clariion foundations r29 - ppt

© 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

CLARiiON FoundationsCLARiiON Foundations

© 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. CLARiiON Foundations - 2

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

Identify the models, components, and basic architecture of a CLARiiON

Identify supported CLARiiON RAID types

Identify CLARiiON data integrity features

Identify CLARiiON data availability features

Identify CLARiiON management options

Identify CLARiiON storage provisioning objects


Module 1: CLARiiON Models, Components, and RAID Types

Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:

Identify the models, components, and basic architecture of a CLARiiON disk array

Identify the operation of CLARiiON components

Identify supported CLARiiON RAID types


CLARiiON Models –Timeline

CX200

CX400

CX600

2002

CX300

CX500

CX700

2003

CX300i

CX500i

2005

CX3-20

CX3-40

CX3-80

2006

CX3-10c

CX3-20c

CX3-20f

CX3-40c

CX3-40f

2007

CX4-120

CX4-240

CX4-480

CX4-480P

CX4-960

2008


Mid-tier Storage: Defined

Non-disruptive everything– Upgrades, operation, and service

Predictable performance

Availability

Functionality– Replicate any amount of data, across any distance, without impact to

service levels

Flexibility– Capacity, performance, multi-protocol connectivity, workloads, etc.

Manage service levels– Centralized management of the storage environment


CLARiiON CX4 Models 120, 240, 480, and 960

Latest generation, full Fibre Channel networked storage running FLARE Operating Environment

Flexible drive and I/O configurations

UltraFlex I/O modules to grow connectivity– Populate with different I/O options (FC or iSCSI)

Scalable processing power– Dual- or Quad-core processors support advanced

storage-based functionality

Industry-leading performance and availability

Cross-generational software support

Non-disruptive hardware replacement and software upgrades


CLARiiON CX4 UltraFlex I/O Modules

Provides the Storage Processor with 4 Fibre Channel (FC) ports or 2 iSCSI ports

Any FC port can be configured as either front-end or back-end connection

Each FC port can operate at 1, 2, 4, or 8 Gb/s

iSCSI ports can operate at 10/100/1000 Mb/s or 10 Gb/s speeds


CLARiiON CX4 Series Architecture

1.Storage Processoe

CLARiiON Messaging Interface (CMI)

1, 2, 4, or 8Gb/s FC I/O modules10,100,1000 Mb/s or 10Gb/s iSCSI I/O

modules

2/4/8 Gb Fibre Channel Back End

LCC

LCC

LCC

LCC

4Gb/s LCC LCC

LCC

Multi-Lane PCI-Express bridge link

4Gb/s LCC

4Gb/s LCC

4Gb/s LCC

4Gb/s LCC

4Gb/s LCC

4Gb/s LCC

4Gb/s LCC

StorageProcessor

StorageProcessor

DAE3P

SPE


Modular Building Blocks

DAE3P Disk Enclosure– Supports up to 15 low-profile, FC,

SATA II, low power SATA II, or EFD disk drives

– Drive fillers must be installed in empty slots

Uses same chassis and power supply/cooling module as DAE2P enclosure

Uses same cables as DAE2P enclosure

Two 4 Gb/s Link Control Cards (LCCs)


CLARiiON SATA II Disks

Lower cost per MB for backup or bulk storage

Alternative to Fibre Channel disks

Same software capability as FC

Full HA features– Dual-ported access

– Redundant power and LCCs

– Hot swap capability

Uses FC interconnect – Mix FC, ATA, and SATA II cabinet (not within the same DAE3P)

– First DAE3P must contain Fibre Channel drives (except for the CX4-120 and CX4-240 which can use SATA drives for vault disks)


Enterprise Flash Drives

Enterprise Flash Drives (EFD)– Consistent with Symmetrix terminology

Supported on all CLARiiON CX4 models

Drives can be configured on different bus– Drives can be used on any 4 Gb/s enclosure

– EFDs can be mixed with FC in the same enclosure

– EFDs and SATA drives must be in a separate enclosure


Storage Processor Introduction Storage processors are configured in

pairs for maximum availability

One or two CPU processors per Storage Processor board

UltraFlex I/O modules (FC and iSCSI protocols)

