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

Use this procedure to create pool-VOLs automatically. 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 click Pools.

  2. Click Create Pools.

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

  4. For Multi-Tier Pool, select Enable.

  5. If the pool will be used by active flash, select Active Flash.

    If there are no pool volumes whose drive type is SSD, Active Flash cannot be selected.

  6. For Pool Volume Selection, select Auto.

    NoteIf you are creating a pool that will contain LDEVs in a parity group with accelerated compression enabled, you must select Manual.

  7. Select pool-VOLs as follows:

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

    2. For Performance, select the performance of the pool.

    3. In Total Capacity, 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.

    4. If you want to change the pool configuration that is automatically selected, click Change Pool Configuration to open the Change Pool Configuration Pattern window.

      In the Pool Configuration Patterns table, select the desired pool configuration, click Select, and then click OK.
      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 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.

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

  15. 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.

  16. 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.

  17. For Monitoring Mode, 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.

  18. 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).

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

    The 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%.

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

  21. Click Add.

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

    If an item that must be set is not entered or selected, you cannot click Add.

    The Pool Type, Multi-Tier Pool, Pool Volume Selection, and Pool Name must be set. If these required items are not entered or selected, 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.

  22. 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.

  23. 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.

  24. 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.