AFA (All Flash Storage ) Battle Field

http://www.ericcsinger.com/review-2-5-years-with-nimble-storage/?replytocom=2#respond

• Controller Replacement
• Hot vs Cold Data
• SSD will be the only type of disk – This is a myth perpetuated by the All Storage guys and also NetApp. This is just a oppunion, has it happend yet, of couse not, so if you are a buyer that buys current technology for future benfits.. Can i have your job.

EMC Storage Performacne Fundamenals

Student Guide2

Storage Platform Questions

Auto Tiering

& HyperScale

Selling the Power of EMCII Portfolio attach

Example

IO breakdown (estimates):

• MS SQL (50% of our total IO)
  • 75% OLTP
  • 25% OLAP
• MS Exchange (30% of total IO)
• Generic servers (15% of total IO)
• VDI (5% of total IO)

Capacity consuming apps:

• SQL (40TB after compression)
• File server (35TB after compression)
• Generic VM’s (16TB after compression)
• Exchange (8TB after compression)
• http://www.ericcsinger.com/review-2-5-years-with-nimble-storage/?replytocom=2#respond

Server Architecture

• Traditional (Scale Up)
  • Client/Server – ERP, Filers, DBs
• Converged (Scale Up)– VSPEC, VCE
  • Mission Critical – SAP, VDI, Exchange
• HyperConverged (Scale-Out) – vSAN, VxRack
  • Software Defined Data Centre (Networking, Storage) and Flash – VDI, Branch,
• HyperScale(Scale-Out) – ScaleIO, Ceph, AWS, OpenStack
  • 3rd Platform – Mobile, Big Data, Social Apps, IoT

Server Questions

• Do you require NUMA
• Do you require anti-affinity
• Do you require Server Pinning
• Do you require bare metal or 100% virtual
• What is your peak usage for Memory, CPU, IOPS?
• What is your workload types (CPU, RAM DISK) e.g. Test/UAT/Prod/DR,etc
• Workload percentage
• Workload total server
• What is your total CPU, Memory, Disk
• What is your current CPU mark score total?
• What is your expected growth?
• Availability
• Snapshot reserves

technical Questions

1. Describe current infrastructure and applications?
2. What is your critical business services?
3. What is your main pain points?
4. What is you growth requirements?
5. What are you key drivers for change?
6. Can you meet your RPO and RTOs?
7. What is your DC Strategy?
8. What is your WAN and Links bandwith, speed and type?
9. Logical Server and Storage Architectures?
10. Match Workloads and Application to right architecture and Product Portfolio
11. Do you have existing storage?
12. What is your usable Space requirements?
13. What is your budget
14. What is the core application
15. What is your Rate of Change of Data? (Compare most recent full backups.)
16. What is the visualization platform
17. What is your connectivity protocol. (NFS, CIFS, FC, ISCSI, FCoE)
18. Switch Speed
19. Host compatibility?
20. Switch Compatibility?
21. What type of data (File, VM, Database)
22. Write intensive or Read Intensive or both transnational
23. What IOPS are required?
24. What is the percentage for Read vs Write?
25. What is the Application System Requirements
26. What are you Server requirements
27. What Replication is required?
28. Storage Performance Split (Flash Cache, SSD, SAS, Near-Line SAS, Capacity, SATA)
29. Disk IOPS (IOPS = 1/(*avgLatency + *avgSeek) *in seconds
    1. SATA
       1. 7.5 K  75-100
       2. 10 K 125-150
    2. NL-SAS
       1. 7.5 K
    3. SAS
       1. 10 K 140
       2. 15 K 175-210
    4. SSD
       1. MLC
       2. SLC
30. RAID IOPS
    1. http://www.thecloudcalculator.com/calculators/disk-raid-and-iops.html
    2. http://www.ryanfrantz.com/posts/calculating-disk-iops/
31. 1GBE or 10 GB Connectivity
32. SFP = 1G
    SFP+ = 1/10G
    QSFP = 40G
33. Port Connectivity (CAT-5, 10-Base-T, TwinAx, SPF+, Copper, Fibre, SAS)
34. (NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, Block)6 GB SAS
    12 GB SAS8 GB FC
    12 GB FC1 GBase-T CAT 6
    10 Gbase-T CAT 6
    Optical 1 GBase-T iSCSI – SFP
    Optical 10 Gbase-T iSCSI – TWAX
    10GbE FCoE – SFP
    10GbE FCoE – Active TWAX
35. Cable Requirements and Port Connections to Switch (Transceivers )
36. Backup Features
37. Tape Connectivity
38. Support Requirements
39. Controller Redudancy (NetApp 7-Mode, NetApp Cluster-Mode)
40. Data Migration
41. How many spares Drives
42. What warranty would you like and the term
43. Storage Architecture (Type 1, Type 2, Type, 3, Type 4) http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2014/01/understanding-storage-architectures.html
44. http://vmtyler.com/storage-architecture-roundup-part-1-whats-old-whats-new-whats-nonsense/
45. 
46. UCSQuickStart
47. StorgeFundamentals

Business questions

For Business Decision-makers:

ASK:

• What plans do you have for expanding offerings or for growth in services to your customers? To your staff?
• What are your growth goals?
• What is your ROA (return on assets)?
• How are growing costs affecting your company’s—flexibility, profit margin?
• What are your compliance and security challenges?
• How would you like the data center to support your vision?
• What do you see as the greatest risks to your business?
• How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
• How do you see the data center supporting your competitive differentiation?
• What plans do you have in place for business continuance? Have they been implemented?

