Introduction to IBM Real-time Compression Appliances

Introduction to IBM Real-time Compression Appliances

by Roland Tretau, JinSu Kim, Beatriz Nolte, Gary Nunn, Falk Schneider
Released October 2013
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

Continuing its commitment to developing and delivering industry-leading storage technologies, IBM is introducing the IBM Real-time Compression Appliances for NAS, an innovative new storage offering that delivers essential storage efficiency technologies, combined with exceptional ease of use and performance.

In an era when the amount of information, particularly in unstructured files, is exploding, but budgets for storing that information are stagnant, IBM Real-time Compression technology offers a powerful tool for better information management, protection, and access.

IBM Real-time Compression can help slow the growth of storage acquisition, reducing storage costs while simplifying both operations and management. It also enables organizations to keep more data available for use rather than storing it offsite or on harder-to-access tape, so they can support improved analytics and decision making.

IBM Real-time Compression Appliances provide on-line storage optimization through real-time data compression, delivering dramatic cost reduction without performance degradation.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication is an easy-to-follow guide that describes how to design solutions successfully using IBM Real-time Compression Appliances (IBM RTCAs). It provides practical installation examples, ease of use, remote management, high availability, and administration techniques. Furthermore, it explains best practices for RTCA solution design, application integration, and practical RTCA use cases.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Figures
  3. Tables
  4. Examples
  5. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  6. Preface
    1. The team who wrote this book
    2. Now you can become a published author, too!
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  7. Summary of changes
    1. January 2012, Second Edition
  8. Part 1 Introduction
    1. Chapter 1. The industry requirement for compression
      1. 1.1 Current IT challenges
      2. 1.2 How compression can overcome the challenges
      3. 1.3 Identifying use cases for compression
        1. 1.3.1 Home directories
        2. 1.3.2 CAD/CAM
        3. 1.3.3 Oil and gas data
        4. 1.3.4 Log data
        5. 1.3.5 Database
        6. 1.3.6 Virtualized infrastructures
    2. Chapter 2. Compression technology discussed
      1. 2.1 Compression technology history
      2. 2.2 Data efficiency technologies
        1. 2.2.1 Space efficient technology
        2. 2.2.2 Flash Copy (space efficient)
        3. 2.2.3 Easy Tiering
        4. 2.2.4 Archiving and space management
        5. 2.2.5 Data deduplication
      3. 2.3 Data compression technologies
    3. Chapter 3. Introduction to RTCA design
      1. 3.1 The RTCA approach
      2. 3.2 IBM Real-time Compression
      3. 3.3 IBM RTCA RACE technology
        1. 3.3.1 Random Access Compression Engine: RACE
        2. 3.3.2 Link Status Mirroring
        3. 3.3.3 Unified Protocol Manager
        4. 3.3.4 Monitoring and Reporting Manager
      4. 3.4 Performance considerations
      5. 3.5 Data integrity
        1. 3.5.1 Data integrity at the network level
        2. 3.5.2 Data integrity at the protocol layer
        3. 3.5.3 Data integrity at the storage layer
      6. 3.6 Storage advantages
    4. Chapter 4. Hardware and software components
      1. 4.1 Base model configurations
        1. 4.1.1 IBM Real-time Compression Appliance STN6500 (2452-650)
        2. 4.1.2 IBM Real-time Compression Appliance STN6800 (2452-680)
      2. 4.2 Front-panel components
      3. 4.3 Rear-panel components
      4. 4.4 Technical specifications
        1. 4.4.1 Physical specifications
        2. 4.4.2 Technical specifications
        3. 4.4.3 Operating environment
        4. 4.4.4 Supported clients and servers
      5. 4.5 Software components
    5. Chapter 5. What is new in RTCA v3.8
      1. 5.1 Product documentation
      2. 5.2 New features
        1. 5.2.1 New features in v3.8
        2. 5.2.2 Enhanced features in v3.8
        3. 5.2.3 Deprecated features in v3.8
