Provisioning storage overview

IBM Spectrum Control guides you through the steps for provisioning storage volumes or network-attached storage (NAS) shares. You can provision storage volumes or NAS file shares to one or more servers, one or more hypervisors, or one cluster.

Discontinued support: Provisioning is no longer supported in IBM Spectrum Control. While the feature might still work in this release, it's recommended that you use another tool for your provisioning needs, when possible. For a complete list of discontinued features, see Discontinued features in IBM Spectrum Control.

Storage requirements

When you set up provisioning, you must specify your storage requirements by defining a service class. Certain properties of the service class describe capabilities that storage resources must have so they can provide the service class. For example, when you provision volumes, a block-storage service class specifies properties such as a storage tier, a RAID level, and whether the pool must be able to encrypt or thin provision volumes.

A service class typically represents a quality or service. For example, IBM Spectrum Control provides predefined block-storage service classes that are named Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Gold represents the highest-performing storage resources, and Silver and Bronze represent lesser levels of storage quality.

The different levels of storage quality that are provided by each service class are defined by the service class properties. For example, each service class specifies a different required storage tier that depends on the level of service that is required. Because the Gold service class is for mission critical applications, it sets off thin provisioning.

When IBM Spectrum Control guides you through the steps for provisioning, you concern yourself only with which service class is needed for the new volumes or shares, and how much capacity you require. However, if you are unfamiliar with the service classes, you can open a separate window to view service class information. If you have Administrator privileges, you can modify or create service classes.

Storage constraints

IBM Spectrum Control identifies the storage resources that can provide the capacity and the service class from a set of storage resources. This set might be all the storage resources that are known to IBM Spectrum Control, or it might be constrained to a subset of those resources. In particular, your site can create capacity pools. Capacity pools are groups of storage resources. You can use capacity pools to separate storage resources in any way that serves the needs of your environment or business. For example, a capacity pool might contain the storage resources that are allocated to a particular department or division of your business.

A service class might restrict storage placement to one or more capacity pools. If the service class you are provisioning from restricts placement, you must select one of the allowed capacity pools. If the service class does not restrict storage placement, you can specify that candidates for provisioning can be selected from all storage resources that are known to IBM Spectrum Control, all storage resources in any capacity pool, or storage resources in a particular capacity pool. If you are unfamiliar with the capacity pools that you can select when you set up provisioning, you can open a separate window to view capacity pool information. If you have Administrator privileges, you can modify or create capacity pools.

If the fabrics are managed by IBM Spectrum Control, the set of storage resources might be further constrained by your zoning policy. If the zoning policy is not configured to automatic zoning, only storage systems with connectivity to the server or hypervisor are candidates for storage placement.

Provisioning volumes

Restriction: To provision volumes, you must have the IBM Spectrum Control Advanced Edition license.

To provision volumes, you must select one or more servers or hypervisors. You can request one or more volumes. For each volume, you specify a volume name, the capacity that is required, a service class, and, optionally, a capacity pool. For each volume, IBM Spectrum Control identifies the storage pools that can provide the capacity and the service class. From the set of pools that can provide the capacity and service class, IBM Spectrum Control identifies the best location for the storage. The best location for the storage is based on the available capacity in the pool and performance data. Preference is first given to storage pools and systems that already contain volumes for the selected server or hypervisor. Preference is then given to systems that have available performance data.

On storage systems, volumes are allocated in increments of a set unit size that depends on the storage system type. Depending on the storage system that was identified as the best location for the storage, the volumes that are allocated might be larger than the capacity you requested for the following reasons:

On SAN Volume Controller, Storwize V7000, and Storwize V7000 Unified, volumes are allocated in increments of an extent size. The extent size is set when the MDisk group is created. The capacity that you requested is rounded up, if necessary, to the full extent size.
On a DS8000, volumes are allocated in increments of a 1 GiB fixed extent size. The capacity that you requested is rounded up, if necessary, to the full extent size.
On an XIV, volumes are allocated in fixed increments of 16 GiB. The capacity that you requested is rounded up, if necessary, to complete the 16 GiB increment.

Provisioning shares

To provision a share, you must first select one or more servers or hypervisors. You specify the capacity that is required for the share, a service class, and information about how to export the share. IBM Spectrum Control identifies the file systems and Network Shared Disks (NSDs) that can provide the capacity and the service class. From the set of file systems and NSDs that can provide the capacity and service class, IBM Spectrum Control identifies the best location for the storage. The best location for the storage is based on the available capacity on the file system or NSD.

The provisioning task

When you complete the steps for setting up provisioning, IBM Spectrum Control creates a provisioning task for the share or volume. If you request multiple volumes, a separate task is created for each unique service class and capacity pool combination you specify in your volumes request. If a requested volume is not constrained to a capacity pool, the set of all available storage resources is considered the capacity pool. If you have Administrator privileges, you can save, run, or schedule provisioning tasks.

In the service class, an administrator can grant users permission to provision by using the service class. In the service class, an administrator can also specify whether scheduling or running provisioning tasks that are created by using the service class requires administrator approval. If you are a user with permission to provision by using the service class, and administrator approval is not required, you can save, run, or schedule the task. You can save the task, if administrator approval is required. Also, if you save the task, an administrator can later schedule or run it.

Although IBM Spectrum Control identifies the best location for storage when it creates the provisioning task, the implementation of the task might fail. For example, the implementation of the task might fail because of changes in the environment that occur after the task is created and before it is run. The implementation of the task might also fail because of storage system restrictions that are not considered when the task is created.

Viewing task details and logs

When a provisioning task is running, you can view its status in a details page. If you run the provisioning task immediately after you complete the steps for setting up provisioning, the details page is already displayed. You can also display details of a provisioning task from the Tasks page. From the details page, you can open logs for the provisioning task. The logs show the steps that are taken by the task during processing and include detailed information about any warnings or errors.

Tracking

When you set up provisioning, you can specify a ticket identifier for tracking purposes. The ticker identifier is associated with the provisioning task, and with any volume or share that is created by the provisioning task.

The ticket identifier can be viewed by showing the Ticket column in the Volumes page or the Shares page. The ticket identifier can also be viewed in the properties notebook for a volume or share.

Tip: If you request multiple volumes, a separate provisioning task is created for each unique service class and capacity pool combination you specify in your volumes request. By specifying a ticket identifier when you request the volumes, you can easily track the set of provisioning tasks and volumes that are created by the single request.

Storage configuration

Whether you are provisioning volumes or shares, IBM Spectrum Control configures the storage and resources as specified by certain properties of the service class, and, in the case of volumes, according to your zoning policy.

When you provision volumes, IBM Spectrum Control can configure volumes and resources according to properties of the service class:

If the service class requires thin provisioning, the volume is created in a pool that can thin provision volumes. During provisioning, other properties of the service class are used to configure the thin provisioned volume for the particular type of storage system that contains the pool. Because you configure thin provisioned volumes differently for the different storage system types, the service class has a unique set of thin provisioning properties for each type.
If the service class specifies a multipathing policy for servers, the IBM® System Storage Multipath Subsystem Device Driver (SDD) on the server is configured to use that policy. For the SDD to be configured, a Storage Resource agent (SRA) must be running on the server.

When you are provisioning volumes, if automatic zoning is enabled, new zones might be created to connect a server to the storage system. Existing zones are used if the server already has connectivity to the storage system. Otherwise, one or more new zones are created between a host initiator port and a controller, node, or module port.

When you provision shares, IBM Spectrum Control configures at least one file access protocol for the file share.