2. Unisphere for PowerMax - Provisioning Block Storage

In this module, you will explore the Storage Group view where you will manage the storage residing on the PowerMax system. We will perform the following actions: Creating a new storage group and volumes and presenting them to a host in a masking view for consumption by Operating System and applications.

PowerMax Provisioning via Unisphere

In this lesson we will provision storage to a host from a PowerMax array.

If starting from this module, double click the **U4V Demo** icon on the Desktop

Enter the following credentials to access Unisphere. - Username: **smc** - Password: **smc** Click **"Login"**

From the **Overview** page Click on array **120200107**

To create a new Storage Group you'll need to start the provisioning wizard, to do this: Navigate to **Storage - Storage Groups**

Click "**Create**"

You are looking at the **Provision Storage** wizard which is designed to make provisioning storage simple. Please enter the following values: - Storage Group Name - **demotest** - Volumes - **1** - Volume Capacity - **100** Click "**Next"**

Data reduction with Dell PowerMax arrays boosts system efficiency by combining inline compression, inline deduplication, and pattern detection. Using these data-reduction techniques permits users to achieve great capacity savings Also, all data services available in PowerMax 2500 and 8500 systems are supported. This support applies to CKD (mainframe) emulation also, but it does not include deduplication for CKD. Note the Checkbox at the bottom of the dialog, the Data reduction feature is enabled by default, but disabled at storage group level. Administrators can disable or enable at any time.

Next, the user will select the host, or hostgroup (cluster) that will access the storage. If the host/hostgroup doesn't exist the user can create. For the Demo we will select an existing host "**Build_Server_IG**," To refine the list you can type the first few letters of the name. Click "**Next"** once the radio button is selected next to the host.

Next the user must select a **PortGroup** or create a new one. The Port Group defines the front end ports on the array that the host WWNs/IQN will be granted access to the volumes through. If zoning already exists between the host HBAs or if the IQNs are already logged in to existing ports they will be automatically selected . By default the **"New"** radio button is selected, lets accept the default name **<Storage_Group_Name>\_PG**, this can be changed if desired, Select ports **1C:4** & **2C:4** Click "**Next"**

Optionally users can also check **Enable Compliance Alerts**. Selecting this options, Unisphere will assess the average performance of the storage group volumes over a 30 minutes rolling timespan assessing if the storage is meeting the response time for the service level . Users will be alerted if the system is not providing the expected performance.

Lastly we are brought to the **Summary** page, where we can review all of our selections. Notice the Masking View name **demotest_MV** is already populated for us for convenience. Also notice the Storage group name of **demotest**, Host of **Build_Server_IG** and Port Group of **demotest_PG** Once happy, click **"Run Now"**

The **Performance Impact** uses machine learning to model the new workload to ensure that it will comfortably run on the storage array without negatively impacting other workloads while meeting the service level objective set. It is also possible to analyze the placement of data across multiple arrays from the provisioning wizard in the systems tab. When provisioning, If Any system is selected, the impact of the provisioning request will be tested on all systems to help identify the most suitable destination for this workload ensuring best usage of storage capacity and performance in your data center, This muti array functionality is not part of this demo but is available in full product release.

When the task succeeds: Click **OK**, the **demotest** storage group was created.

Congratulations, you've successfully provisioned storage volumes to a host on a PowerMax array using the provisioning wizard, it really is that simple. The next few steps will gather some additional information about the storage volume that was just provisioned.

