1. Storage Resource Management
Introduction
If you have had experience managing data networks, you might think of various device or network management tasks when you think of SAN management. However, in a SAN, device and network management is only part of the story. A SAN contains data, and that data must be managed for performance, reliability, accessibility, and cost control.
In this lesson, you will learn about four of the key elements of storage resource management (SRM): usage management, capacity planning, hierarchical storage management, and policy-based management automation.
Importance
Understanding SRM requirements and technologies will enable you to understand the end-to-end storage environment, to assess a customer's total storage management needs, and to design robust storage management solutions.

2. Objective
Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to describe the requirements and capabilities associated with storage resource management (SRM) applications.
Performance Objective
Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to describe the requirements and capabilities associated with storage resource management (SRM) applications.
Enabling Objectives
Describe the key areas of functionality for SRM applications
Explain how SRM affects the total cost of ownership (TCO) of storage
Describe the goals of usage management
Describe the process of capacity planning
Describe the features of Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) applications
Describe policy-based SAN management
Define policy-based SAN management
List the key vendors in the SRM market

3. Outline Overview of SRM The Cost of Information Storage
Usage Management
Capacity Planning
Hierarchical Storage Management
What is Policy-Based Management?
SRM Vendors
Prerequisites
Curriculum Unit 2, Modules 1 and 2
All previous lessons in this module

4. Overview of SRM Key capabilities of SRM tools:
Monitoring usage of storage resources
Planning for growth
Choosing the right media for different types of data
Automating resource provisioning and other tasks
Focus on the needs of users and applications
Devices
Networks
Resources
Overview of SRM
Objective
Describe the key areas of functionality for SRM applications
Introduction
This section provides an overview of the functionality provided by SRM applications.
Facts
SRM management tools focus on the following key capabilities:
Monitoring the usage of storage resources
Planning for growth
Choosing the right media for different types of data
Automating storage resource provisioning and other tasks
SRM enables storage providers to intelligently manage storage resources from the perspective of users, applications, and their data.

5. Overview of SRM (cont.) SRM software can answer these questions…
How much storage do I have and where is it?
How much of that storage am I actually using?
How is the storage performing?
Are there any problems with the storage?
Has my data been backed up and is it recoverable?
… and automate the relevant management tasks.
The general goals of SRM software applications are to help storage administrators reduce their management burden by gathering, displaying, and analyzing data pertaining to the following questions:
How much storage do I have and where is it?
How much of that storage am I actually using?
How is the storage performing?
Are there any problems with the storage?
Has my data been backed up and is it recoverable?
In addition to reporting and trending features, the next-generation SRM software products that are now becoming available are designed to realize more dramatic reductions in management overhead by automating key storage management tasks, such as cost accounting and chargeback, performance management, storage provisioning, and backup and recovery.

6. Overview of SRM (cont.) What are the ultimate goals of SRM?
Provide ROI through better utilization of storage
Increase the amount of storage supported per administrator
Support vision of storage as a utility-like service
How can SRM achieve these goals?
Storage virtualization and consolidation
Integrated, end-to-end, policy-driven management
Manage to SLAs by defining service levels for storage
Support operational processes
The ultimate goals of SRM are to:
Provide ROI through better utilization of existing storage resources.
Provide proactive management and automation to increase the amount of storage supported per administrator.
Create a utility-like storage infrastructure that enables SLA-driven management and on-demand provisioning.
SRM can achieve these goals by:
Using storage virtualization and consolidation to simplify the operators’ and users’ view of storage resources.
Providing integrated, end-to-end, policy-driven management frameworks and automating common operational tasks.
Helping administrators manage to SLA specifications. Some SRM applications allow administrators to assign pre-defined service levels to each storage device that specify performance metrics for each device, and to assign service level requirements to each customer. This information helps storage administrators ensure that the storage assigned to each customer complies with the customer’s SLA, and can be used support automatic provisioning functionality.
Supporting operational processes. By facilitating performance monitoring, utilization reporting, capacity planning, and automated or semi-automated provisioning, SRM tools help storage administrators implement best practices.

7. The Cost of Information Storage
Why is capacity utilization important?
Expanding the size of a volume is not a trivial task
Systems administrators provide applications with extra capacity—room to grow
This reduces overall capacity utilization
Businesses add storage capacity even though they might have terabytes of unused storage
Disk utilization averages between 30–60%
Most businesses want to achieve 85–90%
The Cost of Information Storage
Objective
Explain how SRM affects the total cost of ownership (TCO) of storage
Introduction
This section explains how SRM affects the TCO of storage.
Facts
The total cost of ownership (TCO) for storage includes both the cost of the storage devices and the cost of managing the storage and devices. As data storage increases exponentially, disk storage costs per megabyte are falling exponentially. The cost of hardware remains under control, but the cost of managing each megabyte remains flat, at best, and often increases with total capacity. As the size of storage volumes increase, management costs become the dominant component, and total storage costs can increase significantly. Storage management tools are needed to cut these management costs.
Some SRM technologies allow multiple devices to be managed as a single storage resource. This is important because expanding the size of a volume is not a trivial task. Systems administrators need to provide each application with extra capacity—room to grow. To avoid having to rebuild volumes too often, administrators typically provide plenty of extra capacity. This reduces overall capacity utilization rates.
Most businesses regularly add storage capacity even though they might have terabytes of unused storage. For example, Gartner Dataquest estimates that:
Disk capacity utilization averaged 30% to 60% in 2001.
Most businesses have a target utilization rate of 85% to 90%.

