Creating Dynamic Tiering or active flash pools by selecting pool-VOLs manually

Use this procedure to create pool-VOLs manually. These pools can be used by Dynamic Tiering and by active flash.

Before you begin

  • The Storage Administrator (Provisioning) role is required to perform this task.
  • If you are creating a pool for active flash, LDEVs whose drive type is SSD must be created in advance.

Procedure

  1. Click Storage Systems, expand the Storage Systems tree, and select Pools.

  2. In the Pools window, click Create Pools.

  3. In the Create Pools window, select Dynamic Provisioning from the Pool Type list.

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

    If the storage system has only external volumes with the Cache Mode set to Disable, you cannot select Enable.

  5. If the pool is to be used by active flash, select 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.

  6. From the Pool Volume Selection field, select Manual.

  7. Select pool-VOLs as follows:

    1. In the Drive Type/RPM list, select Mixable.

    2. In the RAID Level list, select Mixable.

    3. Click Select Pool VOLs.

      The Select Pool VOLs window opens.

    4. In the Available Pool Volumes table, select the pool-VOLs to be associated with the pool, and then click Add. You can add up to 1,024 volumes to a pool.

      You can add volumes with the same drive type/RPM and different RAID levels to the pool. For example, you can add volumes from a SAS/15K RAID5(3D+1P) parity group and volumes from a SAS/15K RAID5(7D+1P) parity group to the same pool.

      To set another tier rank for an external volume, select the desired tier rank from External LDEV Tier Rank and click Add.

      Note
      • LDEVs that belong to a parity group with accelerated compression enabled can be assigned to only one pool.
      • We recommend that LDEVs that belong to parity groups with accelerated compression enabled and LDEVs that belong to parity groups with accelerated compression disabled do not coexist in the same pool.
      Tip
      • To apply filter conditions to the table, click Filter, specify the desired conditions, and then click Apply.
      • To select all pool-VOLs in the table, click Select All Pages. To cancel the selection, click Select All Pages again.
      • To change the capacity unit or the number of rows to view, click Options.

    5. In the Select Pool VOLs window, if the selected pool-VOLs have no issues, click OK.

      The information in the Selected Pool Volumes table is applied to Total Selected Pool Volumes and Total Selected Capacity in the Create Pools window.

  8. In Pool Name, enter the desired name for the pool.

  9. Click Options.

  10. In Initial Pool ID, type the number of the initial pool ID (from 0 to 127).

    If you specify a pool ID that is already used, the smallest available ID is displayed by default instead of the ID you specified. If a pool ID is unavailable, no number is displayed.

  11. In Subscription Limit, enter the desired subscription limit (%) for the pool (integer value from 0 to 65534). To set the subscription limit to unlimited, leave this field blank (do not enter a number).

    The subscription limit is the ratio (%) of the total DP-VOL capacity that has been configured to the total capacity of the pool. When the subscription limit is set, you cannot configure another DP-VOL if the new DP-VOL capacity would cause the subscription limit to be exceeded.

  12. In Warning Threshold, enter the desired Warning Threshold (%) for the pool (integer value from 1 to 100, default = 70%).

    If the pool used-capacity is equal to or greater than the Warning Threshold, a service information message (SIM) is issued by the storage system.

  13. In Depletion Threshold, enter the desired Depletion Threshold (%) for the pool (integer value from 1 to 100, default = 80%). Enter a value that is equal to or greater than the Warning Threshold.

    If the pool used-capacity is equal to or greater than the Depletion Threshold, a SIM is issued by the storage system.

  14. Configure Dynamic Tiering as follows:

    1. For Tier Management, select Auto or Manual. 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. For Cycle Time, select the cycle for performance monitoring and tier relocation.

      When you select 24 Hours (default), performance monitoring and tier relocation is performed once a day. In Monitoring Period, set the times to start and end performance monitoring (default 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.

      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 of the V-VOL pages might 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.

  15. For Monitoring Mode, select Period Mode or Continuous Mode.

    If you perform tier relocation in a specified cycle, Period Mode is selected by default. If you perform tier relocation weighted to the monitoring result of the past period, select Continuous Mode.

  16. For Relocation Speed, select the desired page relocation speed for the pool: 1(Slowest), 2(Slower), 3(Standard) (default), 4(Faster), or 5(Fastest).

    • If you want tier relocation to be performed at high speed, select 5(Fastest).
    • If you want to minimize the data drive load when tier relocation is performed, select 1(Slowest) or 2(Slower).

  17. In Buffer Space for New page assignment, enter the percentage (%) for each tier (integer value from 0 to 50).

    The default value depends on the data drive type of the pool-VOLs in each tier: default for SSD = 0%, default for other than SSD = 8%.

  18. In Buffer Space for Tier relocation, enter the percentage (%) to set for each tier (integer value from 2 to 40, default = 2%).

  19. Click Add.

    The specified pool is added to the Selected Pools table. If invalid values are set, an error message is displayed.

    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.

    To view the detailed properties of a pool in the Selected Pools table, select the pool and click Detail.

    To remove a pool from the Selected Pools table, select the pool, click Remove, and then click OK.

  20. If you want to create DP-VOLs in the new pool at this time, click Next to go to the Create LDEVs window. If the Subscription Limit of the specified pool is set to 0%, an error message is displayed and the Create LDEVs window does not open.

    If you do not want to create DP-VOLs in the new pool at this time, click Finish to go to the Confirmation window.

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

    To view the detailed properties of a pool, select the pool and then click Details.

  22. Click Apply.

    The create pools task is registered. If Go to tasks window for status is selected, the Tasks window opens automatically.
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.