      3. 5.3 Interoperability matrix
        1. 5.3.1 Additional storage system support
        2. 5.3.2 Additional client system support
        3. 5.3.3 Additional application enhancements
        4. 5.3.4 Unsupported systems
  9. Part 2 Implementation planning
    1. Chapter 6. Implementation planning
      1. 6.1 Physical installation
        1. 6.1.1 Solution requirements
        2. 6.1.2 Architectural planning
        3. 6.1.3 Network planning
        4. 6.1.4 Antivirus services considerations
        5. 6.1.5 Network considerations summary
      2. 6.2 Logical installation
        1. 6.2.1 Configuration planning
        2. 6.2.2 High availability for the compression appliances
      3. 6.3 Reporting considerations: Summary
      4. 6.4 Validating and testing the installation
        1. 6.4.1 General memory limitations
        2. 6.4.2 NFS memory limits
        3. 6.4.3 CIFS memory limits
    2. Chapter 7. Performance considerations
      1. 7.1 Performance requirements
      2. 7.2 Performance best practices
        1. 7.2.1 Read-cache allocation
        2. 7.2.2 Parallelism of I/O
        3. 7.2.3 Interval between files
        4. 7.2.4 Compression ratio
        5. 7.2.5 Transparent versus compressed traffic
    3. Chapter 8. Interaction with native NAS, host OS, and application features
      1. 8.1 Interaction with native N series features
        1. 8.1.1 NAS system resources and limitations
        2. 8.1.2 Thin provisioning
        3. 8.1.3 NAS deduplication
        4. 8.1.4 NAS compression
        5. 8.1.5 Snapshot copies
        6. 8.1.6 SnapRestore
        7. 8.1.7 FlexClone
        8. 8.1.8 SnapVault backup
        9. 8.1.9 SnapMirror replication
        10. 8.1.10 MetroCluster configuration
        11. 8.1.11 Volume copy
        12. 8.1.12 NDMP copy
        13. 8.1.13 Access by other file protocols
      2. 8.2 Interaction with native host OS features
        1. 8.2.1 Host protocol support
        2. 8.2.2 Host integration agents
        3. 8.2.3 Virtual block devices over NFS
      3. 8.3 Interaction with native application features
        1. 8.3.1 Application data compression
        2. 8.3.2 Applications with native compressed file formats
        3. 8.3.3 Application integration agents
    4. Chapter 9. Deploying Real-time Compression Appliances
      1. 9.1 Physical installation of Real-time Compression Appliance
      2. 9.2 Cabling the RTCA product for configuration
      3. 9.3 Connecting to the RTCA product
        1. 9.3.1 Direct connection
        2. 9.3.2 Remote connection
      4. 9.4 Configuring the RTCA product
      5. 9.5 Configuring bonds and bridges
        1. 9.5.1 Creating bonds
        2. 9.5.2 Creating bridges
        3. 9.5.3 Connecting to storage interfaces
        4. 9.5.4 Configuring storage systems
        5. 9.5.5 Starting the compression engine
        6. 9.5.6 Summary of steps deploying RTCA
      6. 9.6 Configuring high availability
        1. 9.6.1 Synchronizing high availability manually
        2. 9.6.2 Synchronizing high availability automatically
        3. 9.6.3 Configuring high availability from the command line interface
    5. Chapter 10. Administration
      1. 10.1 Working with the IBM Real-time Compression Appliance
        1. 10.1.1 The web interface
        2. 10.1.2 The menu
        3. 10.1.3 Input area
        4. 10.1.4 Connecting to the web interface and access permissions
      2. 10.2 Configuring storage and compression filters
        1. 10.2.1 Compression filters in transparent mode storage systems
        2. 10.2.2 Changing the storage system mode from transparent to compressed
        3. 10.2.3 Compression filters in compressed mode storage systems
      3. 10.3 Configuring the Compression Accelerator
        1. 10.3.1 Compression Accelerator procedure
        2. 10.3.2 Scheduling
        3. 10.3.3 Monitoring the Compression Accelerator
        4. 10.3.4 Resetting the Compression Accelerator log
      4. 10.4 Capacity advisor
        1. 10.4.1 Configuring the Capacity Advisor
        2. 10.4.2 Controlling the Capacity Advisor
        3. 10.4.3 Scheduling the Capacity Advisor
        4. 10.4.4 Configuring the Capacity Advisor file extensions
        5. 10.4.5 Viewing Capacity Advisor reports
      5. 10.5 High availability concepts
      6. 10.6 Monitoring the compression appliance
