VMAXE VP Miscellaneous Operations

Copyright 2012 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved

Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:

Maintain and support a VP environment:

Expand pool capacity

Rebalance Data Devices

Reclaim unused storage space

Drain Data Devices

Unbind Thin Devices

Set subscription limit

Rename pools

Delete devices

Module 6: Virtual Provisioning Miscellaneous Operations 1


After Virtual Provisioning is implemented in a user environment, it will be necessary to perform maintenance activity on Thin Devices and Pools.

Later in this module, we will discuss the various actions that can be taken on Thin Devices and Thin Pools.

2 Module 6: Virtual Provisioning Miscellaneous Operations


We now write 950 MB of data to two of the Thin Devices causing the pool to fill up almost completely.

In a production environment, the pools should be monitored and action must be taken to expand the pool as soon as a certain percent, e.g. 80% of the pool fills up.



There are a number of points of interest in this screen output.

First, the list of nonpooled Data Devices is used as the source of devices from which to add to our existing pool.

Second, we add the same number of devices as we did originally, because this ensures even distribution of data on the Data Devices after the currently active Data Devices fill up.

Lastly, upon initial addition, the Data Devices are in disabled state, unless the member state=enable phrase was added to the symconfigure command line.



We now enable the newly added Data Devices. This makes them ready to receive new writes.



We now write more data to a third Thin Device. After we have fully written to the third thin device notice that the first two data devices are completely full. The two new data devices are also filling up. The data distribution across the four data devices is uneven. If we had added just one Data Device, that device would have received all the writes, thus causing a performance bottleneck.



Automated pool rebalancing allows the user to run a balancing operation that will redistribute data across the enabled Data Devices in the Thin Pool. Because the thin extents are allocated from the Thin Pool in a round-robin fashion, the rebalancing mechanism will be used primarily when adding Data Devices to increase Thin Pool capacity.

The balancing algorithm will measure the minimum, maximum, and mean used capacity values of the Data Devices in the Thin Pool. The Symmetrix will then move Thin Device extents from the Data Devices with the highest used capacity to those with the lowest until the pool is balanced.



I/O to the Thin Devices can continue during pool rebalancing. Enginuity will give the highest priority to front-end I/O operations. However, rebalancing can be stopped for any reason, such as an upcoming period of very high host I/O or an operation that will cause a large amount of internal copy tasks.



After balancing, the data is equally spread over all the Data Devices.



Space allocated to Thin Devices can be reclaimed. Since all the writes to the Thin Devices were performed from the zero device /dev/zero the Thin Devices are filled with zeros.

The command shown reclaims space from device 24F and returns the space to the Thin Pool.

The state of the device is reported as Reclaiming while the reclamation is going on. Reclamation is a background task run at a low priority.

Reclamation can be run against device groups and storage groups in addition to ranges of devices.

If background resources are required at a time of heavy host activity, the reclamation process can be stopped by using the command:

symconfigure cmd stop reclaim on tdev 24F; sid 95 commit noprompt

Instead of specifying the Symmetrix Device number in the reclaim command one can specify the name of the Storage Group or Device group as well.

The older start free syntax is also supported.

Please consult the SYMCLI Array Controls guide for additional supported syntax.



Draining of Data Devices allows for non-disruptive removal of Data Devices from Thin Pools.

Before removing a Data Device from a pool, the device must be disabled. Disabling a Data Device changes its state from Enabled to Draining. The concept of device draining is common to all pool types (data, DSE, and snap pools).

When a device enters a draining state, used tracks on that device are copied to the remaining enabled devices in the pool. Therefore, Data Devices can be removed from a pool and re-purposed without having to unbind Thin Devices that may have allocated extents associated with the Data Device.

Here the pool P1 has 4 Data Devices each of them with data on it.



As soon as one of the devices is disabled, it starts draining and is removed from the list of enabled devices. The disabled device enters the Draining state until all the data has been moved.



Once Draining is completed, the device is in the disabled state.



In order to unbind Thin Devices from a pool they must be unmapped or Not Ready.

