
 Service class compliance verification for existing volumes and shares
 Alerts for provisioning events (request submitted, request completed, etc.)
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IBM wants your input
Participate in our Tivoli Storage Beta Programs
 Influence designs and product direction
 Collaborate with experts and other customers
 Interact directly with product teams
 Access to early code
 Evaluate new capabilities
 Education from IBM experts
 Support directly from developers
 Opportunity to be an IBM reference customer
Get engaged, contact:
Lorena Colston
lcolston@us.ibm.com
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/servicemanagement/sm/tpc/downloads.html

Thank You
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In case of questions or
feedback, please feel free
to contact me:
Christian Bolik
bolik@de.ibm.com

32
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Backup
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Specifying required multipathing configuration in the service class
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Others: Round-Robin, Fail-over
Others: Round-Robin, Most recently used

Using resource tags for greater control
 For both block and file service classes resource tags may be specified which need to be
attached to storage resources to be considered candidates during provisioning planning
 Resource tags are added to storage system, storage pools, file systems as „custom tags“:
 These tags may then be specified as
required resource tags in the service
class definition, e.g.:
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Service class verification
 After defining service classes, as a best practice verify space is shown as being available to
fulfill provisioning requests for each one:
 Storage resources which TPC has determined to be able to provide a given service class
can be viewed from the service class details dialog:
 Note a storage resource may be shown as „unavailable“ if its health status is „critical“ or
unknown.
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Reviewing Capacity reservations for pending provisioning plans
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IBM VSC Automates Storage Provisioning

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