Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview

Transcription

1 Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview Dell Storage Hands-on Lab Instructions Total estimated time: varies. This lab consists of multiple non-dependent modules that can be completed independently. Each module takes between 20 to 40 minutes to complete. Audience This lab is appropriate for professional IT administrators regardless of familiarity with Dell Storage PS Series arrays Reminder: These lab modules can be completed in any order. In addition, feel free to explore the capabilities of PS Series arrays beyond what is covered in these instructions. Don t worry about breaking things, it is only a simulated environment, and will automatically be re-deployed when you finish. What is demonstrated in this lab series? This lab consists of several modules that can be independently completed. Modules included in this lab are: 1. Volume administration a. Create, manage access controls, and mount a new volume. b. Extend a volume, and its partition. c. Delete a volume 2. Array administration d. Initialize a new PS Series array e. Create and manage a storage pool f. Modify the RAID configuration 3. Replication configuration and failover g. Configure array to array replication partnership h. Configure volume replication i. Perform a disaster recovery failover 4. SyncRep configuration and failover 1 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell EMC and the Dell EMC logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

2 j. Configure SyncRep for a volume k. Manage and failover a SyncRep volume 5. SAN Headquarters troubleshooting examples Note: This is demonstration environment uses a version of the PS Series firmware running within a virtual machine. While it does have the full functional of a PS Series array, its performance will be lower. Lab 1: Create, Connect and Extend Volumes In this lab, you will create, connect, and extend data volumes on a PS Series array. Create a new volume in Group Manager, and connect to the volume from Microsoft Windows Server Increase the size of the existing volume in Group Manager, and in Microsoft Windows Server Log a volume off of the Microsoft Windows Server, and delete the volume from Group Manager Log into the Dell PS Series Group 1. Open the PS Series Labs folder on the desktop, double-click the DSM-PS shortcut to launch the Group Manager GUI, and log in using the following credentials: - Name: grpadmin - Password: password 6. Because the PS Series Demo Tool is being used, the following dialogue is displayed 7. Click OK to close the warning message. Create a Volume. This is the PS Series Group Manager provides a straightforward user interface where PS Series management tasks are performed. 1. To launch the volume creation wizard, click Group DSM-PS on the left and then Create Volume from the Activities pane. 2 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

3 8. In the 1 Volume Settings / General dialog box - in the Name field, enter volume3 as the name for the new volume. Optionally provide a Description for the volume, and place in a volume Folder. Click Next. 3 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

4 9. In the 2 - Space dialog box, enter a value for the volume size. An appropriate size for this simulation is something small, about 1GB. Check the box to enable Thin provisioned volume, and optionally adjust the Snapshot space from the default of 100%. You can observe the impact on the available storage when selecting these settings. Click Next. 10. In the 3 Define iscsi access points dialog box, volume access can be set in several ways using either CHAP, NIC IP address, or iscsi initiator name authentication. There is also an option to use a pre-defined access control policy. For this lab we are going to define a new basic access point. 11. Select the radio button that enables you to Define one or more basic access points. 12. Add a basic access point by clicking Add. 13. In the IP address field, enter This is the SAN IP address of the Windows Server you are currently using. Click OK to complete the creation of the basic access point. 4 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

5 Additional access points can be created at this time, or later. If the volume is to be accessed by multiple initiators, for example with a SQL or Hyper-V cluster, simultaneous initiator access should be enabled. These are not required in this lab. 14. Click Next to continue. 15. In the 4 - Tag this volume / Tags dialog box, assign volume tags to provide a purpose or function for a volume. This enables volumes to be easily identified later since the tags can be used as filters. Click Next. 5 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

6 16. In the 5 - Sector Size dialog box, leave the default size of 512 bytes per sector selected; not all operating systems support a 4K sector size. Click Next. 17. In the 6 - Summary dialog box, review the settings, and click Finish. 6 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

7 Congratulations! You ve created your first volume on a PS Series array. However, to make it usable, it has to be mounted to a server and OS. This is demonstrated in the next section of this lab (Connect to the Volume). To see the status information for the new volume, click Volumes in the lower left corner of Group Manager. In the upperleft pane, expand Volumes and highlight the new volume. 7 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

8 If additional access points were needed the following procedure would be used. This can be done at any time in an actual environment. Click the Access tab in the right pane, and then click New (to the right). 18. In the New Basic Access Point dialog box, enter CHAP credentials, an IQN, or an IP address. 19. Click OK to complete this step. Connect to the Volume 1. In the PS Series Labs folder on the desktop, double-click the iscsi Initiator. You will see the iscsi Initiator Properties dialog box. Click the Targets tab and then click Refresh. Because volume3 has an access control record for the SAN IP addresses of this server, the iscsi Initiator will discover the volume. It may be necessary to expand the Name column to correctly identify volume3 from the list of discovered targets. 20. Select volume3, and then click Connect to display the Connect to Target dialog box. 8 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

9 21. Check the box to select Add this connection to the list of Favorite Targets. This causes Windows Server to automatically restore the connection to the volume whenever the computer restarts. 22. Click OK to close the Connect to Target dialog box. The volume is now mounted to the OS, but before we can us volume3 to store data, it must be formatted. Because multiple unformatted volumes may be presented to the host, it is necessary to identify the volume correctly. 23. From the Targets tab, highlight volume3 and then click Devices. Note the disk number under the Name in the Devices dialogue. Click OK after you have noted the Disk number for PS Series volume In the PS Series Labs folder on the desktop, double-click the Disk Management icon. If the Initialize Disk window pops-up, click Cancel. 25. Scroll down to find the disk that was just connected to from the iscsi initiator and identified under devices. 9 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

10 26. A new disk (which is volume3) with unallocated space is listed with the disk number that matches what was shown under the discovered iscsi Initiator Properties. If the disk doesn t automatically show up, click Action, and select Rescan Disks. Disk Manager will scan for new disks available to the server. 27. Right click the newly discovered Disk and select Online. 28. Right click again and select Initialize Disk. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select only the disk number for the volume you created, de-select any other disks, and click OK. 29. To create an NTFS partition on the volume, right click the 1 GB Unallocated disk, and select New Simple Volume. 30. When the New Simple Volume Wizard appears, click Next. Accept the default for Simple volume size in MB and click Next. Assign an available drive letter, and click Next. 31. Format this volume with the following settings. 10 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

