Tiering scenario: A step-by-step example

You can configure a storage environment to automatically move data from a directory-container storage pool to cloud or tape storage. To learn how to configure tiering, review the scenario. Although the scenario describes cloud tiering, the same principles apply to tape tiering.

Environment

In this scenario, the system administrator, Elizabeth, administers a directory-container storage pool that includes data from various client types.

Elizabeth verifies that the prerequisites for cloud tiering are met:
  • A directory-container storage pool and a cloud-container storage pool exist in the storage environment.
  • The cloud-container storage pool is on a Microsoft Azure cloud computing system or on a cloud computing system that uses the Simple Storage Service (S3) protocol.
Tip: For tape tiering, the target storage pool must be defined for a physical or virtual tape library.

Planning the configuration

Elizabeth considers her business requirements:
  • For data that is infrequently accessed, she wants to tier all data that meets a specified age threshold to the cloud. This option is known as tiering by age. In the Operations Center, this option is enabled by selecting the All data option.
  • For data that is frequently accessed, she wants to keep a recent version on local disk storage. She can achieve this goal by tiering only inactive data that meets the specified age threshold. This option is known as tiering by state. In the Operations Center, this option is enabled by selecting the Inactive data option.

To understand the guidelines for cloud tiering from different client types, Elizabeth reviews the information in Determining whether tiering is appropriate for your storage environment.

Elizabeth plans to configure her environment in three steps:
  1. She will create a tiering rule for the entire directory-container storage pool. This tiering rule is known as the parent rule. (Initially, Elizabeth will not activate the parent tiering rule because she wants to create the subrules first. In this way, she can ensure that the configuration of rules and subrules is completed before cloud tiering starts.)
  2. She will create tiering subrules, which specify exceptions to the parent rule.
  3. She will activate the parent rule. By taking this action, she automatically activates the subrules. The parent rule and its subrules will run daily on the same schedule.
Tip: This scenario describes how to configure cloud tiering for several client types. If you are configuring cloud tiering for the first time, you might want to follow this scenario, but initially configure only one subrule. That way, you can verify the tiering results. Later, you can update the subrule to add more clients, or you can create additional subrules.

Configuring cloud tiering

  1. On the Operations Center Overviews page, Elizabeth clicks Storage > Tiering Rules. To create the parent rule, she clicks +Create Rule and specifies the following options:
    • The server on which the rule will run, the target pool, and the source pools
    • The parent rule name: PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1
    • The tiering option: Specify by subrule
    • The daily start time: 4 AM
    • No limit for the maximum run time
    She clicks Create. The parent rule is created and is inactive by default. Because she selected the Specify by subrule option, the parent tiering rule will not tier any data, even when it is activated. Instead, all of the tiering operations will be governed by subrules.
  2. To create subrules for various client types, Elizabeth reviews the guidelines and takes appropriate action:
    Client type and guidelines Considerations and actions
    IBM Spectrum Protect backup-archive client
    Guidelines:
    • For frequently accessed data, tier by state.
    • For infrequently accessed data, tier by age.
    		 Data from the backup-archive clients is accessed frequently, so Elizabeth decides to tier by state and specify an age threshold of 30 days. As a result, only data that is inactive and more than 30 days old will be tiered to cloud storage. The rest of the data will remain on local disk storage. Elizabeth takes the following actions:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_BACLIENT.
    4. In the Data to tier field, she selects Inactive data. In the Age threshold field, she sets the value to 30 days.
    5. To add the backup-archive clients, she clicks Add > Individual clients, presses Ctrl, selects the clients, and clicks Add Clients.
    6. She clicks Create.
    IBM Spectrum Protect for Databases: Data Protection for Microsoft SQL Server
    Guidelines:
    • For frequently accessed data, tier by state.
    • For infrequently accessed data, tier by age.
    		 Elizabeth plans to tier data from a single Data Protection for Microsoft SQL Server client. The SQL data is frequently accessed, so Elizabeth decides to tier by state and to specify an age threshold of 30 days:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_SQL. In the Data to tier field, she selects Inactive data. In the Age threshold field, she sets the value to 30 days.
    4. To add the Data Protection for Microsoft SQL Server client, she clicks Add > Individual clients, selects the client, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
    IBM Spectrum Protect for Databases: Data Protection for Oracle

    Guidelines: For all data, tier by age.

    		 Elizabeth plans to tier data from several Data Protection for Oracle clients. The Oracle data is frequently accessed. Elizabeth will follow the guidelines and tier all data by age. Because all data that meets the age threshold will be tiered, the threshold must be carefully selected. Elizabeth must ensure that a current version of the data is always available on local disk storage.

    In Elizabeth's system environment, Oracle data is backed up weekly in a full backup operation. After that, the data is backed up daily for six days in incremental backup operations. Because a full data backup operation takes place once in 7 days, Elizabeth decides to set the age threshold at 8 days; only data that is at least 8 days old will be tiered to the cloud:

    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_ORACLE. In the Data to tier field, she selects All data to tier the data by age. In the Age threshold field, she specifies 8 days.
    4. To add the Data Protection for Oracle clients, she clicks Add > Individual clients. Then she presses Ctrl, selects the clients, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
    IBM Spectrum Protect for Databases: Data Protection for SAP

    Guidelines: For all data, specify either option; in both cases, data is tiered by age.