LISTEN for:

• We need to reduce TCO
• We need to make the data center a profit center
• Green initiatives are of great importance to our customers, too.
• We want to expand our cloud services
• We want to virtualize our workforce
• We have acquisitions planned that will require consolidation

ACT/Do:

• Research the company well: Dig into financials, read industry reports, subscribe to industry blogs and feeds
• Build consensus at operational levels
• Know competitor offerings
• Prepare to describe how an end-to-end approach can reduce TCO and improve productivity.
• Ask yourself: Why does my customer need or want it?
• Know your competition.
• Review available Cisco Capital options.

 For technology decision-makers:

ASK:

• Tell me about how your data center has developed. Has that development posed challenges?
• Are you moving to total virtualization?
• What business strategies are you grappling with fulfilling now? Into the future?
• How do you see the data center contributing to business growth?
• How quickly can you roll out new apps?.
• What issues are you experiencing around technical readiness, implementation, monitoring and optimization?
• What technical issues keep you up at night?
• Has your business continuance and data recovery plan been tested? Is it adequate to effectively deal with internal and external risks and threats?
• How do you expect the Cisco data center solution to help you?
• Are you planning to deploy new applications,
• Do you have any plans for data center growth or changes? Or are you adding new branches or acquired companies to the data center load?
• What is your biggest challenge in the data center today?

LISTEN:

• We struggle with planning around product lifecycles
• There are too many access points/policies that are difficult to manage effectively.
• We need to have air-tight security
• We need hardware and software support for our remote workers.
• We’re not getting efficient utilization out of our existing infrastructure.

ACT/Do:

• Describe planning around business lifecycles instead of product lifecycles
• Use the three-level architectural selling model :
• Identify Current State – technical and business
• Define Target State
• Create Transition Roadmap
• Know what the competition is offering, and why

Windows VSS and Snapshot Demonstration

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9N44971J-U]

Application Issues with CIFS

http://samba.org/~tridge/ctdb_movies/

CLI Commandsh

Root Commands

Policy

The following example policy can be used to configure a RULE for new and existing files.

[sourcecode language=”sql”]
RULE ‘migdatfile’ MIGRATE FROM POOL ‘system’ to pool ‘sata’ WHERE UPPER(name) like ‘%.DAT’
RULE ‘datfiles’ set POOL ‘sata’ WHERE UPPER(name) like ‘%.DAT’
RULE ‘default’ set POOL ‘system’
[/sourcecode]

Following command validates above Policy RULE

[sourcecode language=”bash”]
mmlsattr -L *dat

file name:            testfile1.dat
metadata replication: 2 max 2
data replication:     2 max 2
immutable:            no
flags:                illreplicated
storage pool name:    sata
fileset name:         root
snapshot name:

file name:            testfileAlex.dat
metadata replication: 2 max 2
data replication:     2 max 2
immutable:            no
flags:</div>
storage pool name:    sata
fileset name:         root
snapshot name:
[/sourcecode]

IBM RedBooks

Links

http://sonas.redirect.webahead.ibm.com

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/index.jsp

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/network/sonas/

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/clresctr/vxrx/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.cluster.gpfs32.advanceadm.doc/bl1adv_policyrules.html

SAN/Storage Health Check

Performance analysis is very much an art (not a science) and it’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint exact causes based on the mix of applications and workload on the array. It takes extensive amounts of experience and research to solve these bottlenecks.

Hardware

1. One laptop with the SAN Monitoring & Analysis Software
2. SAN Monitoring and/or Analysis Appliances
3. Fibre TAP – Use of TAPs (Traffic Access Points)

SAN Health Check: A Step by Step Guide

1. Client meeting to review the SAN infrastructure and perceived SAN issues
2. Determine probe/tap placement and the number of probes
3. TAP’s Installation
4. Deploy SAN Monitoring Appliance
5. Configure SAN Monitoring software
   This can be installed either in one of your servers or it will come in a ready configured laptop that we will be provided in order to collect the necessary statistics. This laptop will be connected directly to our SAN Monitoring equipment and it will not interfere with your network.
6. Generate initial report using initial statistics
7. Provide necessary product training for end users (if necessary)
8. Return to client after agreed period (up to 30 days)
9. Evaluate collected statistics for any important trends or issues
10. Generate custom baseline report using the collected statistics.
11. Generate a series of reports (see below) that characterize the “Health of the SAN” for the monitored environment. An Xgig Analyser may be installed in order to capture a trace if that is necessary.
12. Appliances Removal