11 - File System: NTFS - Allocation unit size: Default - Volume label: volume3_dsm_ps - Select Perform a quick format 32. Then click Next. 33. Review the settings, and click Finish. Congratulations! You have successfully connected your volume to this server, and it is ready to receive data. Extend the Volume Over time, business needs change, which translates into changed storage needs. In this section you ll extend the volume that was just created. 1. Open the DSM-PS Group Manager GUI. Navigate to volume3 in the Volumes tree on the left. Select volume3 and in the Activities pane, select Modify settings. 34. Click the Space tab. In the Volume Size field, increase the size of the volume (for example to 2 GB) and click OK. 11 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

12 35. When the following Warning message appears, click No. This is a lab, so a snapshot is not necessary like it would be in a production environment. 36. Return to Disk Management, there is a shortcut in the PS Series Labs folder of the desktop. If the Initialize Disk window pops-up, click Cancel. 37. Then click Action, and select Rescan Disks to have Disk Manager scan for changes. 38. Scroll to the disk for volume3_dsm-ps and notice the unallocated space. 39. Right click the volume and select Extend Volume to display the Extend Volume Wizard dialog box. 40. Click Next through the introduction. 12 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

13 41. Accept the defaults for the selected disk and amount of space, then click Next. 42. Review the settings and click Finish. 43. Close Disk Management once complete. You have successfully extended volume3 on DSM-PS from to a larger size. This increase was seamless to both the storage array and the server. Log off a volume When the volume is no longer be needed, it must be properly removed from the OS before deleting it on the array. Launch Disk Management. If the Initialize Disk window pops-up, click Cancel. 44. In the Disk Management, right click on the volume you added and select Offline from the menu options. It may be necessary to scroll down to find the correct volume. 45. Return to the PS Series Labs folder and launch the iscsi Initiator. 46. Click the Targets tab, select volume3, and the click the Disconnect button. 13 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

14 47. Click Yes to the Disconnect From All Sessions message. 48. The volume status will change from Connected to Inactive in the Targets tab. 49. When the volume was added to the server we choose to add the volume to the list of Favorite Targets so that every time the server starts it logs into the volume. The volume must be removed from the Favorite Targets list. Click the Favorite Targets tab to access this list. 50. Select volume3 from the list of favorite targets, and then click the Remove button. Click the OK to close the iscsi Initiator Properties window. You have successfully logged off the volume. Volume3 is no longer available to Windows server. Delete a Volume Return to the Group Manager GUI, and select volume3 from the left pane. 51. In the Activities pane, click Set offline. The Set volume offline message will pop up to verify that this is the intended action, click Yes. Notice that the icon for volume3 is now grayed-out to indicate the offline status. 14 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

15 52. From the Activities pane, click Delete volume. The Delete volume message will display to verify that this is the intended action. Check the box to acknowledge I understand this volume s data will be at risk of permanent loss and click Yes to delete the volume. You have successfully deleted the volume. Volume3 is no longer available in Group Manager. Lab 1 is complete Lab 2: Group Manager Advanced Operations In this lab, you will perform advanced Group Manager operations, including: Expanding storage Configuring a new member Group and volume administration Modifying RAID configuration Expand the existing DR PS Series storage group Dell Storage PS Series SANs are expanded by adding members to a group. Each member consists of disks and controllers, expanding both the storage and controller capacity of the group. 1. From the PS Series Labs folder on the desktop, launch the Remote Setup Wizard to find and initialize the new array. 53. Click Initialize a PS Series Array. The array discovery process will detect any uninitialized arrays on the network accessible from this host, and will take about a minute. 54. Click the Service Tag/Serial Number to select the discovered array. This is a PS Series array simulator of a PS4000 with 15x8GB drives, and running firmware version 9.0. Click Next to continue. 55. Under Member Information enter the following information: - Member Name: DSM-PS-02 - IP Address: Subnet Mask: Default Gateway: Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

16 56. In the Group Information section, select Join an existing group and click Next. 57. Under Group Information enter the following: - Initialize a new PS Series array - Create and manage a storage pool - Modify the RAID configuration > Group Name: DSM-PS > Group IP Address: > Membership Password: password 58. Click Next. 16 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

17 59. The Remote Setup Wizard will now search for an existing group matching the information provided, and join the new array to it. This process will take a minute or so. 60. Once competed the Remote Setup Wizard will provide the option to connect to the Group Manager GUI, click No. 61. Click Finish to exit Remote Setup Wizard. Configure a new group member While a new member has been added to the existing group, it is not yet available for use. Some additional configuration steps must be completed, namely setting the RAID type. Open the PS Series Labs folder on the Desktop, double-click on the DSM-PS shortcut to launch the Group Manager GUI, and log in using the following credentials: - Name: grpadmin - Password: password 62. In the top-left pane, expand Members to show the members that make up this group, of which there are two: DSM-PS-01 and the recently added DSM-PS-02. DSM-PS-02 shows as unconfigured because some steps need to be completed. 17 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

18 63. Select the unconfigured DSM-PS-02. A warning dialogue asks Do you want to configure RAID now? Click Yes in response to launch the Configure Member wizard. 64. In the 1 - General Settings dialog box of Configure Member, there are options to: Change the member Name previously set using the Remote Setup Wizard Provide a Description Select a particular pool In this lab, none of these settings need to be changed. Click Next. 18 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

19 65. In the 2 - RAID Configuration dialog box, select the RAID 10 radio button under RAID policy. Leave the options under Initial RAID capacity at the defaults. Click Next. 19 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

20 66. In the 3 - Summary dialog box, note that DSM-PS-02 shows as RAID 10 and initializing. Click Finish. The new member will take a few minutes to initialize. Existing volumes will begin to balance their consumed capacity across the additional member. You can begin to proceed with the next section of this document while this is running. Group Administration Create Storage Pools Dividing the overall PS Series group space into multiple pools provides a greater degree of control over storage resources and can be useful in environments where a variety of applications compete for SAN storage. Using different pools is optional and requires a multi-member PS Series group. In this exercise, you will create a new storage pool and migrate both a member and a volume to the pool. In the left pane select Group, then expand Storage Pools. Note that there is one storage pool, default. 20 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