    		 Elizabeth administers a single Data Protection for SAP client. The SAP data is accessed infrequently. The guidelines say that all eligible SAP data will be tiered by age. Elizabeth decides to tier all data that is more than 14 days old:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_SAP. In the Data to tier field, she selects All data. In the Age threshold field, she specifies 14 days.
    4. To add the Data Protection for SAP client, she clicks Add > Individual clients, selects the client, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
    IBM Spectrum Protect HSM for Windows

    Guidelines: For all data, specify either option; in both cases, data is tiered by age.

    		 Data from this client is accessed infrequently. The guidelines say that all eligible data from this client type will be tiered by age. Elizabeth decides to specify an age threshold of 10 days:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_HSM. In the Data to tier field, she selects All data. In the Age threshold field, she specifies 10 days.
    4. To add the IBM Spectrum Protect HSM for Windows client, she clicks Add > Individual clients, selects the client, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
    IBM Spectrum Protect for Mail: Data Protection for IBM® Domino®
    Guidelines:
    • For frequently accessed data, tier by state.
    • For infrequently accessed data, tier by age.
    		 The Data Protection for IBM Domino data is accessed frequently. To ensure that a recent version of the data is readily available, Elizabeth decides to tier the data by state and specify an age threshold of 8 days:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_DOMINO. In the Data to tier field, she selects Inactive data. In the Age threshold field, she specifies 8 days.
    4. To add the Data Protection for IBM Domino client, she clicks Add > Individual clients, selects the client, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
    IBM Spectrum Protect for Mail: Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange Server
    Guidelines:
    • For frequently accessed data, tier by state.
    • For infrequently accessed data, tier by age.
    		 Elizabeth considers how to protect the Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange Server data. She knows that lawyers in her organization frequently request access to this data. To keep active data on local disk storage, she decides to specify tiering by state with an age threshold of 60 days:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_EXCHANGE. In the Data to tier field, she selects Inactive data. In the Age threshold field, she specifies 60 days.
    4. To add the Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange Server client, she clicks Add > Individual clients, selects the client, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
    IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management

    Guidelines: For all data, tier by age.

    		 The IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management data is infrequently accessed. Elizabeth decides to follow the guidelines, which say that this data must be tiered by age, and to specify an age threshold of 10 days:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_HSM. In the Data to tier field, she selects All data to tier by age. In the Age threshold field, she specifies 10 days.
    4. To add the IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management client, she clicks Add > Individual clients, selects the client, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
    IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments
    Guidelines:
    • For production environments, do not tier data.
    • For test and development environments, tier data by age.
    		 Elizabeth considers how to protect the IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments data, which includes data from various virtual machines (VMs).
    Elizabeth administers three VMs that are used in a production environment. The guidelines say that this data must not be tiered:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_VM_PROD. In the Data to tier field, she selects No data.
    4. To add the IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments clients, she clicks Add > Individual clients, presses Ctrl, selects the clients, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
    The test and development teams also use VMs. The guidelines say that data from test and development environments should be tiered by age. Elizabeth decides to leave the data on local disk storage for 1 day after the data is ingested. After that, all of the data will be tiered to cloud storage. Because the test and development VMs have names that start with DEVTEST, she can specify the VMs by using a VM name pattern:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_VM_DEVTEST. In the Data to tier field, she selects All data. In the Age threshold field, she selects 1 day.
    4. To add a VM name pattern that will include all of the test and development VMs, she clicks Add > VM name pattern. On the Add Clients to Subrule page, she selects a VM owner and specifies a pattern: DEVTEST*. (In the pattern, an asterisk represents one or more characters.) Before she can add a pattern, she must test the pattern to confirm that it does not overlap existing patterns for this or other subrules of the parent rule.
    5. To test the pattern, she clicks Test. The test is successful and the following message is displayed: The pattern is valid.
    6. To add the pattern, she clicks Add VM Pattern.
    7. To create the tiering subrule, she clicks Create.
    When her colleagues from the development and test teams add new VMs with names that start with DEVTEST, those VMs are automatically included as subrule members.
    IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

    Guidelines: For all data, tier by age.

    		 Elizabeth considers how to protect data that was offloaded from IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to IBM Spectrum Protect. She decides to follow the guidelines, which say that the data must be tiered by age. She keeps the default age threshold of 30 days:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she selects the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks +Create Subrule.
    3. She specifies a subrule name, SUBRULE_PLUS. In the Data to tier field, she selects All data.
    4. To add the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus client, she clicks Add > Individual clients, selects the client, and clicks Add Clients.
    5. She clicks Create.
  3. To activate the parent rule and its subrules, Elizabeth takes the following actions:
    1. She clicks Storage > Tiering Rules.
    2. In the Rule Name column, she right-clicks the parent rule, PARENT_RULE_STGPOOL1, and clicks Details and Rule Properties.
    3. She clicks Modify and clicks the Active toggle, which turns dark blue.
    4. She clicks Save.
    The parent rule and its subrules are activated and run daily at the specified time.