Dual-ported Fibre Channel disk drives at the back end– One, two, four, or eight Arbitrated Loop

connections

Mirrored write cache– Uses the CLARiiON Messaging Interface

(CMI )– Persistent cache– Write caching accelerates host writes

Ethernet connection for managementStorage Processor

Mirrored Cache

CPU CPU

FC-AL FC-AL

CMI

LCC

LCC

I/O module

FC or iSCSI


CLARiiON RAID Types

Disk– No protection

– JBOD

RAID-0: Stripe– No protection

– Performance JBOD

RAID-1: Mirroring– Some performance gain by splitting read operations

– Protection against single disk failure

– Minimum performance hit during failure


CLARiiON RAID Types (Cont)

RAID-1/0: Striped Mirrors– Performance of stripes combined with split read operations

– Protection against single disk failure

– Minimum performance hit in failure mode

RAID-3: Striped Elements – Each data element striped across disks – parity kept on the last disk

in the RAID group

– Extremely fast read access from the disk

– Used for streaming media

– Parity protection against single disk failure

– Performance penalty during failure



RAID-5: Striping with Parity– Performance of striping

– Protection from single disk failure

– Parity distributed across member drives within the RAID Group

– Write performance penalty

– Performance impact if a disk fails in the RAID Group



RAID-6: Dual distributed parity – high fault tolerance– Protection from double drive failures

– Parity distributed across member drives using diagonal and row parity within the RAID Group

– Write performance penalty

– Configure for availability NOT performance

Hot spare– Takes the place of failed disk within a RAID Group

– Must have equal or greater capacity than the disk it replaces

– Can be located anywhere except on Vault disks

– When failing disk is replaced, the hot spare restores the data to the replacement disk and returns to the hot spare pool


Module 1 Summary

Key points covered in this module:

Models, components, and basic architecture of a CLARiiON disk array

Operation of CLARiiON components

Supported CLARiiON RAID types


Module 2: CLARiiON Features


Identify CLARiiON high availability design

Identify CLARiiON data integrity features

Identify CLARiiON data availability features

Identify CLARiiON performance features

Identify CLARiiON power saving features


Flexible, High Availability Design

Fully redundant architecture with a 64-bit operating system

Multi-protocol support

Continuous dual I/O paths with non-disruptive failover

Leader in data integrity– Mirrored write cache

– Destage write cache to DISK upon power failure

– SNiiFF verify

– Background verify – per RAID Group

No single point of failure, modular architecture

Fibre Channel, SATA II, EFD, and ATA disk drives

Flexibility– Individual disk– RAID levels 0, 1, 1/0, 3, 5, 6– Mix drive types– Mix RAID levels– Thin LUN provisioning


Data Integrity

Mirrored write cache

RAID protection

Vault

CLARiiON disk sector format


Mirrored Write Caching

Write cache size is user configurable and is allocated in pages

How much write cache is used by each SP is dynamically adjusted based on workload

All write requests to a given SP are copied to the other SP

Data integrity ensured through hardware failure events

CMI used to communicate between SPs

Persistent cache support

SP-ASP-A SP-BSP-B

Storage SystemStorage System

Base Software

SP-AWrite Cache

SP-AWrite Cache

SP-BWrite Cache

Mirror

SP-BWrite Cache

Mirror

Read CacheRead Cache

Base Software

SP-AWrite Cache

Mirror

SP-AWrite Cache

Mirror

SP-BWrite Cache

SP-BWrite Cache

Read CacheRead Cache

CMI


Data Integrity – Mirrored Write Cache Example

SPA

WriteCache

Disk Drives

SPB

WriteCache

Disk Drives

0101101

WRITE

0101101

0101101

ACK

Peer Bus(CMI)

PCI Express


Data Integrity – The Vault

Reserved area found on specific protected disks– Drives 0-4 in the first enclosure on CX series

– Drives 0-9 in the first enclosure on FC series

Hidden from hosts (and administration utilities)

RAID protected

Holds write cache content in the event of a failure


Data Integrity – Persistent Cache CX4 Series

Write cache data is maintained under these scenarios:– Non-disruptive upgrades

– Single Storage Processor (SP) restart

– Single Storage Processor (SP) removed

– SP or I/O module replacement or repair

– Standby Power Supply (SPS) single SP hard fault or transient hardware failure

– Power Supply failure


Data Integrity – Vault Operation: Power Failure (CX, CX3, CX4)

0100101010 11010010010010100100100110100100110010010100110101001101010011010101101001001110110100101010110101100101 11010010010010100100100110100100110010010100110101001101010011010101101001001110110100101010110101100101 11010010010010100100100110100100110010010100110101001101010011010101101001001110110100101010110101100101

