IBM FlashSystem Best Practices and Performance Guidelines

IBM FlashSystem Best Practices and Performance Guidelines

by Anil K Nayak, Antonio Rainero, Barry Whyte, Chris Hoffmann, Danilo Morelli Miyasiro, David Green, Duane Bolland, Jackson Shea, Jon Herd, Jordan Fincher, Marcelo Avalos, Sergey Kubin, Sidney Varoni Junior, Thales Noivo Ferreira, Vasfi Gucer
Released October 2021
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: 9780738459707

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Book description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication captures several of the preferred practices and describes the performance gains that can be achieved by implementing the IBM FlashSystem products. These practices are based on field experience.

This book highlights configuration guidelines and preferred practices for the storage area network (SAN) topology, clustered system, back-end storage, storage pools and managed disks, volumes, remote copy services, and hosts.

It explains how you can optimize disk performance with the IBM System Storage® Easy Tier® function. It also provides preferred practices for monitoring, maintaining, and troubleshooting.

This book is intended for experienced storage, SAN, IBM FlashSystem, SAN Volume Controller (SVC), and IBM Storwize® administrators and technicians. Understanding this book requires advanced knowledge of these environments.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Figures
  3. Tables
  4. Examples
  5. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  6. Preface
    1. Authors
    2. Now you can become a published author, too!
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  7. Chapter 1. IBM FlashSystem introduction
    1. 1.1 IBM FlashSystem supported product range
      1. 1.1.1 What’s new in V8.4
      2. 1.1.2 Products supported
    2. 1.2 IBM FlashSystem high-level features
    3. 1.3 IBM Storwize and IBM FlashSystem product range
      1. 1.3.1 Clustering rules and upgrades
      2. 1.3.2 Mixed clustering rules and licensing
      3. 1.3.3 IBM FlashSystem 9200R Rack Solution overview
    4. 1.4 Advanced functions for data reduction
      1. 1.4.1 FlashCore Modules (FCM)
      2. 1.4.2 Data reduction pools (DRP)
      3. 1.4.3 Deduplication
      4. 1.4.4 Thin provisioning
      5. 1.4.5 Thin-provisioned FlashCopy snapshots
    5. 1.5 Advanced software features
      1. 1.5.1 Data migration
      2. 1.5.2 Copy services
      3. 1.5.3 Easy Tier
      4. 1.5.4 External virtualization
      5. 1.5.5 IBM HyperSwap
      6. 1.5.6 Licensing
  8. Chapter 2. Storage area network
    1. 2.1 SAN topology general guidelines
      1. 2.1.1 SAN performance and scalability
      2. 2.1.2 ISL considerations
    2. 2.2 SAN topology-specific guidelines
      1. 2.2.1 Single switch SANs
      2. 2.2.2 Basic core-edge topology
      3. 2.2.3 Edge-core-edge topology
      4. 2.2.4 Full MeSH topology
      5. 2.2.5 IBM FlashSystem as a SAN bridge
      6. 2.2.6 Device placement
      7. 2.2.7 SAN partitioning
    3. 2.3 IBM FlashSystem 9200 controller ports
      1. 2.3.1 Slots and ports identification
      2. 2.3.2 Port naming and distribution
    4. 2.4 Zoning
      1. 2.4.1 Types of zoning
      2. 2.4.2 Pre-zoning tips and shortcuts
      3. 2.4.3 IBM FlashSystem 9200 internode communications zones
      4. 2.4.4 IBM FlashSystem 9200 host zones
