storage environment technology refresh...• remote copy (replication) • dynamic optimization •...
TRANSCRIPT
-
Storage Environment
Technology Refresh
Richard R. SiemersSenior Storage Administrator
Pier 1 Imports, Inc.
-
• North America's largest
specialty retailer of
imported home furnishings
and decor
• Based in Ft Worth, Texas
• Operates more than 1,000
stores in North America
• Employs nearly 15,000
people worldwide
-
Previous Environment• Tier 1
– EMC Symmetrix DMX2000 and
DMX1000 for open systems
• Tier 2 and 3– 6 Dell Clariions
– 2 IBM DS4500s
– NetAPP FAS3020
• Challenges– Each system and raid group an
island of performance and
capacity. 250 raw TB total
– 4x everything – bills, vendors,
admin tools, support contracts,
etc.
-
GoalsFaster, Bigger, Better
AND Less Expensive
• High Availability and High Performance
• Tier 1 Quality Support
• Thin Provisioning
• Simplified Provisioning
• Simplified Monitoring
• Reduce Costs
• Scalable Performance and Capacity
-
April 2009
July 2009
March
2010
June 2010
Project Scope Timeline
Original Scope:
Replace just EOL
T2/T3 systems
Capacity savings
allowed us to
consolidate ALL
T2/T3 systems to
the new system
Consolidated NAS
capacity to new
system.
Decision made to
move all Tier 1 to
new storage.
-
Current Solution3PAR
• 2x InServ T800 Storage Servers
– 4 Nodes each (persistent cache)
– 16 Front End Fiber Channel Ports
– 480 Spindles
– 196 TB raw capacity
• Thin Provisioning
• Remote Copy (Replication)
• Dynamic Optimization
• System Reporter
-
75% Reduction in
Storage Footprint
20% Reduction in
Power & Cooling
Costs
Previous Environment10 Different Arrays
Current Environment2 3PAR Utility Storage Arrays
Data Center Consolidation
-
Simplified Management
• Provisioning time reduced
to minutes.
– No LUN “Initializing”
– Intuitive GUI
– Mapping and Masking are
dynamic
– Ability to “Create similar”
– Multipath via MPIO
• Native in AIX 5.2+ and
Windows 2008
• MS MPIO from 3PAR for
W2003 and W2000
– Easy conversion between raid
and disk types using Dynamic
Optimization
Highly Virtualized
Secondsto provision service levels
Autonomic planning and
configuration
-
Thin Provisioning
Traditional (Fat) Provisioning
- dedicate on allocation
Volume
Written
Data
2 TB
Volume
Written
Data
Thin Provisioning
- dedicate on write
Volume
Written
Data
Volume
Written
Data
2 TB
Chunklets
Physical Capacity Consumed by Host
Hypervisor Hypervisor Hypervisor Hypervisor
-
Get Thin: Thin Conversion
• White space detection and conversion while migrating.
– Host based migrations like volume managers do block level mirroring/migrations that copy the entire LUN, white space full of zeros and all.
• Thin Conversion watches for incoming streams of zeros and prevents allocation of space for “empty” whitespace.
– Deleted data still occupies space. Ideally zero out the free space before migration/conversion.
– High Performance conversion of data stream in real time handled in hardware chipset.
Before After
0000
00000000
T-Class
F-Class
-
Stay Thin: Thin Persistence
• Non-disruptive “re-thinning” returns space to thin provisioned volumes and to free pool for reuse
– Recover space allocated to data that has been deleted.
– Recover missed opportunities to use the “Thin Conversion” process.
– Leverages file system tools to overwrite free space with zeros.
– High Performance conversion of data stream in real time handled in hardware chipset.
Before After
00000000
T-Class
F-Class
-
Thin Provisioning
Our Pier 1 Hosts “see” 153 TB, but only consume 99 TB.
35% of our capacity is virtualized.*Your mileage will vary!*
-
Pier 1 Capacity on Utility Storage
-
Increased Performance
• Wide Striping
– Eliminates hot-spots: work load spread across all spindles
– Even Small LUN sizes benefit from high spindle counts
Virtualized Storage
High & Predictable Service Levels
Fine & massive
resource
utilization
Traditional Storage
Low & Unpredictable Service
Levels
Capacity utilization and performance are
optimizedCapacity utilization and performance are
tradeoffs
Controlle
rControlle
r
Controller
Coarse &
narrow resource
utilization
-
Striping: Wide vs “Not So Wide”Physical Disk Performance
8.5 GB “Hyper” Size.
Hot spots developed and
needed to be rearranged
periodically for optimal
performance.
256 MB “Chunk” Size.
Hot spots have yet to
develop here. Every
disk is used evenly.
-
Striping: Wide vs “Not So Wide”Disk Adapter Performance
IO/sec per disk adapter
in our “old” Tier 1
storage frame.
The new “wide striped”
architecture is evenly
balanced across all
adapters in our
environment.
-
Performance Management
• System Reporter
– Monitor performance and
capacity over time.
– Web based - No agents on
servers, no client to install.
– Due to Thin Provisioning, we
can monitor data growth
without agents or access to
the hosts/databases
• Previous tools were slow,
required host agents, and
varied between storage
systems.
-
Pier 1 Performance
-
Pier 1 Performance
-
Pier 1 Performance
-
Summary of Benefits
• Increased Performance
• Simplified Landscape
• Faster Provisioning
• Greater Flexibility
• T1 Support for all tiers
• Reduced Footprint
• Reduced Expenses