        1. 10.6.1 Displaying compression appliance status
        2. 10.6.2 Displaying storage status
        3. 10.6.3 Displaying compression status
      7. 10.7 Configuring SNMP
      8. 10.8 Configuring LDAP
        1. 10.8.1 Configure
        2. 10.8.2 Diagnose
      9. 10.9 Miscellaneous tasks
        1. 10.9.1 Date and time settings
        2. 10.9.2 Setting up the remote syslog servers
        3. 10.9.3 Resetting the compression statistics
        4. 10.9.4 Web interface session timeout
        5. 10.9.5 DNS server setup
      10. 10.10 Maintaining the compression appliances
        1. 10.10.1 Reboot and shutdown
        2. 10.10.2 Backing up and restoring the configuration settings
      11. 10.11 Software installation or upgrade
        1. 10.11.1 Obtaining the software file
        2. 10.11.2 Installing/upgrade on a single RTCA
        3. 10.11.3 Installing/upgrading on a high availability RTCA system
        4. 10.11.4 Updating the hardware configuration file
      12. 10.12 Configuring system options
      13. 10.13 Diagnosing problems
      14. 10.14 Recovering files when appliance is unavailable
        1. 10.14.1 Using the data recovery utility
        2. 10.14.2 Running the data recovery utility
        3. 10.14.3 Creating data-recovery tasks
        4. 10.14.4 Running data-recovery tasks
        5. 10.14.5 Viewing data-recovery logs
  10. Part 3 Best practices
    1. Chapter 11. NAS / N series solution design
      1. 11.1 Introduction to the design examples
      2. 11.2 N series single node solutions
        1. 11.2.1 N series and single RTCA product
        2. 11.2.2 N series and single RTCA product, active/passive path
        3. 11.2.3 N series and active/passive path, RTCA product HA pair
        4. 11.2.4 Active/passive path, RTCA product HA, EtherChannel/LACP bonds
      3. 11.3 N series dual node solutions
        1. 11.3.1 Active/passive RTCA product on LACP bonds
        2. 11.3.2 Controller configurations
      4. 11.4 N series MetroCluster solutions
      5. 11.5 N series with MultiStore
        1. 11.5.1 Considerations for vfilers
        2. 11.5.2 Types of configurations
    2. Chapter 12. EMC storage integration
      1. 12.1 Planning information
      2. 12.2 IBM RTCA value added benefits
      3. 12.3 IBM RTCA implementation in EMC NAS environments
        1. 12.3.1 The first option
        2. 12.3.2 The second option
    3. Chapter 13. Nearline and offline backup solutions
      1. 13.1 RTCA and SnapVault
        1. 13.1.1 Overview of SnapVault
        2. 13.1.2 Benefits of using SnapVault with IBM RTCA
      2. 13.2 Combining RTCA and deduplication
        1. 13.2.1 Combining RTCA and IBM ProtecTIER deduplication
        2. 13.2.2 RTCA and EMC Data Domain
      3. 13.3 IBM RTCA and NDMP backup to tape
      4. 13.4 Conclusion
    4. Chapter 14. VMware vSphere integration
      1. 14.1 IBM N series and VMware vSphere
        1. 14.1.1 vSphere in an N series MetroCluster environment
        2. 14.1.2 Integration and redundancy
      2. 14.2 VMware vSphere and NFS datastores
        1. 14.2.1 Increasing the number of NFS datastores
        2. 14.2.2 File system security
        3. 14.2.3 VMware ESX NFS time-out settings
        4. 14.2.4 NFS storage network best practices
      3. 14.3 VMware vSphere and storage networking
        1. 14.3.1 Ethernet storage networking best practices
        2. 14.3.2 Virtual LANs (VLANs)
        3. 14.3.3 Flow control
        4. 14.3.4 Spanning tree protocol
        5. 14.3.5 Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU)
        6. 14.3.6 Virtual Interfaces
        7. 14.3.7 Ethernet switch connectivity
      4. 14.4 Best practices for using vSphere and RTCA
        1. 14.4.1 RTCA hardware setup best practices
        2. 14.4.2 Storage controller best practices setup
        3. 14.4.3 Storage networking best practices
        4. 14.4.4 Virtual machine guest file placement
        5. 14.4.5 Block alignment with NFS
        6. 14.4.6 Considerations regarding deduplication and snapshots
      5. 14.5 Related documents
    5. Chapter 15. Oracle database application integration
      1. 15.1 Foundational best practices
      2. 15.2 Oracle database on Network Attached Storage
        1. 15.2.1 Network Attached Storage
      3. 15.3 Oracle, N series, and RTCA compression comparison