    5. 2.5 Distance extension for Remote Copy services
      1. 2.5.1 Optical multiplexors
      2. 2.5.2 Long-distance SFPs or XFPs
      3. 2.5.3 Fibre Channel over IP
      4. 2.5.4 SAN extension with Business Continuity configurations
      5. 2.5.5 Native IP replication
    6. 2.6 Tape and disk traffic that share the SAN
    7. 2.7 Switch interoperability
  9. Chapter 3. Storage backend
    1. 3.1 Internal storage types
      1. 3.1.1 NVMe storage
      2. 3.1.2 SAS drives
      3. 3.1.3 Internal storage considerations
    2. 3.2 Arrays
      1. 3.2.1 Supported RAID types
      2. 3.2.2 Array considerations
      3. 3.2.3 Compressed array monitoring
    3. 3.3 General external storage considerations
      1. 3.3.1 Storage controller path selection
      2. 3.3.2 Guidelines for creating optimal backend configuration
      3. 3.3.3 Considerations for compressing and deduplicating back-end
    4. 3.4 Controller-specific considerations
      1. 3.4.1 Considerations for DS8000 series
      2. 3.4.2 Considerations for IBM XIV Storage System
      3. 3.4.3 Considerations for IBM FlashSystem A9000/A9000R
      4. 3.4.4 Considerations for FlashSystem 5000, 5100, 7200, 9100, and 9200
      5. 3.4.5 Considerations for IBM FlashSystem 900
      6. 3.4.6 Path considerations for third-party storage with EMC VMAX and Hitachi Data Systems
    5. 3.5 Quorum disks
  10. Chapter 4. Storage pools
    1. 4.1 Introduction to pools
      1. 4.1.1 Standard pool
      2. 4.1.2 Data reduction pools
      3. 4.1.3 Standard pools versus data reduction pools
      4. 4.1.4 Data reduction estimation tools
      5. 4.1.5 Understanding capacity use in a data reduction pool
    2. 4.2 Storage pool planning considerations
      1. 4.2.1 Planning for availability
      2. 4.2.2 Planning for performance
      3. 4.2.3 Planning for capacity
      4. 4.2.4 Extent size considerations
      5. 4.2.5 External pools
    3. 4.3 Data reduction pools best practices
      1. 4.3.1 Data reduction pools with IBM FlashSystem NVMe attached drives
      2. 4.3.2 DRP and external storage considerations
      3. 4.3.3 Data reduction pools and VMware vVols
      4. 4.3.4 Data reduction pool configuration limits
      5. 4.3.5 DRP provisioning considerations
      6. 4.3.6 Standard and DRP pools coexistence
      7. 4.3.7 Data migration with DRP
    4. 4.4 Operations with storage pools
      1. 4.4.1 Creating data reduction pools
      2. 4.4.2 Adding external MDisks to existing storage pools
      3. 4.4.3 Renaming MDisks
      4. 4.4.4 Removing MDisks from existing storage pools
      5. 4.4.5 Remapping managed MDisks
      6. 4.4.6 Controlling extent allocation order for volume creation
    5. 4.5 Considerations when using encryption
      1. 4.5.1 General considerations
      2. 4.5.2 Hardware and software encryption
      3. 4.5.3 Encryption at rest with USB keys
      4. 4.5.4 Encryption at rest with key servers
    6. 4.6 Easy Tier, tiered and balanced storage pools
      1. 4.6.1 Easy Tier concepts
      2. 4.6.2 Easy Tier definitions
      3. 4.6.3 Easy Tier operating modes
      4. 4.6.4 MDisk tier types
      5. 4.6.5 Changing the tier type of an MDisk
      6. 4.6.6 Easy Tier overload protection
      7. 4.6.7 Removing an MDisk from an Easy Tier pool
      8. 4.6.8 Easy Tier implementation considerations
      9. 4.6.9 Easy Tier settings
      10. 4.6.10 Monitoring Easy Tier using the GUI