8. The Cost of Information Storage (cont.)
SRM can lower TCO and increase ROI by:
Increasing storage asset utilization
Selecting the right storage for each class of data
Improving forecasting ability
Increasing application availability
Improving data protection
Simplifying storage management tasks
Automating repetitive operational tasks
SRM tools can play a critical role in lowering the TCO of storage and achieving the return on investment (ROI) sought by implementing SANs by:
Increasing the utilization of storage assets through reporting, capacity planning, and storage consolidation
Selecting the right storage resources for each class of data: low-end storage for non-critical data and low-performance applications and high-end storage for business-critical data high-performance applications
Improving the ability to accurately forecast storage needs with trending reports
Increasing application availability through policy-based performance thresholds, event management, and problem isolation
Improving data protection through backup job reporting and success metrics
Simplifying storage management tasks through centralized management and reporting
Automating repetitive operational management tasks

9. The Cost of Information Storage— Case Study
971 TB of DAS/SAN storage (business systems hosting)
Growth rate remains constant at 70% per year
Current utilization is 71%
Optimizing utilization requires SAN:
22% SAN storage today
50% SAN in 1 year
75% SAN in 2 years
100% SAN in 3 years
Small increase in utilization can have a large impact $0
$2,000,000
$4,000,000
$6,000,000
$8,000,000
$10,000,000
$12,000,000
$14,000,000
$16,000,000 1 2 3 4
Time (years)
72% Utilization
73% Utilization
74% Utilization
This slide shows the results of an actual case study that examined the potential cost savings of SRM. The company currently has a total of about 971TB of mixed DAS and SAN storage devoted to business systems hosting, with a steady growth rate of about 70% per year. About 22% of their storage is currently SAN-attached storage. The company plans to have 100% of their business systems hosted on SAN-attached storage within the next 3 years.
The company has calculated that the cost of managing SAN storage is about $0.10 per MB per year. This is slightly lower than DAS by about 10%. NAS storage is significantly cheaper to manage by about half, but the advantage of SAN storage is that SRM can allow the company to optimize the utilization of their existing capacity. In terms of management cost per MB, there does not appear to be a compelling reason to migrate to SAN—DAS is not that much more expensive to manage, and NAS appears to be the least expensive option. However, SRM applications will allow the company to increase the overall utilization of their SAN storage, and that is where the potential value of SAN becomes apparent.
The graph to the right shows the dollar value of the savings that the company can expect to realize from increasing utilization of SAN storage. The graph shows projected savings over the next 4 years that the company would realize by increasing utilization by just 1–3%. The impact of a small increase in utilization is small now, but as more storage is converted to SAN, and as the total amount of storage grows, even a small increase in utilization can result in millions of dollars in savings.
$0.11
$0.10
DAS
SAN
NAS
$0.05
Cost per MB of management
Source: Cisco Systems

10. Usage Management Key usage management functions:
Monitor capacity (and possibly fabric bandwidth) usage by applications and users
Enforce quotas for users and departments
Implement chargeback based on capacity and QoS
Data can be used for planning:
Storage capacity growth
Storage and server consolidation
Data migration
Backup management
Usage Management
Objective
Describe the goals of usage management
Introduction
This section identifies the goals of usage management.
Facts
Usage management tools allow storage providers—both internal IT departments and storage service providers (SSPs)—to:
Monitor and control how storage resources are being used by applications and end-users.
Enforce quotas for users and departments
Implement chargeback accounting based on usage and QoS
Usage metrics include:
Storage capacity by media type
Availability
Throughput
End-to-end performance

11. Usage Management (cont.)
Visualization
Reporting
Discovery
Alerting
SAM:
Physical paths
VSANs, zones
SAM:
Device health
Path utilization
SAM:
Physical devices
SAM:
Device faults
SRM:
Resource relationships
Logical storage pools
Logical data paths
SRM:
Usage by application
Capacity by media type
Availability
End-to-end performance
SRM:
Storage volumes
Storage applications
Business applications
Facts
SRM applications help SAN administrators track and control use of SAN resources. SRM Usage Management tools allow administrators to:
Track the growth of application data and storage needs
Assign storage volumes to specific users or applications
Reallocate underutilized storage assets
Allocate high-performance media to the most demanding applications
Anticipate capacity requirements to maintain satisfactory application performance
Prevent or correct service level agreement violations
Usage management applications collect data from software and management agents and use the data to generate reports, alarms, and alerts.
SRM:
Capacity shortages
Application performance
SLA violations

12. Usage Management (cont.)
Example: CA BrightStor
Example
The preceding screen images show examples of the usage management features provided by the Computer Associates (CA) BrightStor Storage Resource Manager application. CA’s product line has traditionally focused on enterprise systems and application management, and this focus is reflected in the breadth of usage management features in their SRM products.
The image on the left shows a trend analysis of capacity utilization over time. The declining percentage of free space on the volume from the trend analysis indicates that free space will run out soon (solid line). A forecasting feature provides predictive capabilities to determine when capacity will run out (dotted line).
The image on the right shows the integration of Storage Resource Manager with end-user applications, in this case Microsoft Exchange. This graph shows the utilization of Exchange storage capacity by the size and age of messages. The results of this analysis might indicate, for example, that the Exchange auto-archiving feature should be used to automatically offload older messages from the primary storage.
Capacity utilization and trending shows when more space will be needed.
Age profiling of Exchange mailboxes helps admins set archiving policies.