REPORT SAMPLE

1. ABC Company

STANDARD REPORTS for:

1. Baseline SAN Performance
2. Combined SAN Summary Report
3. Disk Performance Analysis
4. SAN Capacity Summary
5. SAN Latency Trend Analysis
6. SAN Link Queue Depth
7. SAN Max Latency Trend Analysis
8. SAN Summary Report
9. Client Custom Reports
10. HCL Matrix (firmware, drivers, versions,etc)
11. Heat Maps
12. OS Optimization

Approach

1. SoW
2. Kick Off Meeting (Success Criteria)
3. Data Collection
4. Analysis (2 Reviews)
5. Workshop Recommendation and Presentation
6. Remediation
7. Validation Report

Items to Check

Links:

http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/services/uk/en/Dell%20EMC%20Maintenance%20_Health%20Check%20SOW.pdf

http://www.jjwild.com/solutions-tech-m-shc.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/services/ps2961/ps3010/ps10401/services_san_health_check_DS.pdf

http://www.sanhealthcheck.com/

http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/services/uk/en/Dell%20EMC%20Maintenance%20_Health%20Check%20SOW.pdf

Report Tools

• http://australia.emc.com/data-center-management/storage-configuration-advisor.htm
• http://www.brocade.com/services-support/drivers-downloads/san-health-diagnostics/index.page
• emc-storage-backup-assess-guide-partner-sales-global
• http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Case_Study:_Financial_Services_Organization_Rationalizes_Storage_Management_Tools
• Cisco, NetApp and EMC Tools
  • SoW
• NetApp SANScreen
• EMC STORAGE ADVISOR
• Arkivio
• APTARE
• http://www.storagefusion.com/partners/overview/
• IBM Storage Enterprise Resource Planner
• Fibre Channel Protocal Analyzer
• CA Storage Resource Manager and CA Vantage Storage Resource Manager (mainframe)
• EMC  EMC Ionix ControlCenter, EMC Ionix ControlCenter StorageScope, EMC Ionix Storage Configuration Advisor (a new agentless platform for EMC)
• Hewlett-Packard (HP)  Storage Essentials
• Hitachi Data Systems Hitachi Storage Services Manager (Aptare — Storage Console — agentless)
• IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center
• NetApp  SANscreen (formerly Onaro –- agentless)
• Quest SoftwareStorage Horizon (formerly MonoSphere — agentless)
• SolarWinds Storage Profiler (formerly Tek-Tools)
• Storage Fusion Storage Resource Analysis (SRA)
• SANpulse Technologies discovery, data migration and storage reporting as a service
• Brocade SAN Health Check
• https://www.cisco.com/en/US/services/ps2961/ps3010/services_data_sheet_SAN_assessment.pdf
• http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/services/uk/en/Dell%20EMC%20Maintenance%20_Health%20Check%20SOW.pdf
• http://australia.emc.com/data-center-management/storage-configuration-advisor.htm
• http://australia.emc.com/data-center-management/storage-configuration-advisor.htm#!related_offerings
• http://www.penguinpunk.net/blog/emc-heatmap-analyzer-basics-part-3-charts/
• MiTrends

Detailed Procedures

Document Template

Procedure to Implement IBM SVC

Componets;

Host: Windows Server

Multi – pathing Software: IBM SDD, EMC PowerPath

Volume Manager Software: Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows

HBA Driver:

Application: Veritas Cluster

HBA Card:

SAN Switch:

Switch Fabric:

IBM SVC:

IBM SSPC:

Host Zone:

IO Groups:

VDisks:

Data Controller:

Storage Device:

FlashCopy:

Reference Links :

IBM SVC Product Information – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/software/virtualization/svc/

IBM SVC Online Learning Tutorial – http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/svcic/v3r1m0/topic/com.ibm.storage.svc.learning/learning_tutorials.html

Setup RSA Monitoring

Setup DS Storage Monitoring

http://www.x4live.com/IBM-Director-with-IBM-DS-series.html

IBM Electronic Service

ibm.com/support/electronic

IBM Redbook – Implementing IBM Systems Director 6.1 – http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247694.html

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/electronic/portal

Configuring Firewall

IBM RSA Ports

Found this discussion informative, http://joergsstorageblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/ibm-xiv-could-be-hazardous-to-your.html

http://joergsstorageblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/wide-striping-is-two-edged-sword.html

http://joergsstorageblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/wide-striping-is-two-edged-sword.html

It always too go understand what the competitors are saying to understand the technology better

SONAS E-Learning Video : –http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/data/flash/storage/network/sonas/index.html

Announc ement Brief: IBM SONAS Enterprise NAS – http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Announcement_Brief:_IBM_SONAS_Enterprise_NAS

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/InsideSystemStorage/entry/ibm_sonas_guest_post_from_john_sing7?lang=en