HP XP P9500 Storage - Manual (Page 16)

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 hard disk drives
(for example, SSD). Infrequently accessed data is migrated to lower cost and lower speed
hard physical drives (for example, SATA) 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.
Smart Tiers Z gives you:
•
Improved storage resource usage
•
Improved return on high-cost storage tiers
•
Reduced storage management effort
•
More automation
•
Nondisruptive storage management
•
Reduced costs
•
Improved overall performance
Smart Tiers Z can be used by Remote Web Console, RAID Manager, or HP XP P9000 Smart
Manager for Mainframe (Smart Manager for Mainframe).
If Remote Web Console or RAID Manager is used, the following resources that are assigned to
the storage administrator can be used:
•
Tiers of pools
•
Tiers of THP V-VOLs
If Smart Manager for Mainframe is used, the following resources that are assigned to the mainframe
administrator can be used:
•
Tiers of storage groups
•
Tiers of THP V-VOLs that are assigned to a host
For details about HP XP P9000 Smart Manager for Mainframe, see the HP XP P9000 Smart
Manager for Mainframe User Guide.
Tiers concept
When not using Smart Tiers Z, data is allocated to only one kind of physical drive (without regard
to the workload) to the volumes because the volumes are configured with only one kind of data
drive. When using Smart Tiers Z, the higher performance drive is automatically allocated to the
high workload portion of a volume’s data, and the lower speed drive to the low workload portion
of a volume. This improves performance and reduces costs.
Smart Tiers Z places the host volume's data across multiple tiers of storage contained in a pool.
There can be up to three tiers (high-, medium-, and low-speed layers) in a pool. Smart Tiers Z
determines tier usage based on data access levels. It allocates pages with high I/O load to the
upper tier, which contains a higher speed drive, and the page with low I/O load to the lower tier,
which contains a lower speed drive.
The following figure illustrates the basic tier concept.
16 Introduction to provisioning