21 67. Click to highlight Storage Pools from the left pane, and then in the Activities pane, click Create storage pool. 68. In GeneraI properties window of the Creating storage pool dialog box, enter a name for the new pool. Optionally, enter a description and then click Next. 69. In the Pool Members window, select DSM-PS-02 to move it to the new pool. Review the charts at the bottom of this window that show the impact of this change to the existing pools and new pool. Click Next. Note: An empty pool (one without member) can be created. Members can be added to a pool and moved between pools as long as there is sufficient space in the original pool for existing volumes and data. 70. Review the choices on the Summary page and click Finish. It will take a while for the member to move while the data on it is relocated to the remaining member in the pool. Remember the PS Series architecture will spread a volume across multiple members in a pool to maximize the number of spindles serving a volume, and maximize I/O potential for that volume. You have successfully created a new storage pool and moved a member into it. The remainder of the lab can be continued while the move finishes in the background. 21 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

22 Volume Administration Move a Volume In a PS Series group, you allocate portions of a storage pool to volumes. When you assign a volume to a pool, all of the volume data will be restricted to the members that make up the pool. In a group with multiple pools, a volume can be moved from one pool to another as needed, without impacting users or applications. The pool you choose will depend on the volume needs and the pool characteristics. You can move a volume to a different storage pool only if the new pool has free space equal to the size of the volume, in addition to any snapshot reserve and local reserve for that volume. If the pool does not have enough space, the volume move operation will not start. If the pool where a volume is assigned is deleted, the volumes are automatically assigned to the default pool. If a volume move operation is canceled while in progress, the volume data is moved back to the original pool. In this exercise, you will move an existing volume to another storage pool. In the lower-left corner of the Group Manager GUI, click Volumes. In the top-left pane, expand Volumes to see the volumes on this array. 71. Select a volume and note the storage pool listed on the Status tab. For the purposes of the lab, select a volume with a small amount of consumed space (such as volume3 created earlier). 72. In the Activities pane, click Move volume. 73. In the Move volume dialog box Destination pool area, a list of available storage pools is available along with the impact of the move on the selected pool. 74. Select a pool and click OK to move the volume to the new pool. 22 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

23 The process of moving a volume starts immediately. Depending on the amount of space the volume consumes, the type of array, and available bandwidth this process may take some time to finish. 75. In the Volume and Snapshot Space area on the Status tab for the volume being moved, the progress of the move can be observed in under Volume distribution. You have successfully moved a volume to another storage pool. Modify the RAID configuration of a member RAID technology provides increased storage functions and reliability. When choosing a member RAID policy, you should identify the performance and availability needs of your workload and select a RAID policy that meets those needs. SAN Headquarters is a PS Series performance monitoring tool that can assist with selecting the appropriate RAID policy. Once you select a RAID policy for a member, it can be converted only if the new policy requires less disk space than the current policy. The following RAID policy conversions are allowed: RAID 10 to RAID 50 or RAID 6 RAID 50 to RAID 6 Accelerated RAID 6 cannot be converted and is only used in the PS Series hybrid arrays If a member has a RAID policy that does not fall into one of those categories, the policy can only be changed by removing the member from the group (which will migrate the volumes and data from the member and reset it) re-add it to the group, and then select the desired RAID policy. From the Group Manager GUI, select Group, expand Members, and select DSM-PS In the Activities pane, click Modify RAID configuration. 77. In the Modify RAID configuration dialog box, only the valid RAID policies are selectable. When DSM-PS-02 was deployed and configured, the RAID policy was set to RAID 10. RAID 10 members can be converted to Raid 50 or Raid 6. Select RAID 6 or RAID 50, note the estimated change in capacity, and click OK. 23 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

24 78. A Warning dialog message advises that additional capacity will not be available until the expansion is complete, and that the status of the expansion can be monitored in the member Status page. Click OK to dismiss. 79. In the right hand pane for the member, in the General Member Information section on the Status tab, the RAID status is shown as expanding, along with the progress percentage. You have successfully modified the RAID configuration of a member, and depending on the original RAID policy and new RAID policy, increased the storage, but at an impact to performance. It is important to understand how different RAID policies perform. SAN HQ has an experimental RAID option that can show you the performance impact of changing RAID policies. Lab 2 is complete Additional tasks can be performed, however, some of these options may impact the ability to perform other labs, if this occurs feel free to request a new lab. Lab 3: Group Manager Replication and Disaster Recovery Summary In this lab you will configure replication between two PS Series groups and configure asynchronous replication on a volume. You will also create replication schedules and failing-over the volume to the DR array. 24 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

25 Use Group Manager to configure replication partnerships between the two PS Series groups Use Group Manager to configure volume replication and setup a replication schedule Use Group Manager to fail over volumes and then mount them from the DR array and later perform a fast failback Replication Pre requisites In order for replication to occur between two PS Series groups, there first needs to be an established partnership. This allows each group to know about the other group. For replication to be a consistent part of any Disaster Recovery plan, you must have three components: The PS Series groups must be partnered for replication The volumes must have replication configured The volumes must be part of a replication schedule Log into both Dell PS Series storage groups Open the PS Series folder on the desktop, click on the DSM-PS shortcut to launch the Group Manager GUI for the array that will be our production site, and log in using the following credentials: Name: grpadmin Password: password 80. Repeat this for the DSM-Secondary shortcut to launch the Group Manager GUI for the array that will be our disaster recovery site; log in using the same credentials. 81. Because we are leveraging the PS Series demo tool for these labs, the following dialog appears, click OK to close the warning message. Step 1: Configure the replication partnerships between the arrays Working from the production site array, DSM-PS, click Replication in the lower-left corner. Under Replication Partners in the Activities pane, click Configure Partner. 82. Enter the following information in the Replication Partner Identification dialog box. 83. Group name: DSM-Secondary (case sensitive) 84. Group IP address: Description: Disaster Recovery Group (optional) 86. Leave the Contact information blank and click Next. 25 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