        1. 15.3.1 Oracle Advanced Compression
        2. 15.3.2 N series / Netapp compression
        3. 15.3.3 RTCA compression
        4. 15.3.4 Comparison between compression features
      4. 15.4 New features on Oracle 11g relevant to RTCA
        1. 15.4.1 Data segment compression
        2. 15.4.2 Oracle compression options
      5. 15.5 Best practices
        1. 15.5.1 Storage network configuration
        2. 15.5.2 NFS mount options for Oracle databases
        3. 15.5.3 Data ONTAP tuning options
        4. 15.5.4 LINUX tuning options
        5. 15.5.5 Storage layout configuration
    6. Chapter 16. File serving solutions
      1. 16.1 Foundations
        1. 16.1.1 NAS storage controllers
        2. 16.1.2 NAS clients
      2. 16.2 Common file service requirements
        1. 16.2.1 Workload considerations
        2. 16.2.2 Compression filters
      3. 16.3 Planning a CIFS file service
        1. 16.3.1 Authentication and authorization
        2. 16.3.2 Auto home shares
      4. 16.4 Planning an NFS file service
      5. 16.5 Block-mode pass-through
        1. 16.5.1 FCP protocol access
        2. 16.5.2 iSCSI protocol access
  11. Part 4 Use cases
    1. Chapter 17. VMware vSphere use cases
      1. 17.1 Test environment setup
      2. 17.2 Planning for implementation
      3. 17.3 Preparing the IBM Real-time Compression Appliance
      4. 17.4 Installing the IBM Real-time Compression Appliance
        1. 17.4.1 Installation without IBM RTCA
        2. 17.4.2 Connecting the passive path to the IBM RTCA
        3. 17.4.3 Switching active and passive path
        4. 17.4.4 Connecting the active path to the RTCA
        5. 17.4.5 Resetting active paths in the initial state
      5. 17.5 Turning on compression
      6. 17.6 Setting up the Compression Accelerator
        1. 17.6.1 Providing root access to the IBM RTCA
        2. 17.6.2 Configuring the Compression Accelerator
      7. 17.7 Our experiences
        1. 17.7.1 No compression
        2. 17.7.2 Only deduplication
        3. 17.7.3 Turning on compression
        4. 17.7.4 Combining compression and deduplication
        5. 17.7.5 Conclusion
    2. Chapter 18. Oracle use cases
      1. 18.1 Implementation for RTCA
        1. 18.1.1 Defining the test environment
        2. 18.1.2 Database population with TPC-H data model
        3. 18.1.3 Generated data set
        4. 18.1.4 Checking the capacity used for the Oracle database
      2. 18.2 Using the RTCA product
        1. 18.2.1 Inserting the RTCA product into an existing environment
        2. 18.2.2 Enabling compression on the RTCA
        3. 18.2.3 Compression accelerator
      3. 18.3 Recovery of data
        1. 18.3.1 Emergency path management
        2. 18.3.2 Removing export/share from compression list
    3. Chapter 19. File serving use cases
      1. 19.1 Setting up a CIFS file service
        1. 19.1.1 Configuring the NAS storage controller
        2. 19.1.2 Configuring the RTCA product
        3. 19.1.3 Storage compression mode
        4. 19.1.4 Compressing new data
        5. 19.1.5 Compressing existing data
        6. 19.1.6 Enabling NAS deduplication
        7. 19.1.7 Compressing automatic home shares
        8. 19.1.8 Accessing the compressed data
        9. 19.1.9 Calculating the compression ratio
      2. 19.2 Setting up an NFS file service
        1. 19.2.1 Configuring the NAS storage controller
        2. 19.2.2 Configuring the RTCA product
        3. 19.2.3 Storage compression mode
        4. 19.2.4 Compressing new data
        5. 19.2.5 Compressing existing data
        6. 19.2.6 Enabling NAS deduplication
        7. 19.2.7 Accessing the compressed data
        8. 19.2.8 Calculating the compression ratio
  12. Appendix A. Troubleshooting
    1. UEFI/IMM mismatch resolution
    2. Omitted CIFS credentials
    3. Upgrading the RTCA firmware
    4. Additional troubleshooting resources
  13. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks publications
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. Help from IBM
  14. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: Introduction to IBM Real-time Compression Appliances
  • Author(s): Roland Tretau, JinSu Kim, Beatriz Nolte, Gary Nunn, Falk Schneider
  • Release date: October 2013
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: None