Next select the Storage Group (SG) that we just created - click on the checkbox for **demotest**

Additional information on the storage group is now shown in the right hand pane on the Storage Groups View. From here you have access to information about the masking views, snapshots and if the data is replicated with SRDF. Hot links to different UI views are in blue, for faster access to additional information views. For more information, click **"View all Details"**

The view will change to the storage group **"Details**" page, where additional info such as SRP, Service Level and Last Updated Time, etc. can be viewed. Review the information. Next click **"Compliance"**

In the **Compliance** tab, users are presented with performance history of the storage group across 4 tiles covering **Response Time, Compliance, IOPS & I/O Mixture.** Sample data has been generated in the demo to mimic a real-world example. The **Response Time** tile shows the measured response time over the observed time period, making it easy to spot anomalies. For the **"demotest"** storage group there is a spike on Thursday morning. In this case a response time spike coincides with an increase in IOPS at the same time. Clicking on the performance tab would allow users to dive into greater details or using the performance charting functions described in later labs. Once you are finished with this tab, click **"Volumes"**

The **Volumes** tab shows a list of volumes associated with the storage group - for the "**demotest"** storage group a single **100Gb** volume is present. Similar to the SG view, selecting the volume, will show additional details about the volumes attributes. Select volume **0002B** to show the volume details in the right pane.

Scroll down to review details such as wwn, additional capacity units etc. Click **"Performance"**

The **Performance** tab displays a number of predefined views for the performance data for the storage group in view. The timeframe is configurable by selecting the dropdown in the top right corner of the tab, last hour, last 2 hours, last 4 hours, as well as custom time frames. The charts included in this view, show Key Performance Indicator Metrics for the Storage groups such as Response times for Reads and Writes, Host Throughput, and related components such as the FE Director/Node and port Utilization. In addition you can see details on Related Storage groups that share Front End resources, helping identify if there is any "Noisy Neighbor" where another applications activity could negatively affect another, Once finished click **"Data Protection"**

The Data Protection tab has **4 sub tabs** 1. **Snapshots** 2. **Clones** 3. **Snapshot Policies** 4. **SRDF** Since data protection has not yet been configured yet, these displays are empty at this stage.

Expanding Storage Volumes and Modifying Existing Storage Configurations

Storage Configurations are rarely static, datasets grow over time and this must be managed, thankfully PowerMax arrays make this easy to do within UI and APIs to seamlessly make changes even in complex environments with remote replication and snapshots automatically accounted for in the operations. In this lesson we will add capacity to the existing volume created in the previous lesson and add additional volumes to the storage group.

Navigate to **"Storage Groups"** from the left menu under "**Storage"**

Scroll and look for the "**demotest"** storage group or click on the funnel item to filter the storage group list.

Refine the search by entering **"Demo"** and select **demotest**

Click **"Modify"**

Enter a new value in the capacity field. Enter **200** Click **Run Now.**

Optionally you can use the same dialog to add volumes, increase the volumes count instead of the capacity, this will add more volumes of the specified size. Click on the + icon which appears when you move your mouse to the right of the capacity field also gives you the option to add devices of different sizes should you need mixed capacity volumes for your application. When adding additional volumes if remote replication (SRDF) is configured for the storage group, the wizard prompts you to add to the remote storage groups also, this configuration is automatic so no additional work is needed by storage admin.

Click **OK**.

Note the capacity has now increased to the specified size of **"200 GB"**

Expanding Capacity for storage group in this way will expand all volumes to the new size. If you need to expand individual volume only this can also be achieved. we will explore this option now.

Click the storage group "**demotest**" once more to navigate to the storage group details dashboard.

Click "**Volumes**" Tab

Select the volume "**0002B**"by checking the selection box.

Click **"Expand"**

Change the **Volume Capacity** to **250GB** Click **"Run Now"** to execute the task, note the task is telling you 50GB of capacity will be added.

Click **OK** to close the job summary.

Note the capacity now reflected as the increased size of **250GB**

That's it, we've shown two ways to expand storage volumes. Note: if your volumes are replicated using SRDF there is nothing additional needed to be done, The volumes will automatically be resized on the remote array. If you choose to complete the Remote Replication Lesson you will be able to see this for yourself. Additionally if you are doing 3 site replication you will need to expand the storage at the bunker site first, once you have expanded the 3rd site you can use the wizard.

Congratulations! You have reached the end of this Module. Feel free to explore more options in the UI, not all features are enabled in the demo but you can explore the options. Click **Close** in the top left corner of this script to return to the demo guide.