26 87. In the Authentication dialog box, there are two password fields. The Inbound password, is the password that the DR group DSM-Secondary partner group will give when establishing a connection to the production group DSM-PS for replication. The Outbound password, is the password that the production group DSM-PS to connect to the DR group DSM-Secondary partner group for replication. For the purposes of this lab, enter password in both the Inbound password and Outbound password. Click Next. Note: In normal situations, Dell recommends that appropriately complex passwords are used in accordance with individual company policies. 88. The next dialog box is for Delegated Space. Note: Delegated space is created from local free space on the local group to store replicas from the partner. The PS Series storage supports bi-directional replication, as well as many-to-one replication. If there are going to be no replicas sent to a particular site, the Delegated Space can be left at Select the default storage pool, enter 10 GB for the delegated space, and click Next. 26 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

27 Note: A new feature of PS Series firmware v8 is that delegated space can be configured in multiple storage pools within a group. In this lab however, a single storage pool is used. 90. Verify the information in the Summary dialog box and click Finish. 91. Click No on the Test partnership dialog box because the task of configuring replication on the partner array has not yet been completed; the test will fail. You have created a one-way partnership between the DSM-PS and DSM-Secondary. Next, you need to configure the reverse partnership from DSM-Secondary and DSM-PS. For the most part the steps are the same, but preformed on the DSM-Secondary group. Working from the DR site array, DSM-Secondary, click Replication in the lower-left corner. Under Replication Partners in the Activities pane, click Configure Partner. 92. Enter the following information in the Replication Partner Identification dialog box. Group name: DSM-PS (case sensitive) Group IP address: Description: Production Group (optional) Leave the Contact information blank Click Next. 93. In the Authentication dialog box, there are two password fields. Enter password in both the Inbound password and Outbound password fields, then click Next. 27 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

28 94. The next dialog box will be for Delegated Space. Enter 10 GB for the delegated space, and select the default pool from the Storage pool dropdown. Then, click Next. 95. Verify the information in the Summary dialog box, and click Finish. 96. Click Yes to the Test partnership dialog box. Replication has been configured on both groups; the test should pass. 97. You should see the dialog box verifying the partnership is functioning. If the test fails verify the partnership settings, especially the case sensitive group name and the inbound and outbound password. Click Close. You have successfully created a bi-directional partnership between the two arrays. Step 2: Configure Replication on the volumes Once the replication partnership is established on both sides, replication can be configured on a per volumes bases. Working from the production site array, DSM-PS, click Volumes in the lower-left corner, and then expand the list of volumes. 98. Select RepVol, and in the Activities pane, click Configure Replication. Note: When configuring the dedicated reserve space for replication in your actual environment, take into account the number of volumes being replicated and the total available space. For example, four 200 GB volumes with data on them that are replicated with 200% reserve space plus a little bit extra can use 1 TB of delegated space on the recovery site. This can be changed at any time and is always a rough guess until you know your environment. Choosing how much 28 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

29 space to allocate depends on several factors. For example, consider the number of replicas you wish to keep, as well as how much data change is happening between each replica. 99. The General Settings dialog box is divided into three sections. a. For Replication partner, replicate to DSM-Secondary as the group. b. For Total replication reserve, accept the default of 200%. The total replica reserve is a percentage of this volume that is set aside from the delegated space on the partner. This percentage not only accounts for 100% of the initial replica volume but should be configured based on the rate of data change and the number of replicas you wish to keep. c. For Local replication reserve, accept the default of 100%. Here, you set aside a space as a local replica reserve to keep track of changes made during the replica process. This is also where Fast Failback Snapshots are stored in the event you are failing back from a replica set. This can either come from local replica reserve or free space by enabling the option to allow temporary use of free pool space. d. When done, click Next In the Advanced Settings dialog box, you have the option to keep a copy of the most recent replica snapshot. Check the Keep failback snapshot and click Next. 29 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

30 Fast Failback keeps a copy of the most recent replica on the production array. A failback from the DR site will result in shorter recovery time. This is because only the changes at the DR site (DSM-Secondary) need to be replicated back to the production site. In order to use Fast Failback, this check box must be selected View the summary and click Finish to complete the replication configuration The Create replica dialog box prompts Do you want to create a replica volume of RepVol now? Click Yes, this will begin replicating the base volume and creating a replica set on the partner array. For this lab, leave Perform manual replication unchecked. Note: The option to perform manual replication allows you to move data from one data center to another without using the built-in replication, but instead using the Manual Transfer Utility (MTU). MTU lets users perform the initial or incremental replica, using an external drive as the transport method. This is often done if the bandwidth between sites is not sufficient to create the initial replicas in a timely manner, but large enough to accommodate day to day replica needs. See the Manual Transfer Utility user guide for details. 30 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

31 103. To monitor the replication process, click Replication in the lower-left corner. Expand DSM-Secondary, then Volume Replication, and finally Outbound Replicas. This will show you the status of all outbound replicas from DSM-PS to DSM-DR. Other outbound or inbound replication traffic would be found under their respective replication partner. You have now successfully configured the replication partnership between the two arrays, and replicated a volume. However, a replica at the disaster recovery site is only as good as the most recent copy. So the next step is to enable a replication schedule so that replication regularly occurs. Step 3: Configure replication schedule Each volume can be set up with different replication properties and schedules. This granular control allows for different volumes to have different protection schemes based on the data that resides on the volume. For example, some volumes might be replicated hourly, keeping the last 10 replicas and others only replicated once or twice a day. By taking advantage of the per-volume schedules and schemes, administrators can develop a replication strategy that makes sense for the data contained. Working from the production site array, DSM-PS, click Volumes in the lower-left corner, and then expand the list of volumes Select RepVol; in the Activities pane under Schedules, click Create Schedule In the Schedule Type dialog box, make these settings: - Enter RepVolSchedule for Schedule name - Keep Enable schedule checked - Click the Replication Schedule radio button - Click the Hourly schedule radio button Click Next. 31 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

32 106. For this lab, accept the defaults to repeat every hour. However, in a real world situation you will need to take business needs, application SLAs, and bandwidth into consideration The Time Setting dialog provides additional granularity. For example; you may choose a business schedule that does not start taking snapshots until 8:00 AM and ends at 6:00 PM. The maximum number of replicas to keep setting is the number of total replicas, previous and current, that will be held on the partner array, as long as space it available. 32 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