In the list above, the Thin Devices 24D:250 are mapped, while the meta device 195 is not mapped, as indicated by the interrogation marks under the SA column.



Once Thin Devices are unbound from the pool, the space in the pool is free for use. The data on the TDEVs is lost.

Note: the value of None next to Max Subscription Percent. This means that there is no limit to pool over-subscription.



A subscription limit can be set to prevent over-subscription from going beyond a specified level. This limit can be set by specifying the max_subs_percent value when creating a Thin Pool or after the pool has been created.

In this command, the limit is set at 120%, meaning that the total amount of configured space for bound Thin Devices cannot exceed 120% of the space provided by the Data Devices.



The pool P1 contains three Data Devices each 1100 cylinders in capacity. An attempt to bind 4 Thin Devices of the same capacity would violate the pools 120% subscription limit.

Hence the bind command fails.



A Thin Pool can be renamed. The syntax is:

rename pool to type = ;



SMC can also be used to execute various Thin Pool management tasks listed on the slide. (Some of these tasks are relevant for Snap and SRDF/A DSE pools as well.)

Devices have to be disabled before they can be removed from a pool. To execute any of these activities, right click on the specific Device Pool and then choose Device Pool Management > then choose one of the tasks listed on the slide.

To Disable a specific device, right click on the specific Data/Save device and then choose Device Pool Management > Disable Device.



To manage specific Data Devices in SMC, right click on the Data Devices and then choose Device Pool Management.

The specific Data Devices can be Enabled or Disabled.

Choosing the Data Device Management option will allow users to Activate, Deactivate, Start and Stop Draining the device.



In SMC, a Device Pool can be expanded by right clicking on the Pool and choosing Device Pool Management > Expand Device Pool.

Specify how much to expand the pool by (in percentage or GB) and the method.

The method can be to either create new devices or to use existing Save/Data Devices which do not belong to a pool. The configuration of the new devices will be identical to that of the first device in the pool. Creation of new devices will lead to a Config Session task.

To rename a pool, right click on a device pool and choose Device Pool Management > Rename Pool. Enter the new pool name and click ok.



Unused space on a Thin Device can be reclaimed via SMC. Select one or more Thin Devices by right clicking on them.

Select Device Configuration and Allocate/Free Thin Devices to get to the space reclamation panel.



In the command file, you can delete one or more Symmetrix devices from the specified Symmetrix array. Deleting a device frees the space for future use. There are restrictions on device deletions that are aimed at protecting the data on the devices or any devices that may have associations with that device. This is the reason behind not allowing the deletion of devices with Snap or BCV sessions.

The complete SYMCLI syntax for device deletion is:

delete dev SymDevName[:SymDevName];



When devices are deleted, the device numbers they used to occupy disappear from the list of Symmetrix devices. Thus, deletion of devices have the potential for creating noncontiguous device numbers in the Symmetrix.



Although the configuration tool allows the deletion of existing devices, it does not allow the assignment of specific device numbers when new devices are being created.

SymmWin uses internal algorithms for the best distribution and placement of devices in the Symmetrix and the user has no control over the placement or numbering of new devices.

In the example shown, a gap was created in the Symmetrix device numbers after 25C due to the deletion of devices 25D and 25E. However, a subsequent creation of 4 devices does not fill the gaps left by the deletions.



To delete devices in SMC, highlight the desired device or devices and then choose Device Configuration > Delete Device.

The Device Configuration Delete Device dialog launches. SMC automatically grays out the choice to delete a device if the device violates any of the rules for deletion discussed earlier. Click Add to Config Session List. The task can be committed from the Config Session view.

In the example shown, we have highlighted four thin devices devices in the Properties view and then selected Device Configuration >Delete Device.



Key points covered in this module:

Maintenance and support of a VP environment: Expand pool capacity Rebalance Data Devices Reclaim unused storage space Configure metadevices Drain Data Devices Unbind Thin Devices Set subscription limit Rename the pool Deleting devices



1. See slide 7

2. See slide 10

3. See slide 10

4. See slide 11-13

5. See slide 14

6. See slide 15

7. See slides 23-25


Documents

VMAXE VP Miscellaneous Operations