  11. Chapter 5. Volumes
    1. 5.1 Overview of volumes
    2. 5.2 Guidance for creating volumes
    3. 5.3 Thin-provisioned volumes
      1. 5.3.1 Compressed volumes
      2. 5.3.2 Deduplicated volumes
      3. 5.3.3 Thin-provisioning considerations
      4. 5.3.4 Limits on virtual capacity of thin-provisioned volumes
    4. 5.4 Mirrored volumes
      1. 5.4.1 Write fast failovers
      2. 5.4.2 Read fast failovers
      3. 5.4.3 Maintaining data integrity of mirrored volumes
    5. 5.5 HyperSwap volumes
    6. 5.6 VMware virtual volumes
    7. 5.7 Cloud volumes
      1. 5.7.1 Transparent cloud tiering configuration limitations and rules
      2. 5.7.2 Restore to the production volume
      3. 5.7.3 Restore to a new volume
    8. 5.8 Volume migration
      1. 5.8.1 Image-type to striped-type volume migration
      2. 5.8.2 Migrating to image-type volume
      3. 5.8.3 Migrating with volume mirroring
      4. 5.8.4 Migration from Standard Pool to Data Reduction Pool
    9. 5.9 Preferred paths to a volume
    10. 5.10 Moving a volume between I/O groups and nodes
      1. 5.10.1 Changing the preferred node of a volume within an I/O group
      2. 5.10.2 Moving a volume between I/O groups
    11. 5.11 Volume throttling
    12. 5.12 Volume cache mode
    13. 5.13 Additional considerations
      1. 5.13.1 Volume protection
      2. 5.13.2 Volume resizing
      3. 5.13.3 Migrating from Fibre Channel connections to RDMA over Ethernet connections between nodes
  12. Chapter 6. Copy services
    1. 6.1 Introduction to copy services
      1. 6.1.1 FlashCopy
      2. 6.1.2 Metro Mirror and Global Mirror
      3. 6.1.3 Volume Mirroring
    2. 6.2 FlashCopy
      1. 6.2.1 FlashCopy use cases
      2. 6.2.2 FlashCopy capabilities overview
      3. 6.2.3 FlashCopy functional overview
      4. 6.2.4 FlashCopy planning considerations
    3. 6.3 Remote Copy services
      1. 6.3.1 Remote Copy use cases
      2. 6.3.2 Remote Copy functional overview
      3. 6.3.3 Remote Copy network planning
      4. 6.3.4 Remote Copy services planning
      5. 6.3.5 Multiple site remote copy
      6. 6.3.6 1920 error
    4. 6.4 Native IP replication
      1. 6.4.1 Native IP replication technology
      2. 6.4.2 IP partnership limitations
      3. 6.4.3 VLAN support
      4. 6.4.4 IP Compression
      5. 6.4.5 Remote Copy groups
      6. 6.4.6 Supported configurations examples
      7. 6.4.7 Native IP replication performance consideration
    5. 6.5 Volume Mirroring
      1. 6.5.1 Read and write operations
      2. 6.5.2 Volume mirroring use cases
      3. 6.5.3 Mirrored volume components
      4. 6.5.4 Volume Mirroring synchronization options
      5. 6.5.5 Volume Mirroring performance considerations
      6. 6.5.6 Bitmap space for out-of-sync volume copies
  13. Chapter 7. Business continuity
    1. 7.1 Business continuity with HyperSwap
    2. 7.2 Third site and IP quorum
      1. 7.2.1 Quorum modes
    3. 7.3 HyperSwap Volumes
    4. 7.4 Other considerations and general recommendations
  14. Chapter 8. Hosts
    1. 8.1 General configuration guidelines
      1. 8.1.1 Number of paths
      2. 8.1.2 Host ports
      3. 8.1.3 Port masking
      4. 8.1.4 N-port ID virtualization (NPIV)
      5. 8.1.5 Host to I/O group mapping
      6. 8.1.6 Volume size as opposed to quantity
      7. 8.1.7 Host volume mapping
      8. 8.1.8 Server adapter layout
      9. 8.1.9 Host status improvements