13. Usage Management (cont.)
Example: CA BrightStor
I/O profiles of database instances shows where additional resources might be needed to maintain optimal performance.
Capacity usage reports tie in to quota management and chargeback features.
The screen images shown here are also from the CA BrightStor Storage Resource Manager application. The graph on the left shows capacity usage by user. The capacity usage reporting engine ties in to quota management and cost chargeback features, allowing storage administrators to enforce capacity quotas and to charge back costs to the appropriate departments.
The graph on the right shows the I/O performance profile of multiple instances of an Oracle database in terms of the average number of blocks written, blocks read, and total I/O transactions. This report can help administrators to identify the applications that are consuming storage resources and potentially causing bottlenecks. This information can help administrators to improve overall application performance by showing where additional storage and computing resources might be needed.

14. Usage Management (cont.)
Example: HP Storage Accountant
The screen images shown here are from the HP Storage Accountant application. The graph on the left shows the percentage of the total storage capacity on a given device that has been allocated to LUNs, assigned to service levels, and used by customer accounts.
The graph on the right is a detailed usage report for a single storage device. For each LUN, this report displays the customer account assignment, assigned service level (in this case “GOLD” or “STANDARD”), cost per GB per hour, capacity usage, time usage, and total billed cost.
Accounting report shows storage allocated to LUNs, assigned to service levels, and used by accounts.
Usage report shows account assignment, service level, usage, and cost per LUN

15. Usage Management (cont.)
Visualization
Reporting
Discovery
Alerting
Chargeback
Planning
In conjunction with storage consolidation, usage management enables a utility model in which:
Customers and business centers can be charged based on usage and quality of service (QoS)
Historical and trend reports can be provided to assist customers in capacity, performance, and availability planning
Storage capacity and bandwidth can be provisioned on-demand
By implementing a utility model for storage, storage providers can provide rapid, flexible, distributed service to customers and can more easily assess and recapture costs. These capabilities are requirements for SSPs. They also make it easier for internal IT organizations to address implementation and support cost issues.
Provisioning
Storage as a Utility

16. Usage Management (cont.)
Usage management applications—differentiating features:
Support for host OS, storage platform, and SAN components
Support for DAS, NAS, SAN
Automatic vs. manual discovery
Support for backup applications
Level of integration with business applications
Custom reporting and data export
Visualization, drill-down, and search capabilities
Support for chargeback systems
Security features
Enterprise SRM packages typically support nearly all host operating systems, file systems, vendors’ storage platforms and SAN components from nearly all vendors. Smaller SRM software vendors may support only the most commonly deployed devices and host operating systems.
Some vendors’ SRM tools support all types of storage configurations (DAS, NAS, SAN), while others support only one or two of the three possible configurations.
Some software requires the administrator to manually enter information about new physical devices, but automatically discovers logical devices. Other applications perform continuous automatic discovery of new devices, both physical and logical.
Some enterprise SRM tools interface directly to data backup applications, which may include monitoring and reporting on the success of data backup operations, aw well as allocation of space for backup data.
Some SRM tools monitor business applications, such as enterprise resource planning, e-commerce, and database management. Support ranges from monitoring and reporting to generating alarms when business-critical applications reach defined thresholds of storage capacity.
Custom reporting and data export - All SRM tools provide some standard, pre-formatted reports; some vendors allow administrators to design and generate custom reports from the data collected by the software. Other vendors offer a tie-in from usage reporting to capacity planning.
Some applications provide detailed visualization and search capabilities to assist administrators in identifying and resolving the source of faults and performance bottlenecks in the storage network.
Support for chargeback systems, ranges from reporting by department or device to actually generating invoices. Some applications can generate chargeback data based on variable rates.
Security features range from password control over management console login to use of SSL between servers and clients, to encryption of communication among software agents.

17. Usage Management (cont.)
Usage Management Scenario: IBM Tivoli Products
Service Level Agreement
Availability
Throughput
Cost
500 SAP R/3 Systems
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Enterprise Resource Planning
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
Example: Usage Management Scenario
The diagram above illustrates an example of a usage management scenario, deploying two complementary SRM software packages from IBM:
Tivoli Storage Manager
Tivoli Storage Manger for Enterprise Resource Planning
A leading Storage Service Provider serves clients who use SAP R/3 systems. The SSP manages a total of 500 SAP R/3 systems, and must meet Service Level Agreements that promise high availability and rapid throughput, all at a competitive cost.
The SSP relies on the automated features of Tivoli Storage Manager to configure and monitor the storage devices and fabric. Due to the level of automation, five storage engineers manage all 500 systems.
Tivoli Storage Manager for Enterprise Resource Planning monitors the databases, backing up and restoring Oracle database objects using native SAP utilities. Backup data is used transparently, maintaining availability when server crashes occur.
Tivoli Storage Manager for Enterprise Resource Planning allows disparate servers to access tape libraries through the SAN for faster throughput.
Monitoring
Data Restore
Backup
Configuration
Database Management

