Creating a tiering subrule

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To exercise granular control over cloud or tape tiering operations, you can create a tiering subrule. A tiering subrule specifies exceptions to a parent tiering storage rule for the specified subrule members.

Before you begin

A tiering storage rule must exist. For instructions about creating a tiering storage rule, see Creating a tiering storage rule.

About this task

Tiering subrules can be useful in many situations:
  • For example, a tiering storage rule was created to tier all of the data in a directory-container storage pool to cloud storage. However, some of the data is required for daily operations, so you want to keep that data on disk storage, from which restore operations are typically faster. You create a tiering subrule for individual clients to keep the specified data on disk storage.
  • For example, a tiering storage rule was created to tier only inactive data from different client types. However, you determine that tiering data by age is more appropriate for one of the client types. You define a subrule only for nodes or file spaces of the specified client type to apply the tier-by-age option. Data from all other clients will be tiered by state.
    Tip: To learn about tiering options as they affect different client types, see Determining whether tiering is appropriate for your storage environment.
The properties of a tiering subrule include the following information:
  • The name of the parent rule. This property is inherited and cannot be changed.
  • The server that runs the parent rule. This property is inherited and cannot be changed.
  • The target pool of the parent rule. The target pool is the storage pool to which eligible data is moved. This property is inherited, but you can change the value.
    Tip: By specifying a different target pool, you can tier data from the subrule members to a different target pool than the parent rule.
  • One or more source pools of the parent rule. The source pools are the directory-container storage pools where data is originally backed up. This property is inherited and cannot be changed.
  • The name of the tiering subrule. You must specify a name that is unique to the server and is no more than 30 characters.
  • The type of data to tier. You can specify one of the following options:
    All data
    Tiers all data that reaches the specified age threshold. This option is known as tiering by age.
    Inactive data
    Tiers only inactive data that reaches the specified age threshold. This option is known as tiering by state.
    None
    Prevents the tiering of data. Data is kept in the directory-container storage pool on disk storage.
  • The age threshold, which is the number of days to keep data in the source pools before the server tiers the data to the target pool. You can specify a value.
  • The members of the tiering subrule. The members are the clients and virtual machine (VM) file spaces to which the tiering subrule applies. You can select individual clients, specify VM name patterns, or both. You can also create a tiering subrule with no members and edit the subrule later to add members.

Procedure

To create a tiering subrule, complete the following steps:

  1. On the Operations Center menu bar, click Storage > Storage Rules.
  2. On the Storage Rules page, select the tiering storage rule for which you want to create a tiering subrule. Click Add icon Create Subrule.
  3. On the Create Subrule for Storage Tiering page, complete the fields.
  4. To add individual client members to the tiering subrule, click Add icon Add > Individual clients. On the Add Clients to Subrule page, select clients and click Add Clients.
  5. To add members to the tiering subrule by specifying VM patterns, take the following actions:
    1. Click Add icon Add > VM name pattern.
    2. On the Add Clients to Subrule page, select a VM owner and specify a pattern. Before you add a pattern, you must test the pattern to confirm that it does not overlap existing patterns for this or other subrules of the parent rule.
    3. Test the pattern by clicking Test. The VMs that match the pattern are displayed.
    4. After a pattern is successfully tested, add the pattern by clicking Add VM Pattern.
  6. To create the tiering subrule, click Create.

Results

The tiering subrule is created. If the parent storage rule is active, the tiering subrule is also active and runs on the same schedule as the parent storage rule. If the parent storage rule is inactive, the tiering subrule is also inactive.