Creating a Dynamic Tiering or active flash pool by automatically selecting pool-VOLs

Before you begin

Procedure

1. Click Storage Systems, and then expand the Storage Systems tree.

2. Click Pools.

3. Click Create Pools.

4. From the Pool Type list, select Dynamic Provisioning.

5. From the Multi-Tier Pool field, select Enable.

6. If the pool is to be used by active flash, select the check box for Active Flash.

   Note

   To use active flash, pool volumes whose drive type is SSD must be installed in advance. If there are no pool volumes whose drive type is SSD, this check box cannot be selected.

7. From the Pool Volume Selection field, select Auto.

   Note Select Manual if creating a pool that contains LDEVs in the parity group with accelerated compression enabled.

8. Follow the steps below to select pool-VOLs:

   1. From the Resource Group list, select the resource group name of the pool.

   2. From the Performance list, select the performance of the pool.

   3. In the Total Capacity list, specify the capacity of the pool.

      Values are displayed in Total Pool Volumes and Total Capacity. These values are greater than the specified value of the pool capacity. If you change the pool configuration, perform steps d, e, and f.

   4. Click Change Pool Configuration.

      The Change Pool Configuration Pattern window appears. You can change the pool configuration that is automatically selected.

   5. From the Pool Configuration Patterns table, select the pool configuration row. Then click Select.

      Note

      • You can select the pool configuration on a parity group basis.
      • The priority of the pool configuration is determined by these conditions:

        Priority 1: There is no free space in the parity group and one LDEV exists in the group.

        Priority 2: There is no free space in the parity group and multiple LDEVs exist in the group.

        Priority 3: There is free space in the parity group and multiple LDEVs exist in the group.

      • If the check box for Active Flash is selected, only the pool configurations that contain LDEVs created by SSD are displayed.
      • The following items are not displayed in the Pool Configuration Patterns table:

        Parity groups with LDEVs that cannot be used as pool-VOLs.

        Pool configuration patterns that contain more than 1,024 LDEVs.

   6. Click OK.

      The information in the Pool Configuration Patterns table is applied to Total Pool Volumes and Total Capacity.

9. Enter the name in the Pool Name text box.

10. Click Options.

11. In the Initial Pool ID text box, type the number of the initial pool ID, from 0 to 127.

    When you specify a pool ID that was previously registered, the smallest available ID is displayed by default instead of the ID you specified. If a pool ID is unavailable, no number is displayed.

12. In the Subscription Limit text box, enter an integer value from 0 to 65534 as the subscription rate (%) for the pool.

    If no number is entered, the subscription rate is set to unlimited.

13. In the Warning Threshold text box, enter an integer value from 1 to 100 as the rate (%) for the pool. The default value is 70%.

14. In the Depletion Threshold text box, enter an integer value from 1 to 100 as the rate (%) for the pool. The default value is 80%.

    Enter a value that is equal to or greater than the value of the Warning Threshold.

15. In Protect V-VOLs when I/O fails to Blocked Pool VOL, select Yes or No. If Yes is selected, when the pool-VOL is blocked, DP-VOL is protected from reading and writing requests. And at the same instant, the access attribute of the DP-VOLis changed to the Protect attribute.

16. In Protect V-VOLs when I/O fails to Full Pool, select Yes or No. If Yes is selected, when the pool usage reaches the full size, DP-VOL is protected from reading and writing requests. And at the same instant, the access attribute of the DP-VOL is changed to the Protect attribute.

17. Configure Dynamic Tiering with the following steps.

    From the Tier Management option, select Auto or Manual.

    1. The selection is usually Auto which allows performance monitoring and tier relocation to be performed automatically.

       If you select Manual, use the RAID Manager or Device Manager - Storage Navigator to manually perform performance monitoring and tier relocation.

    2. From the Cycle Time option, select the cycle for performance monitoring and tier relocation.

       When you select 24 Hours (default value):

       Performance monitoring and tier relocation is performed once a day.

       In the Monitoring Period field, set the time to start and end performance monitoring. The default value is 00:00 to 23:59.

       Set one or more hours between the starting and ending times. If you specify a starting time that is later than the ending time, the performance monitoring continues until the ending time on the next day.

       You can view the information gathered by performance monitoring with Device Manager - Storage Navigator or the RAID Manager.

       When you select 0.5 Hours, 1 Hour, 2 Hours, 4 Hours, 8 Hours:

       Performance monitoring is performed every hour that is selected, starting at 00:00.

       You cannot set a specific time to start performance monitoring.

    CautionWhen Auto is set, all the V-VOL pages may not be completely migrated in one cycle. In the next cycle, migration starts by updating information for the last processed V-VOL. At that point, the collection of performance monitoring information is switched to the current cycle.

18. From the Monitoring Mode option, select Period Mode or Continuous Mode.

    If you perform tier relocation in a specified cycle or you do not need to specify the Monitoring Mode option, select Period Mode. If you perform tier relocation weighted to the monitoring result of the past period, select Continuous Mode.

19. From the Relocation Speed option, select the page relocation speed to use when performing relocation.

    You can set the speed to: 1(Slowest), 2(Slower), 3(Standard), 4(Faster), and 5(Fastest). The default is 3(Standard). If you want to perform tier relocation at high speed, use the 5(Fastest) setting. If the speed specified is slower than 3(Standard), the data drive load is low when tier relocation is performed.

20. In the Buffer Space for New page assignment text box, enter an integer value from 0 to 50 as the percentage (%) for each tier.

    A default value depends on the data drive type of the pool-VOL in each tier. The default value of SSD is 0%. The default value of a type other than SSD is 8%.

21. In the Buffer Space for Tier relocation text box, enter an integer value from 2 to 40 as the percentage (%) to set for each tier.

    The default value is 2%.

22. Click Add.

    The created pool is added to the Selected Pools table. If invalid values are set, an error message appears. If Detail is clicked when you select a row, the Pool Property window appears.

    The Pool Type, Multi-Tier Pool, Pool Volume Selection, and Pool Name must be set. If the required items are not registered, you cannot click Add.

    If you select a row and click Detail, the Pool Properties window appears. If you select a row and click Remove, the message appears asking whether you want to remove the selected row or rows. If you want to remove the row, click OK.

23. Click Next.

    The Create LDEVs window appears. For instructions on creating LDEVs, see Creating DP-VOLs.

    If Subscription Limit of the created pool is set to 0%, the Create LDEVs window does not appear.

    Click Finish.

24. Check the settings in the Confirmation window, and then enter the task name in Task Name.

    Select the pool radio button and then click Details. The Pool Properties window appears.

25. Click Apply

    The tasks are registered. If the Go to tasks window for status check box is selected, the Tasks window appears.

Parent Topic

• Creating pools

  When you create a pool, you select the pool volumes (pool-VOLs) for the pool (manually or automatically) and set options such as the subscription limit and the warning and depletion thresholds for the pool. You can also enable options such as V-VOL protection and data deduplication.