33 This allows you to create protection schemes based on the SLA and RPO of the data. It also impacts the amount of replica reserve you need on the DR site. For more information on Replication considerations, see the PS Series Administration Guide Click Next, verify the summary of the schedule and click Finish Select the RepVol volume and click the Schedules tab to review the schedules that are configured. Now that the replication schedule has been configured and the volume is replicated, you know your data will be available at your DR site if needed. In this next step you will perform a fail over. This is not a task you want to be preforming for the first time in a live disaster recovery situation. Perform disaster recovery failover tasks The next portion of the lab guides you through a failover process. There can be a number of reasons to perform a failover including power-related, site-related or data integrity issues. For this lab, assume that DSM-PS is no longer available due to a power failure in the building. You will bring the volumes online on the array at the disaster recovery site, DSM-DR. Normally you would utilize dedicated server resources at the disaster recovery site, but because of the constraints of the lab environment, the same Windows server will be used. Failover in the event of a disaster Regardless of the disaster cause, the expectation of IT is the same: get critical applications on-line as quickly as possible. While there are third-party orchestration applications that can make this easier, for example the VMware SRM, it is important to understand what occurs under the hood. 33 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

34 The first thing we are going to do for the lab scenario is fail the primary volume. Because we are using the same server and both volumes are identical, we need to insure that the volume we see is the true DR side. Working from the production site array, DSM-PS, click Volumes in the lower-left corner, and expand out the volume list in the upper left Select RepVol, and in the Activities pane click Set offline Answer Yes when prompted: Do you want to set volume RepVol offline?. This will take the volume offline from the server simulating the failure of the array Because Windows will cache disk information, close any open explorer windows to the RepVol drive. Access the iscsi Initiator Properties and click Refresh under the Targets tab. This will remove the inactive RepVol from the discovered targets list Changing to the from the DR site array, DSM-Secondary, click Replication in the lower-left corner. Expand DSM-PS, and expand Inbound Replicas. Listed here is the replica that was created for RepVol named RepVol Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

35 114. Select RepVol.1 under the Inbound Replicas, and then in the Activities pane under Inbound Replica Set, click Promote to Volume to bring the replica online as a volume. Click Yes when prompted to pause inbound replication All three options are selected by default in the Volume options pane: Set volume online Retain target name of the original volume Keep ability to demote replica set. Accept the defaults and click Next The iscsi access pane is used to define which servers can access this promoted replica. To enable this access make the following changes, and then click Next: - Select the Define one or more basic access points radio button - Click Add (on the right hand side) - Enter the IP address and click Ok If the promoted replica is to be accessed by a cluster, check Do you want to allow simultanious access to this volume from more then one initatior? Optionally on the Tags pane, assign a tag to the promoted replica and then click Next Review the Summary pane, verify the settings and click Finish. 35 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

36 This promotes the replica to being a volume that can be access by a server. The gold star on the volume icon designates that it is a promoted replica that has not been converted to a permanent volume. As it is not a permanent volume it can later be demoted back to a replica, and then failed back to the primary site. A promoted replica would be made a permanent volume if the primary site was permanently destroyed. A permanent volume unlike a promoted replica can be replicated to a new array. Now that the volume is online, the next step is to present this volume to the server. These steps are detailed in Lab1, and are summarized here: Launch the iscsi Initiator Refresh the Targets tab. This should show the promoted RepVol volume available, but Inactive Click Connect and log in to the volume On the Connect to target dialogue select the two checkboxes and click Ok Launch Disk Manager and find the promoted RepVol volume If the volume is offline, right-click the disk and select online Windows may attempt to assign a drive letter to it. If a drive letter does not show up, manually assign one. You have successfully failed over the replica volume, and kept the business running, as would be done in a disaster. Failback to primary In many instances the failover to DR is a short term event, with the issue at the primary site being resolved in a matter of hours or days. When you configured the volume replication, you selected the option to keep a copy of the most recent replica on the production array. This results in only the changes made at DR needing to be replicated back to the original primary site array. In the event that the primary site array is destroyed, the promoted volume would be converted to a permanent volume, and then a new replication partnership established with the new array. 1. Working from the DR site array, DSM-Secondary, click Volumes in the lower-left corner, and expand the volume list in the upper left Select RepVol.1, and in the Activities pane, under Replication Failback click Failback to primary The Failback Recovery Volume dialogue message, will alert you that the volume will be off line while the data changes made at DR are replicated back to the primary site. Click Yes. In a Production environment the volume should first be dis-mounted from the host and application before taking it off-line on the array In the Recovery Volume dialog box, enter the credentials grpadmin and password then click OK The failback process begins. To monitor its progress, open the Alarm details pane at the bottom of the GUI window, and click the Failback Operations tab. 36 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

37 129. When the failback process is complete, note that the volume RepVol no longer exists on DSM- Secondary, and that Inbound replication for that replica has been resumed Log into the DSM-PS GUI. note that RepVol is back online. Click Refresh if it does not show up immediately. The previous steps illustrate the recovery process using the fast failback feature. The procedure would be slightly different if the SAN was unavailable for fast failback because the array was replaced. In such cases you would make the promotion permanent from the DR site, set up replication to the new array, and then replicate and fail over the volume normally. 37 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

38 Lab 3 is complete Lab 4: Dell PS Series Synchronous Replication (SyncRep) Summary In this lab, you will become familiar with features of SyncRep. The SyncRep feature enables a volume to be synchronously replicated to another pool within the group, providing continuous data protection. Enable and disable an individual volume and volumes that are part of a collection for SyncRep Switch and switch back and pause SyncRep volumes Understand how snapshots are used with SyncRep enabled volumes Synchronous Replication (SyncRep) is a feature included in PS Series firmware v6.0 and later. SyncRep is the simultaneous writing of volume data across two different storage pools in the same PS Series Group, resulting in two hardware-independent copies of volume data. SyncRep will only acknowledge write completion when both the source and target volume have completed. If one pool is not available due to a power failure or other resource outage, you can still obtain volume data from the other pool. Log into the Dell PS Series Group 1. Open the PS-Series folder on the desktop. Click on the DSM-Secondary shortcut to launch the Group Manager GUI, and log in using the following credentials: Name: grpadmin Password: password 2. Because the labs are running on the PS Series Demo Tool, the following dialogue is displayed. Click OK to close the warning message. Configure SyncRep on SyncRepVol1 1. Under Group expand Storage Pool, and note that the group has two storage pools; default and SecondPool. 2. Select and expand Volumes from the group navigation pane, and select SyncRepVol1 38 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