18. Capacity Planning Capacity planning process:
Assess current data storage resources:
Percent of used/unused capacity
Characteristics and relative value of storage media
Assess current data storage statistics:
How much data is stored?
What type of data is it?
What are the data retention requirements?
Capacity Planning
Objective
Describe the process of capacity planning
Introduction
This section describes the process of capacity planning and identifies tools that are available for gathering data to assist with capacity planning.
Process
Planning for future storage capacity requirements involves assessment of more than just raw storage capacity. Key considerations include the characteristics of both storage media and application data, the usage patterns associated with each set of data, and the business purpose of the data. Capacity planning involves the following basic steps:
1. Inventory current storage resources
How much capacity is used/unused? Typically, organizations use 60% or less of their available storage Virtualization may help improve usage of existing storage.
What are the characteristics of each storage resource? At minimum, categorize resources into high-end disk, low-end disk, and tape storage. Slower storage can be used for infrequently used data or archival data.
2. Inventory current data storage requirements
How much data is stored?
What type of data is it—database, e-commerce, web server, file storage, or other types of data?
What are the data retention requirements? Can some existing data be eliminated, or should data be archived on a regular basis? What corporate or legal retention requirements apply to each application?

19. Capacity Planning (cont.)
Assess data growth and usage metrics:
How much new data is generated?
How frequently is each set of data used?
Who uses the data? Where are they?
Predict future requirements:
What is the rate of growth for each set of data?
What business planning decisions might affect space, performance, or availability requirements?
What regulatory requirements might apply?
3. Assess utilization statistics and trends:
How much new data is generated in what period of time? Use historical and trend reports to generate baseline growth curves.
How frequently is the data accessed or updated? I/O performance and statistics will reveal usage patterns and trends, which informs the decision of what media to use for what data.
Who uses the data? Where are the clients/users located? Is global access required? Would it make sense to use content delivery networks to push data closer to users?
4. Predict future requirements, based on patterns and trends in growth
What is the rate of growth for each set of data? Assess growth for each type of data (database, web server, customer transactions, etc.) to determine the type of storage (high-speed drives or low-cost media) required to accommodate the increasing data volume.
What business planning decisions might affect growth curves, performance requirements, or availability requirements.
What regulatory requirements might apply now or in the near future? For example, government requirements for availability of certain data means capacity planning must include specific levels of redundancy and fault-tolerance.

20. Capacity Planning (cont.)
Capacity planning tools:
Enterprise SAN management software:
Overview of storage usage
History
Trend reports
Application-specific tools:
Database-sizing tools
SRM packages
Service Level Agreements
Facts
Assuming an organization has implemented a SAN, the primary tool set available for planning storage capacity is the enterprise-wide SAN management software. SAN management software usually provides both physical and logical views of storage resources, as well as capacity, availability, and performance. Some vendors provide the ability to re-allocate virtual storage as needed, or grow the size of a volume dynamically. SAN management history files make it possible to determine rates of growth, patterns of increasing or decreasing usage, and trends by application or client.
Recently, several of the large enterprise SAN management software vendors have acquired companies that produce more specialized SRM tools. SRM software uses agents, rules-based engines, SNMP MIBs, and other tools to track capacity, availability, and usage, plus application-specific metrics, trends, chargebacks, and quota enforcement.
SLAs can also be tools for capacity planning per client or department, if a history file is available. The history of SLA compliance can provide valuable data with respect to usage patterns.

21. Capacity Planning (cont.)
Application-specific SRM tools:
Software modules monitor e-commerce applications
Use capacity monitoring and planning features to manage performance of business-critical applications
Typically supported applications include:
E-commerce applications
Database applications
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications
applications
Application-specific tools relate storage assets to the database applications they host and monitor their availability and performance. Some application-specific SRM tools use the application and usage data to predict device failure. This allows the SAN administrator to plan for both capacity and availability in a fault-tolerant environment.
For example, BMC’s Patrol Application Storage Resource Manager (ASRM) package package charts information that tells the network or storage administrator when logical or physical problems may occur with the network or the applications running on it. Using queuing theory and simulation, ASRM is capable of predicting storage failures and forecasting how storage will grow as applications change.
Application-specific tools help administrators plan capacity based on amount, type, and use of data. They are predictive in situations where both storage space and throughput are components of the capacity requirement. These tools are available for a number of common applications:
E-commerce applications
Database applications
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications
applications
The chart on the following slide shows examples of the tools offered by some of the major SAN management software vendors.

