Flash Grid My World Navigation

A FlashSystem grid can be used to scale-out a storage system by adding more independent systems to create a federated cluster.

A FlashSystem grid allows for greater scalability than a traditional scale-out system (using I/O groups) as it supports up to eight systems per FlashSystem grid with linear increases in performance, capacity and number of volumes, hosts and snapshots. Systems in a FlashSystem grid can be updated independently and systems with different hardware models and generations can be included within a single FlashSystem grid. This allows for hardware replacement or tiering within the same FlashSystem grid. Storage Partitions can be non-disruptively migrated between systems in a FlashSystem grid by using Non-disruptive Storage Partition Migration.

Systems in a FlashSystem grid have the following requirements:

The system supports a maximum of a single I/O group and the compatibility mode for multiple I/O groups must be disabled.
The system topology must be 'standard'.
The system layer must be 'replication'.

On the Storage Systems page, FlashSystem grid records in the tabular view are highlighted in the blue color. You can expand a FlashSystem grid record in the tabular view to view the details of storage systems that are part of the FlashSystem grid. When you click a FlashSystem grid record, the Flash Grid My World Navigation dashboard is displayed with the details of the FlashSystem grid that you selected on the Storage Systems page.

Important: When adding the first storage system associated with a FlashSystem grid to IBM Storage Insights, allow a 10-minute interval after the initial successful probe of the storage system before accessing the FlashSystem grid overview page in the modern UI. During this period, the FlashSystem grid data is updated in the database. Accessing the FlashSystem grid overview page within this interval does not display any information about the FlashSystem grid.

AI Suggestions: Access the AI-generated suggestions designed to enhance your experience by providing intelligent insights and recommendations across your storage systems. These suggestions helps to identify situations where migrating a workload or storage partition might be necessary. AI suggestions leverage existing AI capabilities such as capacity forecasting and the workload placement advisor, to provide data-driven recommendations. AI Suggestions remain until the specified conditions are met and cannot be deleted. Click the AI icon to know the AI powered calculations behind these suggestions.

Note: AI Suggestions are available exclusively for IBM Storage FlashSystem systems that are part of a FlashSystem grid.

Suggestions overview panel: Click Suggestions to open a side panel that displays all the relevant suggestions in an intuitive card-based format. Each suggestion card includes the following information for the capacity, performance, and maintenance information categories:

Advisory title: A concise title summarizing the suggestions.
Storage system name: Displays the specific storage system involved.
Suggestion subcategory: Displayed as a tag for easy categorization. For example, Capacity, Performance, or Warranty.
Reported time: Timestamp showing when the suggestion is generated.
Close icon for individual card: Removes the individual card from the suggestions list.
Arrow icon for detailed view: Expands the individual suggestion card to view detailed information.
Sorting and filtering options: Sort by the date when suggestions were reported. Filter by storage system and suggestion category.
Exit suggestions overview panel: Click close icon at the top right of the suggestions overview panel or Close button at the bottom of the suggestions overview panel.

Individual suggestion detailed view: Click the arrow icon on individual suggestion card in the suggestions overview panel to open a comprehensive view. You can view the information such as suggestion title, time when the suggestion is reported, storage system, and the suggestion category. Also, the following 2 tabs are displayed:

Overview: The relevant storage system information is displayed. Also, yew can view the detailed analysis that explains why the suggestion is generated.
Recommendations: Based on the AI-powered suggestions, IBM Storage Insights provides smart recommendations such as evaluate storage partition placement if the storage capacity is not sufficient. The recommendations vary based on the suggestion category, such as capacity, performance, or warranty.

Click Back or upper-left arrow icon in the card to return to the previous suggestions screen. Click close icon at the upper right or Close in the detailed suggestion view to return to the overview dashboard.

You can see the following widgets on the Flash Grid My World Navigation dashboard:

Capacity: Displays the total count of storage systems and the aggregated storage capacity for all storage systems in the FlashSystem grid. You can see Used Capacity, Total Capacity, Total Provisioned, Data Reduction, and Total Savings fields on the widget.
Partition summary: Displays the summary of all storage partitions that are part of the FlashSystem grid along with their distribution among Local, Disaster Recovery, 2-site High Availability, and 3-site High Availability sites and the number of in progress migrations.
Migration: Displays a summary of migration status and table with other migration details. You can see migration status as In progress, Migration error, User action required, Request submitted, or In queue. The tabular view displays the following migration details:
- Partition name: Specifies the partition in which the migration is running.
- Migration source: Specifies the source storage system of the migration.
- Migration target: Specifies the target storage system of the migration.
- Partition type: Specifies the partition type, such as Local, DR (Disaster Recovery), and HA 2-site (2-site High Availability).
- Migration status: Specifies the migration status, such as In progress, Migration error, or User action required.
- Estimated completion time: Specifies the estimated completion time of the migration.
- Migration capacity: Specifies the storage capacity that is being migrated.
- On-demand Eye icon: The icon becomes visible for a record when you hover the mouse next to the Migration Capacity column. When you click the eye icon, the Migration Partition window appears. For more information, see Migration partition window.
- Partition in queue: All the migrations that are in queue are not displayed by default. The column allows users to expand and collapse the tabular view for migrations that are in queue. When you expand tabular view, details of migrations that are in the queue are displayed.