Specifically as it pertains to EMC VNX storage VNX monitoring and reporting
actually has fairly useful charge-back functionality built in and it's also
pretty decent performance monitoring. It's very poorly advertised so it's a bit
unknown to a lot of shops, cost is around $1200 an array for the licensing for
the mid-range VNX models last I bought a license.
EMC also came out with a storage analytics package recently which I assume is
probably similar to VNXMR for VMAX and other array models they sell. Haven't
had a chance to dig into it yet but it may also have charge-back tracking.
----
Brady Kittel
Systems Architect - Server Team
Hennepin County Medical Center
612-873-2150
Brady.Kittel AT hcmed DOT org
________________________________________
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] on behalf of
Rhodes, Richard L. [rrhodes AT FIRSTENERGYCORP DOT COM]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 11:58 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] SAN hardware hints
Yes, Win 2008 R2. And they have EMC PowerPath multipathing sftw.
The issue with charge back is kind of tricky.
When we talk with a vendor they always tell us there is absolutely no way we
_shouldn't_ be using thin devices, reguardless of chargeback. So we then ask .
. . How? We purchase storage. Some user asks and internally pays for X
amount. We allocate thin luns. The user asked for X, paid for X, and expects
to be able to use X. So if you have to purchase more real storage for the
array to satisfy the thin growth . . . how do you chargeback the growth? The
vendors answers . . . . nothing that helps.
Our storage team is the same. We handle SANs, storage arrays, backups (TSM,
DataDomain, tape), as well as some other misc duties.
Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Vandeventer, Harold [OITS]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 9:30 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: SAN hardware hints
Thanks for a long reply.... I manage our TSM environment but also SAN space.
Your comments about charge back, performance stats, and support will be helpful
there too.
Re the microcode updates: are you Win boxes 2008 or 2008 R2?
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Rhodes, Richard L.
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2015 7:43 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] SAN hardware hints
We use EMC storage. Most of our TSM databases and disk pools are on VNX/VNX2.
In general we like them, especially since they came out with the VNX2 - they
finally have enough processor power to drive the array.
We use all fat luns. We have a charge back system for storage and thin
provisioning doesn't fit well with charge back. I don't see that it would
really matter with TSM. I would think you would fatten out any thin luns
fairly quickly as you use your pools. My understanding is that there is a
small performance hit as you do initial writes as it allocates backend storage,
but that's a one time hit. We use all raw volumes for disk pools volumes. If
you use OS level files for disk pool volumes, don't you have to format them
first? That would fatten up any think vols right then! For DB2 files, thin
luns would be good since DB2 allocates files as needed.
All your VNX storage will be in a big VNX pool stripped across all the disks,
so you get lots of spindles/heads working for you.
We do purchase some SSD storage for Fast Cache on each VNX. EMC keeps wanting
us to use VNX FAST VP to migrate hot spots up onto SSD storage, but we've
stayed away from that. I believe the slice/chunk size that FAST VP moves is
256MB. That's a very large hot spot chunk. We've been using FAST CACHE -
just a normal read type cache - that caches in 64k chunks. This seem a much
better use of the SSD.
On some VNX2 systems we use snapshots - mostly for databases. They have a new
snapshot type that performs a redirect-on-write which supposedly much more
efficient than the older type which uses copy-on-write.
What we don't like about the VNX is performance tools. Yes they have them -
even give some away free. But when you start to use them to dig they come up
lacking.
We've had some problems with some AIX and Windows 2008 systems surviving a
microcode upgrade. The upgrade process reboots one SP, then the other.
There's a gap between the reboots, but sometimes some servers don't recover
paths before the second SP reboot. We've been working with support about this,
but they haven't been exactly responsive.
Support - it's all been moved overseas, and can be anything from good to bad.
It can be very frustrating.
Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Vandeventer, Harold [OITS]
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 3:56 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: SAN hardware hints
I've just learned we'll be migrating our systems to new SAN hardware;
specifically EMC VNX.
A little reading indicates some features such as thin-provisioning vs thick-
provisioning of LUNs will be available.
Anyone out there using EMC VNX for their TSM storage pools and/or database
LUNs? Any hints about thin vs thick regarding TSM performance?
Thanks.
------------------------------------------------------------
Harold Vandeventer
Systems Programmer
State of Kansas - Office of Information Technology Services STE 751-S
910 SW Jackson
(785) 296-0631
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