22. Capacity Planning (cont.)
Provisioning
Monitoring
Backup
Oracle
MS SQL
Sybase
DB2
People Soft
SAP
MS Exchange
CA BrightStor
EMC ControlCenter
HP OpenView
IBM Tivoli
InterSAN Pathfinder
Sun StorEdge
Facts
The preceding table lists some of the application-aware capacity management features of the leading SRM product suites:
Products that support application-aware provisioning integrate capacity monitoring with the ability to automatically provision storage and add that storage to the appropriate application.
Products that support application-aware monitoring provide detailed performance and/or capacity utilization reports for supported applications. For example, an application-aware database monitor agent can provide information about capacity utilization by tablespace and performance by database instance. An application-aware monitor agent can provide information about the average age of the mail in each user’s mailbox.
Products that support application-aware backup can back up specific tables, logs, or mailboxes. More importantly, they can interact with the application to monitor and lock specific areas of the database to allow the backup job to run while the application is online.
Note that this table is intended to provide a high-level view of the market. It does not list all of the database, ERP, and messaging applications that are supported. Some of the SRM products shown here also support Informix, Lotus Notes, and other enterprise applications.

23. Hierarchical Storage Management
HSM matches quality of storage to quality of data:
High-use, high-performance data to high-end disks
Low-use, low-performance data to low-cost disks
Archival data to tape storage
HSM controller
Hierarchical Storage Management
Objective
Describe the features of Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) applications
Introduction
This section describe the features of HSM applications and explains how HSM can lower the TCO of storage.
Facts
Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) is a type of storage consolidation. HSM applications monitor how frequently each set of data—typically file-based data—is used, and assign a value to each data set based on its usage pattern. The HSM application then automatically migrates data to different storage devices based on the “value” of that data. For example:
Data that are used often or are used by applications that demand rapid access are stored on high-performance disks.
Data that are used less often or are used by applications with lower performance requirements are migrated to slower, less expensive disks.
Seldom-used or archival files are migrated to tape storage.
Hierarchical storage management is useful for allocating storage resources among data types with different access requirements. For example, data that is mandated by law to be retained, but is rarely accessed, need not be stored on the newest, high-speed disk drives. On the other hand, an e-commerce company does not want to lose customers who will not wait for a slow response to a transaction request.
High-end storage
Low-cost storage
Archival storage

24. Hierarchical Storage Management (cont.)
HSM software common features:
Uses defined criteria to prioritize data for accessibility
Monitors data usage to update priority status
Migrates lower priority data to slower storage media
Uses “stubs” or pointers to locate migrated data
Automatically updates stubs to reflect file locations
HSM software discriminators:
Detail of criteria used to prioritize data
Number and type of media options for migration
Speed and transparency of archived file retrieval
Facts
HSM software increases the overall efficiency of all available storage resources by:
Monitoring capacity and data usage across multiple devices
Migrating low priority data to slower storage media
Improving performance for highly utilized data
All HSM software prioritizes data. However, not all HSM applications use the same criteria. Typical criteria include:
Age of data
Type of data
Frequency of access
Age of most recent access
HSM software differs also in the archival media it supports. Most vendor offerings support migration to tape. Some will migrate data to lower-speed disks, and optical drives as well as tape. It is important to verify that the selected HSM software is compatible with the available storage arrays and libraries.
After a file is migrated to lower priority storage, a “stub” or pointer is retained on the original storage media. This stub contains information about the file and its new location, and is used to retrieve the file from the archival media when necessary. The physical location of each file is transparent to the user. Some HSM software uses directory pointers within the operating system directory. The pointers are automatically updated as files are migrated and de-migrated so they always reflect the current location of each file.
The speed and transparency of file retrieval depends upon the amount and type of information in the stub and the performance of the media to which the file was migrated.

25. Hierarchical Storage Management (cont.)
Local Archive FC
Inactive Data
Active Data
Active Data
SAN
Remote Backup Site 1
Users
HSM Scenario
A biomed company generates more than 2 terabytes of data per week. After several weeks, the data is stale, but still valuable, and needs to be maintained for future reference and re-use.
The company’s requirements include:
Cost effective support for rapidly growing capacity requirements
Fast access to and recovery of large files
Simultaneous backup of each file in 3 remote locations
Robust, easily managed archival storage
Each file is logically organized according to its importance and frequency of use. Frequently accessed files are stored on the fast, hard disk cache, while older, rarely used files are migrated to the tape storage libraries for permanent archiving.
Sun’s Utilization Suite with SAM-FS software allows users to access data from and write data to tape with no administrative intervention—keeping costs down by utilizing lower-cost media and minimizing administrative man-hours. Sun’s HSM software also enables the administrator to set policies that automate the system to make three backup file copies across different media and geographic locations for added protection. In addition, a portion of a file can be kept online, so programs can see the file before it is staged back from tape.
The data management software requires very little administrative support. Currently, 110 terabytes of data within SAM-FS requires only one part-time system administrator .
Policies
Remote Backup Site 2
Remote Backup Site 3
SAN Administrator

