Exploring Storage Management Efficiencies and Provisioning - Understanding IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center and IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center with Advanced Provisioning

Chapter 7. Workflows 171

IBM TotalStorage Multiple Device Manager device support

The IBM Multiple Device Manager workflows can operate against these

supported storage subsystems:

򐂰 IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server® (ESS) Models F20 and 800

򐂰 IBM TotalStorage FAStT Storage Server, Models 200, 500 600, 700, and 900

7.5 Example workflow for storage administrators

For your storage provisioning, you can accomplish most of the individual

required tasks with storage software tools, or the native management products

which are provided with your storage devices. However, you need a way to tie

the cross-discipline tasks together in an automated fashion. IBM TotalStorage

Productivity Center with Advanced Provisioning provides a way to tie the tasks

together. IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center provides the capabilities for this

advanced provisioning solution, while IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager enables

the automation and linking of the provisioning tasks.

A workflow is nothing more than a list of steps that must be accomplished in

context to achieve a desired goal. Administrators execute workflows every day

as a normal course of operation. In many cases, different administrators work

together, each performing tasks in their area of expertise, to accomplish a

common goal.

In the following example scenario, with IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center

with Advanced Provisioning, a database administrator could run a single-solution

workflow designed to provision storage for that particular database. Workflows

allow provisioning tasks to be completed quickly, without error, in a repeatable

TPC Get Storage Volume Attributes Gets the specified attributes on a storage

volume.

TPC Get Indexed Storage Volume Gets a storage volume and its attributes

corresponding to given index and parent

storage pool.

TPC Unassign Storage Volume Unassigns the specified storage volume to

the specified initiator ports.

Note: Do not invoke workflows directly. Run the logical device operations,

which will invoke the correct workflow based on the storage subsystem ID or

storage pool ID.

Java plug-in Description

172 Exploring Storage Management Efficiencies and Provisioning

fashion. Figure 7-3 depicts one scenario showing the steps that must be

completed in order to provision storage.

Figure 7-3 Sample storage workflow

The foregoing example workflow is shown in a logical workflow diagram format.

First, the DBA observes that the tablespace is full. You can follow through the

diagram (the workflow) in the logical order. In the course of this workflow

process, there will be decision points such as “Find the best LUN for the

application”. For example, if it is an Oracle or DB2 application, you many want

RAID5; or if it is e-mail, you may want RAID10. You then assign the LUN to the

application server, zone the fabric switch to allow the server to access the

storage; and you may need to add the new storage to consistency groups,

because it may be part of a replication process.

We can automate these steps with IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center with

Advanced Provisioning. What’s really nice about automated workflows is that is

gives you flexibility on exit points or decision points. For example, if you need

approval after the step, “Find the best LUNS for this application”, you can create

a workflow that takes you only up to that decision point. After the decision point,

you may have another workflow that takes you all the way to the end, or only up

to the next decision point. Workflows are relatively simple to create, so as time

goes by and you become more comfortable with the automation, you can add

more to your workflows as you see fit. This allows you to automate at your own

pace.

Chapter 7. Workflows 173

So, what does a real world workflow look like? The graphic in Figure 7-4 shows

IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager with a sample “solution” workflow called “Add

Storage”.

Figure 7-4 Sample “solution” workflow

This sample workflow shows the breakdown of all the necessary tasks to add

storage to a server or application, in order of execution. You can group steps with

similar meanings into higher level steps. For example, the major steps in this

workflow are to add volume, set paths, set up replication, update volume group

on host, and expand the file system. Each of these steps has multiple activities

associated with it.

The solution offering will include these higher level operations and the lower level

steps. The higher level steps actually call the lower level steps, and you can use

either to build workflows in IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager. We encourage

customers to use the higher level steps, because the best practices are

incorporated into these steps “out-of-the-box”.