Write Cache

Back-endFibre THE VAULT

• SP detects failure of required hardware

• SP disables cache and copies cache content into the vault

• SP detects failure of required hardware


CACHEDISABLED

CACHEDUMPED

ARRAYSHUTDOWN

POWERFAILURE


Data Integrity – Vault Operation: Hardware Failure (CX, CX3, CX4)

0100101010 11010010010010100100100110100100110010010100110101001101010011010101101001001110110100101010110101100101 11010010010010100100100110100100110010010100110101001101010011010101101001001110110100101010110101100101 11010010010010100100100110100100110010010100110101001101010011010101101001001110110100101010110101100101

Write Cache

Back-endFibre THE VAULT

• SP detects failure of required HW


• SP detects failure of required HW


CACHEDISABLED

CACHEDUMPED

SYSTEMCONTINUES

FRUFAILURE


Data Integrity – RAID Protection

CLARiiON offers a choice of redundant RAID levels– 1, 1/0, 3, 5, and 6

Data protected by parity or mirroring

Other RAID Group types are non-redundant– RAID 0, single disk, hot spare


Data Integrity – Sector Format

Disks formatted with 520 bytes per sector– Only 512 bytes seen by hosts

Extra 8 bytes include a 2-byte longitudinal redundancy checksum (LRC)

512 bytes – user data

timestampshedstamp

writestampchecksum

8 bytes – Patented high availability extensions

data


Two Levels of Verify

Sniff Verify– Low priority check of an entire storage system

– Very low impact on performance

Background Verify (BV)– High priority check of a LUN or a RAID Group

– May be initiated automatically by system (non-vol verify)

– May be initiated manually by operator

– Once started, it runs to completion and cannot be interrupted


Data Availability

Hardware redundancy

RAID protection

Global hot spare disks

Error reporting capability


Data Availability – Hardware Redundancy

No single point of failure

Dual or n+1 components– Dual-ported disks

– Dual LCCs (Link Control Cards)

– Dual SPSs (Standby Power Supplies)

– Dual PSUs (Power Supply Units)

– Dual SPs (Storage Processors)

– n+1 fans in fan modules

– Dual CMI channels on CX, CX3, and CX4 Series


Data Availability – RAID

RAID Group can survive loss of a disk– RAID 1, 1/0, 3, and 5

– RAID 6 can survive two disk failures

RAID 1/0 may survive loss of multiple disks– Mirrored data (cannot survive loss of mirrored pairs)

Data may be reconstructed from remaining disks– Built onto new disk/hot spare if one exists


Data Availability – Global Hot Spare Disks

May take the place of any failed disk

Must be as large as largest disk in array if single HS

Sizes may be mixed in the array

May not be a vault disk

Proactive hot sparing

Hot spare operation– Disk drive in protected RAID Group fails– Data rebuilt onto hot spare (if available)– Failed drive replaced– Once hot spare rebuild complete, data copied to replaced disk– Hot spare returns to “ready” state


Data Availability – Error Reporting

Event Monitor has several notification modes

Integrated with Navisphere Manager

CLARalert/onALERT

Allows for proactive repair of problems

Alerts (Needs Attention)


CLARiiON Array Performance Features

Cache

Back-end Fibre Channel loops

Dual Storage Processors (SPs)


Array Performance – Cache Benefits

Burst smoothing – absorbs bursts of writes into memory, avoids disks becoming a bottleneck

Locality – merge several (RAID 5) writes to the same disk area (stripe) into a single operation

Write caching is optimized for burst smoothing

Read caching is optimized for immediacy


Array Performance – Cache Configuration

Array level– Administrator enables/disables write cache

– Allocates amounts of read, write cache

SP level– Administrator enables/disables read cache

LUN level– Administrator enables/disables read, write cache


Array Performance – Cache Organization

Pages – 2 KB, 4 KB, 8 KB, 16 KB– Smallest portion of memory allocated in cache

– Page dedicated to one I/O

– Global – read and write cache on both SPs

– Includes the additional 8 bytes per sector

– Best practice – match the filesystem I/O size


Array Performance – Flushing Write Cache

To maintain free space in write cache, pages are flushed from write cache to the drives