26. Policy-Based Management
Policy-based management reduces management costs by automating common tasks
Administrators can specify:
Automatic capacity provisioning policies
SAN bandwidth provisioning policies
Failover, failback, and load-balancing policies
Policy-Based Management
Objective
Define policy-based SAN management
Introduction
This section introduces the concept of policy-based SAN management.
Facts
The first generation of SAN management products provided basic features, such as discovery, monitoring, alerting, and reporting. Although these products provided storage administrators with the ability to view the status the SAN fabric, administrators were still required to manually intervene to make required changes, such as adding and removing capacity from storage volumes, provisioning new storage volumes, and optimizing and reorganizing storage volumes were still done manually.
The next generation of SAN management products add intelligence to allow the software to build a database that contains not only the configuration of SAN devices, but also describes how storage resources are used by applications. This level of integration allows these products to predict when corrective action must be taken, and then take the appropriate action. Vendors have always focused on providing high availability and fault tolerance in their systems, but the next generation of SRM products will provide added reliability and increased efficiency by automatically performing actions that currently require manual intervention. These products are known as policy-based management software.
Definition
Policy-based management increases reliability, reduces cost, and facilitates business planning by:
Automating a variety of management tasks
Preventing problems, such as applications running out of disk space
Reducing the risk of operator error, especially in an emergency situation
Facilitating comprehensive advance planning for various contingencies

27. Policy-Based Management (cont.)
Requirements:
Supports heterogeneous environments:
Applications
Operating systems
File systems
I/O controllers
Fabric components
Storage arrays
Distributed and transactional:
Scalability
Reliability
Secure:
Device authentication
Role-based access
Network-oriented:
Not device- or host-based
Standards-based
Facts
Basic requirements for policy-based management automation applications include:
Support for multivendor environments, including heterogeneous:
Operating systems, file systems, and applications
I/O controllers
Fabric components
Storage arrays
Distributed transactional architecture for scalability and reliability
Security measures, including:
Device authentication to protect systems from malicious connections
Role-based access to permit distributed human interaction
Network-oriented architecture:
Device- and host-based architectures limit functionality in multivendor environments
Standards-based for heterogeneous support

28. Policy-Based Management (cont.)
Systems Management
Application
Management
Fabric
Management
Storage Management
Data Management
Active, intelligent automated policy-based management
Integrated Resource Management
Availability, Data Protection
and Recovery Management
Facts
SRM vendors have been moving to adopt open standards, both well-established, existing standards, such as SNMP, and newer ones, including Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and the Storage Management Initiative proposed by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SMI-S). The standards allow customers to “mix and match” hardware and software that best meets their specific needs.
The first results of standards implementation have been in the areas of cross-platform and cross-vendor device management and backup and fault tolerance applications.
With standards in place, it becomes possible to incorporate intelligence into the network, allowing an increased level of automation of both routine and emergency response tasks.
The focus of SRM is moving from SAN devices and network topology to SAN and application performance. The goal is not just to “see” and manage the components of the SAN, but to assure performance and availability of those resources and the applications that use them. As storage service providers and IT departments strive to meet service level agreements, they expect SRM software to become proactive, anticipating problems and taking corrective action before users experience a loss of data, or access to data. This business-centric view of SRM is a response to the reality that storage administrators have exponentially increasing amounts of data to manage, with little, if any, additional staff.
Because the tasks to be automated involve components from many vendors, as well as multiple operating systems and file systems, open standards are vital to the automation process.
The most mature policy-based management feature is HSM, which is offered by a number of vendors, and automates the migration of data across storage media, according to data value to the business.
Open Integration and Standards SMI-S, WBEM, SNMP

29. Policy-Based Management (cont.)
Why is Automated SAN Management Important?
Increase in Storage vs. Increase in Staff 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
2001
2002
2003
2004
n-fold Increase
Storage
Staff
+100% per year
Facts
One of the advantages of a well-designed SAN is the ability to accommodate growth, change, and re-allocation of assets. Managing the devices in a scalable SAN with limited human resources requires well-designed management tools and automating the management process where appropriate.
The SAN administrator’s workload, in terms of number of components to manage, is growing rapidly. The only way to control the cost of managing an expanding SAN is to automate as many tasks as possible. This frees the SAN administrator to concentrate on those vital tasks, like planning and troubleshooting, that cannot be automated.
+10% per year
Source: Gartner Group, 2000

30. Policy-Based Management (cont.)
Storage provisioning is a focus for automation:
Assigning and configuring LUNs
Identifying and allocating host interconnects
Mapping the LUNs to hosts
Zoning the fabric
Incorporating FC security policies
Updating the volume manager/file system
Updating user applications (e.g. databases)
Updating storage management applications (e.g. backup)
These tasks can transcend individual/departmental responsibilities (DBA, server, network, storage)
Storage provisioning will be one of the areas of focus for storage management automation. Storage provisioning requires a multitude of individual tasks, including:
Assigning and configuring the appropriate LUNs from one or more physical storage subsystems
Identifying and allocating the number and location of host interconnects on the array
Mapping the LUNs to the hosts
Implementing fabric zoning configuration changes as necessary
Identifying and modifying any relevant FC security policies (if available)
Ensuring that the host logical volume manager, file system, applications, and databases on the hosts are updated accordingly
Ensuring that other storage management applications (such as backup/recovery applications and remote replication services) comprehend the changes and the implications of such changes in storage policies
Because provisioning storage involves interacting with multiple SAN devices, operating systems, and applications—all of which are from different vendors and currently support different application interfaces—automating provisioning is not simple problem to solve. This set of tasks typically transcends individual and possibly departmental responsibilities (such as database, server, network, and storage administration groups). Implementing policy-based management applications requires communication and cooperation from multiple operational groups. However, the same difficulties that make automated provisioning difficult to implement make it very attractive. The benefits of automated provisioning generally outweigh the cost, time, and effort of implementation.