      10. 8.1.10 Considerations for NVMe over Fibre Channel host attachments
      11. 8.1.11 Considerations for iSER host attachments
    2. 8.2 Host pathing
      1. 8.2.1 Path selection
    3. 8.3 I/O queues
      1. 8.3.1 Queue depths
    4. 8.4 Host clusters
      1. 8.4.1 Persistent reservations
      2. 8.4.2 Clearing reserves
    5. 8.5 AIX hosts
      1. 8.5.1 Multipathing support
      2. 8.5.2 Configuration recommendations for AIX
    6. 8.6 Virtual I/O server hosts
      1. 8.6.1 Multipathing support
      2. 8.6.2 Physical and logical volumes
      3. 8.6.3 Methods to identify a disk for use as a virtual SCSI disk
    7. 8.7 Windows hosts
      1. 8.7.1 Multipathing support
      2. 8.7.2 Windows configuration
    8. 8.8 Linux hosts
    9. 8.9 Oracle Solaris hosts
      1. 8.9.1 Solaris MPxIO
      2. 8.9.2 Symantec Veritas Volume Manager
      3. 8.9.3 DMP multipathing
    10. 8.10 VMware ESXi server hosts
      1. 8.10.1 Configuring VMware
      2. 8.10.2 Multipathing configuration maximums
  15. Chapter 9. Monitoring
    1. 9.1 Generic monitoring
      1. 9.1.1 Monitoring with the GUI
      2. 9.1.2 Monitoring using quotas and alert
    2. 9.2 Performance monitoring
      1. 9.2.1 Performance monitoring with the GUI
      2. 9.2.2 Performance monitoring with IBM Spectrum Control
      3. 9.2.3 Performance monitoring with IBM Storage Insights
    3. 9.3 Capacity metrics for block storage systems
      1. 9.3.1 Storage system capacity metrics
      2. 9.3.2 Pool capacity metrics
      3. 9.3.3 Volume capacity metrics
    4. 9.4 Creating alerts for IBM Spectrum Control and IBM Storage Insights
      1. 9.4.1 Alert examples
      2. 9.4.2 Alert to monitor back-end capacity: Available Physical Space (%)
    5. 9.5 Error condition example with IBM Spectrum Control: FC port
    6. 9.6 Important metrics
    7. 9.7 Performance support package
    8. 9.8 Metro and Global Mirror monitoring with IBM Copy Services Manager and scripts
      1. 9.8.1 Monitoring MM and GM with scripts
    9. 9.9 Monitoring Tier1 SSD
  16. Chapter 10. Maintenance
    1. 10.1 User interfaces
      1. 10.1.1 Management GUI
      2. 10.1.2 Service Assistant Tool GUI
      3. 10.1.3 Command line interface
    2. 10.2 Users and groups
    3. 10.3 Volumes
    4. 10.4 Hosts
    5. 10.5 Software updates
      1. 10.5.1 Deciding the target software level
      2. 10.5.2 Hardware considerations
      3. 10.5.3 Update sequence
      4. 10.5.4 SAN fabrics preparation
      5. 10.5.5 Storage controllers preparation
      6. 10.5.6 Hosts preparation
      7. 10.5.7 Copy services considerations
      8. 10.5.8 Running the Upgrade Test Utility
      9. 10.5.9 Updating the software
    6. 10.6 Drive firmware updates
    7. 10.7 SAN modifications
      1. 10.7.1 Cross-referencing WWPN
      2. 10.7.2 Cross-referencing LUN ID
    8. 10.8 Server HBA replacement
    9. 10.9 Hardware upgrades
      1. 10.9.1 Adding control enclosures
      2. 10.9.2 Upgrading nodes in an existing cluster
      3. 10.9.3 Upgrading NVMe drives
      4. 10.9.4 Moving to a new IBM FlashSystem cluster
      5. 10.9.5 Splitting an IBM FlashSystem cluster
      6. 10.9.6 Adding expansion enclosures
      7. 10.9.7 Removing expansion enclosures
      8. 10.9.8 IBM FlashWatch
    10. 10.10 I/O Throttling
      1. 10.10.1 General information on I/O throttling
      2. 10.10.2 I/O throttling on front-end I/O control
