Your processing environment reflects the unique goals, procedures,
and structure of your business; therefore, you need to analyze your
business environment so that you can implement OAM for objects successfully.
The technical installation can then evolve logically from the functions
and requirements you have defined.
The first task in the analysis process is to characterize the objects
that are processed. Among the most useful classification categories
are:
- Size. Are objects small, medium, or large?
What are the criteria for these categories in your installation?
- Activity. How often are objects retrieved?
How often are new objects stored? Is one object accessed many times
or are many objects accessed one time each? What is the required response
time for accessing an object?
- Volume. How many objects of each size will
be created? How many objects must be processed every hour or every
day?
- Life cycle. Is the activity level stable
or does it change in response to a business cycle (such as monthly
billing)? Are such changes random or periodic? How frequently do these
changes occur? Are objects backed up? How long do you plan to retain
objects? How do you plan to handle expired objects? Do you plan to
delete objects automatically?
- OAMplex. If you are planning to run an OAMplex,
how many systems (OAMs) will be in your OAMplex? Which systems will
have the hardware physically attached to assist in determining where
OSMC should be run? How will the storage group and library disbursement
be handled between systems?
As a result of this analysis, you can:
- Determine criteria for grouping objects.
- Establish performance objectives.
- Determine the best system for OSMC processing per storage group.
- Determine hardware distribution based on demand and location.
- Identify storage management cycles.
This analysis, in turn, leads you to create storage groups, collections,
storage classes, data classes, and management classes through which
OAM and SMS can implement your storage management policy. The ultimate
goal is to develop a set of Storage Management Subsystem (SMS) constructs
that you can use to accurately describe and respond to the complex
reality of your business environment.