31. Policy-Based Management (cont.)
Example: InterSAN PathLine
Automating the storage provisioning process 8 FC FC FC FC 7 2
Storage Agents
Host Agents
Switch Agents 5 6
Example: Policy-Based Management Scenario
Using InterSAN Pathline software, the SAN administrator establishes policies and QoS service level agreements for a mission-critical database application. Policies specify the storage and path capacity, availability, and performance criteria required for the database application.
The InterSAN Pathline software monitors storage usage and application performance, and determines that a database application has reached a performance threshold that will affect the QoS for the application. The storage administrator is notified, by and/or pager.
The SAN administrator determines the database is growing at a faster-than-expected rate, is running out of space, and will require additional storage. Using the Pathline automated storage provisioning feature, the administrator selects the Storage Provisioning option for that application, and enters the desired amount of additional storage.
Pathline software then uses patented algorithms to select the best-fit path and storage to meet the policy requirements.
Path Proofing presents a visualization of the top-ranked path and storage candidates for review and approval (or modification) by the administrator.
Pathline automatically performs LUN mapping, LUN masking, and fabric zoning to assign a primary and secondary path to the LUN.
The LUN is added to the host logical volume manager and to the application’s file system manager.
The administrator may make the changes immediately, or use the provisioning workflow management feature to queue the requested changes to be performed during a designated change window. 1 3 FC FC 4

32. Policy-Based Management (cont.)
Automated via Policies
HSM
Network performance management
Usage management
Define and enforce SLAs
Discover network topology
Software-Assisted
Application performance management
Application provisioning
Capacity planning
Facts
The preceding slide is a graphic depiction of the current state of policy based management. Capabilities can be divided into three basic categories of functionality:
Manual tasks, such as initial configuration of a new device to be added to a SAN, require an administrator to take action each time the task must be performed.
Software-assisted tasks, such as monitoring and reporting, are performed by software but require follow-up action by an administrator. For example, the software may perform continuous auto-discovery for a network, and locate any problems with the links and the devices. In most cases, these discoveries will result in status alarms or alerts, but the administrator must take action to resolve the issues.
Tasks that are automated via policies, require administrator intervention to establish policies, and then perform tasks without any further intervention. An example is HSM, where an administrator determines the criteria for moving data from high-value storage media to lower value or archival media. Once the criteria are in place, the software monitors and moves the data, with no further administrative intervention.
SRM is moving from manual to automated, policy-based management, but not all aspects of storage management are moving at the same pace. Adding a device to a SAN is still typically a manual task. However, discovery of that device, and adding it to the network topology is frequently done by software, often with some manual input required. In some cases, the SRM software will periodically survey the network and auto-discover any new devices or links.
The features that have achieved the most policy-based automation, from most vendors, are HSM, usage management, and enforcement of service level agreements. Although application provisioning is not yet highly automated by most SRM vendors, some of the smaller vendors have moved that function into the realm of policy-based management.
Add devices
Resource allocation
Manual
Configuration
Provisioning
Performance
Planning

33. SRM Vendors HSM products: ADIC FileServ (Solaris and IRIX only)
CA BrightStor CA-ASTEX Performance Migration Manager (z/OS only)
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Space Management (formerly ADSM)
OTG Software DiskExtender
StorageTek Application Storage Manager
Sun StorEdge Utilization Suite with SAM-FS (Sun hardware only)
VERITAS Storage Migrator
SRM Vendors
Objective
List the key vendors in the SRM market
Introduction
This section lists the key vendors and products in the SRM market.
Facts
The following vendors provide HSM products:
ADIC FileServ provides HSM for DAS storage running Solaris or IRIX file systems. FileServ allows policy-based migration of data to and from tape libraries, transparently to the user.
CA BrightStor CA-ASTEX Performance Migration Manager provides HSM for z/OS.
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Space Management provides HSM across a wide range of operating systems and storage media. The Tivoli HSM client software supports more than a dozen different operating systems, while the server software supports eight different operating systems.
Recently acquired by Legato, OTG DiskExtender supports Windows, UNIX, and Linux file systems. DiskExtender Database Edition automates storage management policies and parameters for Oracle Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS), and DiskExtender for Centera offers a data management software solution for EMC's Centera NAS storage arrays.
StorageTek Application Storage Manager is available for Sun Solaris, Microsoft Windows NT/2000, and IBM OS/390 operating systems.
Sun StorEdge Utilization Suite works with their SAM-FS file system to provide HSM for Sun hardware.
VERITAS Storage Migrator is an HSM add-on to VERITAS NetBackup.