      3. 10.10.3 I/O Throttling on back-end I/O control
      4. 10.10.4 Overall benefits of using I/O throttling
      5. 10.10.5 Considerations for I/O throttling
      6. 10.10.6 Configuring I/O throttling using the CLI
      7. 10.10.7 Configuring I/O throttling using the GUI
      8. 10.10.8 Creating a volume throttle
      9. 10.10.9 Creating a host throttle
      10. 10.10.10 Creating a host cluster throttle
      11. 10.10.11 Creating a storage pool throttle
      12. 10.10.12 Creating an offload throttle
    11. 10.11 Automation
      1. 10.11.1 Red Hat Ansible
      2. 10.11.2 RESTful API
    12. 10.12 Documenting IBM FlashSystem and SAN environment
      1. 10.12.1 Naming conventions
      2. 10.12.2 SAN fabric documentation
      3. 10.12.3 IBM FlashSystem documentation
      4. 10.12.4 Storage documentation
      5. 10.12.5 Technical support information
      6. 10.12.6 Tracking incident and change tickets
      7. 10.12.7 Automated support data collection
      8. 10.12.8 Subscribing to IBM FlashSystem support
  17. Chapter 11. Troubleshooting and diagnostics
    1. 11.1 Starting troubleshooting
      1. 11.1.1 Recommended actions and fix procedure
    2. 11.2 Diagnostic data collection
      1. 11.2.1 IBM FlashSystem data collection
      2. 11.2.2 Host multipath software data collection
      3. 11.2.3 Additional data collection
    3. 11.3 Common problems and isolation techniques
      1. 11.3.1 Host problems
      2. 11.3.2 SAN problems
      3. 11.3.3 Storage subsystem problems
      4. 11.3.4 Native IP replication problems
      5. 11.3.5 Remote Direct Memory Access based clustering
      6. 11.3.6 Advanced Copy services problems
      7. 11.3.7 Health status during upgrade
      8. 11.3.8 Managing physical capacity of over provisioned storage controllers
      9. 11.3.9 Replacing a failed flash drive
      10. 11.3.10 Recovering from common events
    4. 11.4 Remote Support Assistance
    5. 11.5 Call Home Connect Cloud and Health Checker feature
      1. 11.5.1 Health Checker
    6. 11.6 IBM Storage Insights
      1. 11.6.1 Storage Insights Customer Dashboard
      2. 11.6.2 Customized dashboards to monitor your storage
      3. 11.6.3 Creating support tickets
      4. 11.6.4 Updating support tickets
      5. 11.6.5 SI Advisor
  18. Appendix A. IBM i considerations
    1. IBM i Storage management
    2. Single-level storage
    3. IBM i response time
    4. Planning for IBM i storage capacity
    5. Storage connection to IBM i
    6. Setting of attributes in VIOS
    7. Disk drives for IBM i
    8. Defining LUNs for IBM i
    9. Data layout
    10. Fibre Channel adapters in IBM i and VIOS
    11. Zoning SAN switches
    12. IBM i Multipath
    13. Boot from SAN
    14. IBM i mirroring
    15. Copy services considerations
    16. Db2 mirroring for IBM i
  19. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Online resources
    3. Help from IBM
  20. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: IBM FlashSystem Best Practices and Performance Guidelines
  • Author(s): Anil K Nayak, Antonio Rainero, Barry Whyte, Chris Hoffmann, Danilo Morelli Miyasiro, David Green, Duane Bolland, Jackson Shea, Jon Herd, Jordan Fincher, Marcelo Avalos, Sergey Kubin, Sidney Varoni Junior, Thales Noivo Ferreira, Vasfi Gucer
  • Release date: October 2021
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: 9780738459707