39 3. From the Activities menu, choose Configure SyncRep. 4. On the Settings page, there is the option to select the destination pool for the synchronously replicated volume. As this group only has one additional pool, there is only one option available SecondPool. Click Next. 5. Review the setting on the Summary page, and click Finish. Note the change in icon for the volume, this signifies that SyncRepVol1 has been configured for Synchronous Replication. The status of SyncRep can be observed on the volumes Status tab. The volume has been configured for SyncRep. Future writes will be made to both the SyncActive instance of the volume in the default pool, and the SyncAlternate, instance of the volume in the SecondPool. This additional write overhead should be taken into consideration when sizing the group. Reads only come for the SyncActive instance of the volume, which currently resides in the default pool Switching the roles of the SyncActive volume and SyncAlternate A Switch to SyncAlternate, in this example moves the SyncActive instance of the volume from the default pool to the SecondPool pool and optionally back again. 1. Continuing with using SyncRepVol1, from the Activities pane select Switch to SyncAternate. This moves the volume access from the default pool to the SecondPool 2. Click Yes when prompted to switch the volume. 3. The SyncRep configured volume status first goes out of sync. The status returns to in sync, iscsi connections are re-directed to the new SyncActive instance of the volume in the SecondPool pool. 4. Optionally, change the SyncActive volume back to the default pool by repeating these steps. A SAN Administrator may choose to perform this activity when a planned maintenance or repair on the pool where the SyncActive instance of the volume currently resides. Once the activity is complete the SAN Administrator can perform another Switch to SyncAlternate and move the SyncActive volume to the original (default) pool. Pause and resume SyncRep Occasionally it may be necessary to temporally suspend SyncRep, for example during an expected higher than normal temporary write workload that exceeds the group s capabilities why protect temporary data? 1. Continuing with using SyncRepVol1, from the Activities pane select Pause SyncRep 2. Click Yes when prompted to verify the activity. 3. The Status tab for the volume will show a SyncRep status of paused, and the amount of unprotect data, if any writes are made. 4. To resume synchronous replication, simply click on Resume SyncRep in the Activities pane. Once SyncRep is reenabled any unprotected writes will be copied to the SyncAlternate volume until the volumes are synchronized When SyncRep is paused, the current write rate is not negatively impacted on the SyncActive volume. A SAN Administrator might need to do this so maintenance can be done on the SyncAlternate volume member or for other issues that need to be addressed. 39 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

40 SyncRep and Volume Collections Applications often use multiple volumes on a SAN, and these volumes must be protected in the same manner. Volumes can be grouped together into a Volume Collection, and then the protection capabilities managed at the collection rather than the individual volume level, ensuring consistency across the volumes. 1. Expand Volume Collections and select the existing volume collect labeled SyncRepCollection that contains the volumes SyncRep5 and SyncRep6. 2. From the Activities pane to choose Enable SyncRep for collection 3. An error message will be displayed listing the requirements for enabling SyncRep on a collection. Review, the error message, and click on OK. 4. For SyncRep to be enable on a volume collection, SyncRep must first be enabled on all the volumes that are in that collection. To resolve this perform the following steps: a. Select volume SyncRepVol5, and from its Activities click on Configure SyncRep b. On the Settings page, accept SecondPool as the destination pool for the synchronously replicated volume. Click Next. c. Review the setting on the Summary page, and click Finish. Repeat these steps for SyncRepVol6 5. Now that SyncRep has been configured on all of the volumes in the volume collection, SyncRep can be enabled on the collections by first; selecting the volume collection labeled SyncRepCollection, and then from the Activities pane choosing Enable SyncRep for collection The Volume Collection, SyncRepCollection, is now configured for SyncRep. You will see this icon to indicate SyncRep is on for the collection: 132. With SyncRep configured on the SyncRepCollection volume collection, all volumes in that collection can be switch over to SyncAlternate by selecting the volume collection, and choosing Switch collection to SyncAlternate from the Activities pane. With all of an applications volume in one volume collection it becomes easier to manage and ensure that all of the applications data is receiving the same level of data protection and data availability. 40 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

41 Adding volumes to a SyncRep enabled volume collection. Applications change over time, and so will have volumes added and removed from them. It is important that these new volumes are protected in the same manner as the other volumes. Volumes can be added or removed from a v olume collections with ease. 1. As with when the volume collection was created, the same rules apply when adding a new volume to an existing SyncRep enabled volume collection. These are: a. The volume must already have SyncRep enabled. b. The volume must be in-sync c. The volume must use the same two storage pools d. The volume cannot belong to another SyncRep enabled collection e. The volume cannot be in the process of moving from one pool to another 2. Therefore, before SyncRep4 can be added to the SyncRepCollection volume collection SyncRep must be enabled on the volume. To perform this following these steps: a. Select volume SyncRepVol4, and from its Activities click on Configure SyncRep b. On the Settings page, accept SecondPool as the destination pool for the synchronously replicated volume. Click Next. c. Review the setting on the Summary page, and click Finish. 3. Return to Volume Collections, select the volume collect SyncRepCollection and click on Modify volume collection 4. In the Modify volume collection window, click on the Components tab, which lists the volumes currently in the collection, and the volumes that are eligible to be added to the collection. 5. As SyncRep has been enabled on SyncRep4 it will be included in the list. Select the checkbox, and click OK 41 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