34. SRM Vendors (cont.) Usage management products:
CA BrightStor Storage Resource Manager
CreekPath Storage Resource Management and Storage Service Management
EMC StorageScope
Fujitsu Softek EnView and Softek Reporter
HDS HiCommand Device Manager
HP OpenView Storage Builder and Storage Accountant
IBM Tivoli Storage Resource Manager
Sun StorEdge Resource Management Suite
Tek-Tools Profiler for OS
Veritas SANPoint Control and Storage Reporter
Usage management products facilitate quota and SLA enforcement, chargeback, and capacity planning:
CA BrightStor Storage Resource Manager provides a cross-platform view of capacity usage.
CreekPath Storage Resource Management tracks utilization of storage resources and capacity.
CreekPath Storage Service Management monitors usage with reference to allocation, quotas, SLAs, provisioning, and billing.
EMC StorageScope offers customizable metrics to track usage by business requirements.
Fujitsu Softek EnView monitors application usage and response times, and Softek Reporter generates reports from the collected data.
HDS HiCommand Device Manager allows usage monitoring of Hitachi and Sun storage devices.
IBM Tivoli Storage Resource Manager tracks storage capacity and utilization and monitors OS performance and Service Level Agreements.
HP Storage Accountant provides a toolset useful for defining Service Level Agreements and implementing chargeback.
HP OpenView Storage Builder is a resource-planning and inventory tool for DAS, SAN, and NAS storage. It displays storage allocation and utilization by host, storage device, LUN, partition, volume, directory, and user.
Sun StorEdge Resource Management Suite analyzes storage usage, identifies bottlenecks, and provides predictive trending of storage consumption rates. It also provides access to data for use in chargeback, storage optimization, and performance and utilization reports.
Tek-Tools Enterprise Profiler offers reports depicting usage and performance trends at the disk, user, file system and partition levels. Profiler for OS offers similar reports for servers.
Veritas SANPoint Control details storage system usage by host, operating system, file system, vendor and RAID configurations.
Veritas Storage Reporter provides statistics by user, department, or other group, and reports on files by type, age, and size.

35. SRM Vendors (cont.) Policy-based management products:
CA BrightStor Storage Resource Manager
CreekPath Scenario Automation Modules
EMC Control Center ARM
Softek Storage Manager and Storage Provisioner
IBM Tivoli Storage Resource Manager & SRM Express
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
InterSAN Pathline
Sun StorEdge Resource Management Suite
Tek-Tools Enterprise Profiler
Veritas SANPoint Control
The vendors shown on the slide above provide policy-based management as defined in this lesson:
CA BrightStor Storage Resource Manager provides automation capabilities to eliminate routine tasks while providing information on enterprise-wide storage capacity, allocation, and usage.
The Creek Path AIM platform allows users to define policies for automating management tasks. Scenario Automation Modules (SAMs) automate task processes based on best practices.
EMC’s Automated Resource Manager allocates resources based on defined policies and automates the detailed provisioning processes.
Fujitsu Softek Storage Manager and Storage Provisioner work together to automate provisioning of direct-attached and network-attached disks to applications. Softek Storage Manager also allows users to define scripts to be executed automatically in response to defined events.
IBM Tivoli Storage Resource Manager automates capacity provisioning.
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager provides a policy engine configurable down to the individual file level. This policy engine can manage the data protection for thousands of computers with minimal administrator intervention.
InterSAN Pathline allows the administrator to either select an existing policy or create one specifically to define the QoS requirements of an application. Then, the Pathline software creates the optimal data path from the application to the storage where the application data resides. The software configures the SAN infrastructure components automatically, without administrator interaction at the component level.
Sun StorEdge Resource Management Suite allows users to define automatic responses to events.
Tek-Tools Enterprise Profiler offers policy-based storage and performance management.
Veritas SANPoint Control offers customizable policy-based management to automate notification, recovery, and other user-definable actions.

36. Lesson Review
What is one of the key market drivers for storage resource management (SRM) software?
Which of the following aspects of a SAN do usage management applications allow administrators to monitor?
Which of the following features help to differentiate between different vendors' implementations of Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM)?
Why is storage provisioning a focus for policy-based automation products?
Practice
What is one of the key market drivers for storage resource management (SRM) software?
IT staffing budgets are not keeping up with the increasing growth and complexity of storage management
Storage capacity requirements doubling every 3 to 4 months
Increasing performance requirements due to proliferation of SLAs
Increasing awareness of the cost of downtime
Which of the following aspects of a SAN do usage management applications allow administrators to monitor?
The average utilization over time of specific network segments
The total utilization of bandwidth within VSANs and zones
Device and path utilization
Resource relationships between hosts and storage devices
Which of the following features help to differentiate between different vendors' implementations of Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM)?
Automatically updates the stubs to reflect file locations
Monitors data usage to update priority status
Number and type of media options for migration
Uses "stubs" or pointers to locate migrated data
Why is storage provisioning a focus for policy-based automation products?

37. Summary
SRM software uses data about capacity usage, performance, and recoverability to help administrators meet the needs of users and applications
Businesses can lower the cost of information storage by:
Improving asset utilization and allocation
Automating repetitive tasks
Improving data protection
Usage management tracks resource allocation to meet SLAs and to charge users based on the amount and quality of storage used
Summary: Storage Resource Management
In this lesson, you learned about the key requirements and capabilities of SRM products, and how technologies like usage management, HSM, and policy-based provisioning can impact the cost and administration of storage networks.

38. Summary (cont.)
Effective capacity planning requires detailed reporting capabilities
Tools to assist capacity planning include general SRM tools and application-specific modules
HSM is a policy-based technology that manages resource allocation based on the value of the data and the media
Policy-based management automates complex management tasks, such as provisioning, by developing scripts or other actions to be triggered by pre-set thresholds and events