HP XP7 Storage - Manual (Page 14)

the disks. Up to 1024 LDEVs may be assigned to a single pool, providing a considerable amount
of I/O capability to just a few THP volumes.
Thin Provisioning Z work flow
The following illustrates the Thin Provisioning Z workflow.
Smart Tiers Z
After using Thin Provisioning Z software to implement a thin provisioning strategy, the array now
has all the elements in place to offer automatic self-optimizing storage tiers provided by Smart
Tiers. Using Smart Tiers Z, you can configure a storage system with multiple storage tiers using
different kinds of physical disk drives, including SSD, SAS, and external volumes. This can improve
the speed and cost of performance. Smart Tiers Z extends and improves the functionality and value
of Thin Provisioning Z. Both use pools of physical storage to define V-VOLs. Each thin provisioning
pool can be configured to operate either as a THP pool or a Smart Tiers Z pool.
Automated tiering of physical storage is the next step for thin provisioned enterprise arrays.
Automated tiering is the ability of the array to dynamically monitor and relocate data on the
optimum tier of storage based on performance requirements. It focuses on data segments rather
than entire volumes. The functionality is entirely within the array and needs no host level involvement.
Smart Tiers Z adds another layer to the thin provisioned environment.
Using Smart Tiers Z you can:
•
Configure physical storage into tiers consisting of multiple kinds of physical disk drives,
including SSD, and SAS. Host volumes continue to be configured from a common pool, but
the pool is configured using multiple kinds of physical disk drives. Placing data that needs
high performance while reducing storage costs by using high cost disks such as SSDs as
efficiently as possible, resulting in data that is accessed infrequently being placed on lower
cost physical storage.
•
Automatically migrate small portions of host volumes to the most suitable data drive according
to access frequency. Frequently accessed data is migrated to higher speed data drives (for
example, SSD). Infrequently accessed data is migrated to lower cost and lower speed data
drives (for example, SAS7.2K) to use the storage efficiently.
NOTE: It is important to plan your Smart Tiers Z implementation with the lowest performing tier
able to satisfy the minimum performance requirements.
Smart Tiers Z simplifies storage administration by automating and eliminating the complexities of
efficiently using tiered storage. It automatically moves pages of data in Thin Provisioning Z V-VOLs
to the most appropriate storage media, according to workload, to maximize service levels and
minimize total cost of storage.
14 Introduction to provisioning