42 Note: You may see a pop up window stating that all the volumes are not in the same storage pool. If prompted to switch volumes over to a new pool choose Yes to allow the volumes to move to the correct pool designation. The volume SyncRep4 has been successfully added to the volume collection SyncRepCollection, and can be switched over to the SyncAlternate with them. Add volumes to an existing SyncRep enabled Volume Collection requires that the volume have SyncRep enabled and for it to be using the same pools. Volume collections are also used to coordinate snapshots and other data protection strategies. Snapshots and SyncRep enabled volumes A volume with SyncRep enabled can be snapshotted, however, the snapshot will be created in the pool in which the SyncActive instance of the volume resides. This does mean that when restoring from a snapshot care should be taken to ensure the correct snapshots is selected. This is be demonstrated in the example below. 1. Select SyncRepVol2, and from the Activities pane choose Create snapshot. 2. On the Create snapshot dialogue provide a description for the snapshot, and click OK. 3. Select the Snapshots tab of the SyncRepVol2 volume, and review the properties of the snapshot. Note the pool in which the snapshot was created. 4. Perform a switchover of SyncRepVol2 by selecting Switch to SyncAternate from the volume s Activities pane, as was done earlier in this lab. The SecondPool pool is now the SyncActive volume. 5. Click on Create snapshot again to create another snapshot for SyncRepVol2. 6. Once the snapshot has been created, review the volume s Snapshots tab. 7. Notice that the new snapshot resides in the SecondPool. Snapshots reside in the pool that is the SyncActive pool at the time of creation. Snapshots are created on the current SyncActive volume. In the examples above the first snapshot was created while the SyncActive volume was in the default pool. Then a Switch to SyncAlternate was executed and switched the SyncActive volume to the SecondPool pool. Since the SyncActive volume was in the SecondPool pool, all snapshots will be created in that pool. Disabling SyncRep As an application nears the end of its active life, the business may decide that it no longer need the additional protection that SyncRep provides. 1. To disable SyncRep, select the volume SyncRepVol2 and from the Activities pane choose Disable SyncRep 2. Verify that this is the intended action by clicking Yes. 3. Notice that the icon for the volume has changed, and that in the Status that SyncRep is now disabled. When SyncRep is disabled on a volume, the SyncAlternate instance of the volume is deleted, as well as any snapshots that reside in the same pool as the SyncAlternate. 42 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

43 Lab 4 is complete Lab 5: SAN Headquarters - Troubleshooting Examples Summary SAN Headquarters is compressive performance monitoring tool for use with Dell Storage PS Series arrays. In this lab, you will become familiar with some of the common troubleshooting techniques with SAN Headquarters. Example 1 - Over Estimated IOPs and Performance complaints In this scenario, poor response times were reported that had developed long after the initial installation of the SAN. 1. Navigate to the SAN HQ ExampleFile folder within the PS Series folder on the desktop, and double click the GPRX file named 1-Before-High-Latency, to load the archive file into SAN HQ. Maximize the SAN HQ Client for best viewing. 2. Click to select the PS Series Group, TMProd. Select time period or area in the graph shortly before 9:24 AM. 43 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

44 3. The (1) TMProd Capacity Summary shows that there is plenty of free space (80% best practices recommends > 10% ) In the (2) TMProd I/O Summary, there is a high Write percentage (typically high is over 30% for general OLTP types of applications). Also in the (3) TMProd I/O Summary, the average latency appears to be a little high (complaints matched the times over > 20ms). In the (4) TMProd Network Summary, the network has a very modest load at only.4%. 44 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

45 4. Click to expand TMProd, then, click on I/O. Notice that the (2) Average Latency for writes is quite good, but the Average Latency for (3) reads is consistently over 30ms, and often is above this level. Latency tolerance is application-dependent. However, for general guidelines - consistent spikes over 20-25ms should be analyzed further. 45 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

46 5. In the left pane, expand I/O and select (1) Experimental Analysis. The Estimated IOPs Workload is near (2) 100%. Also, the current I/O is over the Estimated Maximum. 46 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

47 6. In the left pane, expand Hardware / Firmware and select (1) Disks. 7. Click on the Average IOPS column in the All Disks Summary table - to sort descending. The Average IOPS shows these 7.2K 4TB SAS exceeding 390 IOPs per disk. 47 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

48 The diagnosis was that the pool, which comprised of a single PS Series member with 7.2K drives, was close to Estimated Max utilization due to oversaturation of the disks. Latency was high along with over utilizing the disks from a IOPs per disk perspective confirms this array is over committed. Typical guidance for 7.2K NLSAS are 80 IOPs per disk. Example 2 Improve Performance by moving volumes to a new Pool To resolve the latency issue diagnosed in example 1, an additional PS Series member was added to the group and placed in a separate pool. Several volumes were moved to a new pool in the group. 1. Navigate to the SAN HQ ExampleFile folder within the PS Series folder on the desktop, and double click the GPRX file named 2-After-High-Latency, to load the archive file into SAN HQ. Maximize the SAN HQ Client for best viewing. 2. Click to expand the PS Series group, TMProd, and select the I/O node (1). Click anywhere in the graph between 9:00 and 11:00 AM (2). 48 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

49 3. Notice the Average Latency is over 30 ms for Reads (1), and that the IOPs are around 3000 for this period (2). This represents the load before the volumes were moved to a new pool. 49 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

50 4. Now click in the 14:00 range (1) which is after several volumes were moved to the new pool. The Average Latency is considerably better overall, with reads reduced to under 16ms. Also, note the dramatic increase in IOPs from 3,200 to around 7200 (2). 50 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

51 5. Performance alerts are available with SAN HQ to help notify administrators when thresholds have been exceeded. a. Click over the 10:00 AM period anywhere in the graph (1) b. Click 1hr in the timeline tool (2) c. Click the Alerts tab at the bottom of the dashboard (3). 51 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

52 6. In the Search field, type in vmfs (1) and click Search (2). Then, sort ascending the Estimated Time Detected table column (3). Notice the latency alerts for several volumes. If the settings are configured, this alert will generate an indicating the high latency threshold was exceeded. 52 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

53 Alerts provide an easy method to monitoring the array. Several alerts are available to notify the administrator about performance, capacity or hardware issues. After a few volumes were moved to a new pool, the latency dropped and the IOPs increased dramatically. The dramatic increase in IOPs is due to pent up demand, which basically means the available resources contained the maximum IOPs capability of this array. When the volumes were moved to the additional pool, the application was able to produce more IOPs overall. Other tuning techniques are available including simply creating one pool with both members (add or merge existing members). In addition, the latest version of SAN HQ (v3.1 or better) includes threshold alerts to notify when performance or capacity issues may arise. Example 3 Raid Evaluator to optimize for reliability and performance. The RAID Evaluator will model performance and reliability of the selected RAID Policy for the current workload. 1. Navigate to the SAN HQ ExampleFile folder within the PS Series folder on the desktop, and double click the GPRX file named 3-RaidEval, to load the archive file into SAN HQ. Maximize the SAN HQ Client for best viewing. 53 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

54 2. Click to expand the PS Series group PROD-SAN-EQL (1), select the I/O node (2), and pick a peak load in the Avg. IOPS graph (3). 54 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

55 3. In the left pane, expand I/O and select RAID Evaluator. (1). Click on the Possible RAID Policy drop down and select RAID 6 (2). 4. In the middle of the screen, the RAID Policy Reliability dials compare the current RAID 50, with the evaluated RAID 6. Green indicates excellent (3) reliability for the evaluated RAID Policy for this workload. Reliability is a relative indicator of the arrays ability to survive drive failures. Several factors contribute to the reliability of the group, including: the size of the drives, speed, parity, and mirror protection. RAID 6 has two parity drives and indicates the highest score. 55 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

56 5. Reviewing the performance aspect of RAID Policy selection, go to the Pool default RAID Evaluation IOPs on the right side of the graph (1). The Current Estimated Max IOPS is reflecting the current RAID 50 configuration and is higher than the projected or Possible MAX IOPS (2) compared to RAID 6 (-27%). Most of the current IOPS are below the Current Estimated Max IOPS or Possible Max IOPS and would not present a problem. However, note the possible impact that the peaks around 9:00 to 11:00 AM might present (3) Return to the Possible RAID Policy dropdown, and select RAID 10 (1). 56 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

57 7. This would accomplish both Excellent reliability indicated by the dials, while improving the Possible MAX IOPS (2). The Possible Statistics show a positive 71% for the Max IOPS Growth. (3), though at a cost to capacity. Note: To convert the array from RAID 50 to RAID 10, the member will need to be deleted from the group and re-added. Sufficient capacity will need to be available on the remaining members in the group to perform this operation. The RAID Evaluator is a powerful modeling tool to indicate both reliability and performance based on choices for RAID Policy. In this situation, simply converting from RAID 50 to RAID 6 may have an impact during the morning hours. However, RAID 10 would improve both the reliability as well as performance. Consider the impact of the RAID Policy on performance, reliability and capacity when determining the appropriate RAID configuration. Example 4 Hybrid Performance This example will show the performance of a Dell PS Series hybrid array, the PS6610ES. 1. Navigate to the SAN HQ ExampleFile folder within the PS Series folder on the desktop, and double click the GPRX file named 4-Hybrid, to load the archive file into SAN HQ. Maximize the SAN HQ Client for best viewing. 57 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

58 2. Click to select and expand the PS Series Group, CFR9U1PS6610XS (1). Select I/O (2), and expand the time bar from approximately 6/25/ :11 to 6/26/ : Click in one of the graph at around 6/25/ :42 and drag to highlight the range to 23:27 (3). 58 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

59 4. Now the backend IOPs will be analyzed to see how the combination of SSDs and spinning disks (7.2K) work efficiently during the selected time period. 5. From the left pane, select and expand Hardware / Firmware (1). Select Disks (2), and click the Average IOPS column heading (3) to sort descending, this will show the average IOPs per disk based on the previously selected time range. 59 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

60 The IOPS for this time range show that the SSDs are carrying most of the burden. The Average IOPS to each SSDs is over 3900, while the slower 7.2K NLSAS only provide 80IOPS. The Hybrid array s load balancer algorithm distributes the I/O based on frequency of access and move pages to SSDs or spinning disks as appropriate. Example 5 VMware Virtual Volumes (VVols) VMware Virtual Volumes are a new provisioning feature for vsphere 6 that changes how virtual machines are stored and managed. This feature is supported in PS Series arrays with Firmware 8 and later, and can be monitored with SAN HQ versions 3.1 and later. The example below will explore some of the properties of VVols that are important from a performance, capacity and monitoring perspective. 1. Navigate to the SAN HQ ExampleFile folder within the PS Series folder on the desktop, and double click the GPRX file named 5-VVols, to load the archive file into SAN HQ. Maximize the SAN HQ Client for best viewing. 60 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

61 2. Select the PS Series Group, TMProd (1). Click to around 15:00 in the graph for time selection and then select I/O from the left navigation pane (2). 61 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

62 3. From the Storage Containers dropdown (1), select VVOL-CF (2). This view shows the performance metrics for all of the VVols objects in the VVOL-CF Storage Container. 4. The Storage Container selection provides a summary of the performance of all the VVol virtual machine objects stored within it: Read/Write %, Average I/O size, Average IOPs, Average Latency, Average I/O Rate and Average Queue Depth are all displayed similar to a traditional volume (1). 62 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

63 5. Next, view the IOPs individually for all the individual VVol objects in the CF-VVol storage container. From the VVols dropdown menu (1), select VVols in storage container VVOL-CF (2). 63 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

64 6. Click the Average IOPs column to sort descending (1), and observe the following: - The IOPs are highest (2) are for the VVol of type vmdk (3). VMDK VVols are the OS or data drives of VVol virtual machines. As these VVol objects represent the individual data drive of a virtual machine, they are directly reflective of the workload being generated at the application level. Know the end to end performance of an application can greatly add in the diagnosis of performance issues. - You can view performance information for other VVol virtual machine file types such as Swap, Configuration, Snapshot and Memory. Typically these would be zero, though the Memory VVol object will show a workload during snapshots creation as the virtual machines memory is written to it. A Swap VVol with a workload load would be indicative of insufficient memory being available in the ESXi host running that virtual machine. 64 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1

65 VMware s VVols are easily monitored through SAN HQ 3.1 and provide a means to determine bottlenecks through various views. The example shows that the storage container concept allows for summarization of multiple VMs while VVols provide more granularity and exposure to different file types with the VM. Click SAN HQ from the menu then Exit to close this example. Lab 5 is complete Technical support and resources Dell.com/support is focused on meeting customer needs with proven services and support. Dell TechCenter is an online technical community where IT professionals have access to numerous resources for Dell software, hardware and services. Storage Solutions Technical Documents on Dell TechCenter provide expertise that helps to ensure customer success on Dell Storage platforms. 65 Hands-on Lab Manual Dell Storage PS Series Administration and Product Overview DS08-PS1