Three levels of flushing:– Idle flushing

– Watermark processing

– Forced flushing

For maximum performance:– Provide a “cushion” of unused cache for I/O bursts

– Minimize/avoid forced flushes


Array Performance – Read Cache

Read cache predicts the next data to be requested, based on the currently requested data– Fetches data in advance: prefetch

Two types of prefetching– Constant: prefetches a fixed amount of data

– Variable: amount of data prefetched is a multiple of the size of the host request

A Least Recently Used (LRU) algorithm determines which data is discarded when read cache is full


Array Performance – Back-end Fibre Channel

Number of loops depends on the model

Up to eight loops on higher-end models– Single loop on lower-end models

2 Gb/s or 4 Gb/s speeds

Accessible by both SPs

Simultaneously active


Array Performance – Dual SPs

Front-end FC connections at 1, 2, 4, or 8 Gb/s rates

Front-end iSCSI connections at 10,100, 1000 Mb/s or 10 Gb/s

Uses SFPs for front and back-end connections– SFPs are built into the back-end cable

Auto sensing

Simultaneously active

LUNs may be balanced between SPs– Auto

– Assign to default owner


CLARiiON Power Saving Features

Storage system power savings

Storage pool power savings

Drive spin-down


CLARiiON Power Saving


CLARiiON Power Saving – Drive Spin Down

Disk drives can transition to a low power state when idle– In FLARE R29, the spindle motor spins down (0 RPM)

– The electronics remain at full power

– Power saving of 55% – 60% when drives are spun down

Drives in slots 0 – 4 (vault drives) are not eligible for spin down

Drive spin-down functionality is only available on the CX4 arrays

This feature is not available for layered features– MetaLUN, thin LUNs, WIL, RLP, CPL, etc.

– Mutually exclusive on a RAID Group basis

Only drives qualified for the low power state of spin down will participate in power savings


CLARiiON Power Saving – RAID Groups


CLARiiON Power Saving – Thin Pools & EFDs

Thin Pools use storage resources better by providing on-demand storage– Allows for storage to be used only when needed

– Reduces power cost by optimizing storage system resources

Enterprise Flash Drives use less power compared to standard drives– No moving parts means less power needed to run


Module 2 Summary


CLARiiON high availability design

CLARiiON data integrity features

CLARiiON data availability features

CLARiiON performance features

Identify CLARiiON power saving features


Module 3: CLARiiON Management Options


Identify CLARiiON management software suite

Identify CLARiiON management options

Identify CLARiiON storage provisioning objects


EMC Navisphere Management Software

Centralized management for CLARiiON storage throughout the enterprise

Allows user to quickly adapt to business changes

Key features– Multiple server support

– Management framework integration

Navisphere software suite– Navisphere Manager

– Navisphere Secure CLI


CLARiiON Management Options

Navisphere Secure CLI (Command Line Interface)– naviseccli commands can be entered from the command line and

can perform all management functions

Navisphere GUI (Graphical User Interface)– Navisphere Manager is the graphical interface for all management

functions to the CLARiiON array

Navisphere Service Task Bar– Hardware and software registration and configuration of the array

Navisphere Wizard– Easy to use Wizard for management of the CLARiiON


CLARiiON Secure CLI

Secure CLI syntax– naviseccli –h <SP address> <commands>

Entered from the command line Performs all management functions


Navisphere Manager Discover

– Discovers all managed CLARiiON systems

Monitor– Shows status of storage systems– Provides centralized alerting

Apply and provision– Configures volumes and assigns

storage to hosts– Configures snapshots and

remote mirrors– Sets system parameters

Report– Provides extensive performance

statistics via Navisphere Analyzer


Navisphere Service Taskbar (NST)


Navisphere Wizards


Storage Configuration and Provisioning

Understanding application and server requirements and planning configuration is critical

Storage pools are a collection of physical disks– RAID protection level is assigned to all disks within the pool

– Thin Pools

– RAID Groups

LUNs are created from space within a storage pool

Storage groups are collections of LUNs that a host or group of hosts can access


Which RAID Level is Right for You? RAID 0 – data striping

– No parity protection, least-expensive storage– Applications using read-only data that require quick access, such as data

downloading

RAID 1 – mirroring between two disks– Excellent availability, but expensive storage– Transaction logging or record keeping applications

RAID 1/0 – data striping with mirroring– Excellent availability, but expensive storage– Provides the best balance of performance and availability

RAID 3 – data striping with dedicated parity disk

RAID 5 – data striping/parity spread across all drives– Very good availability and inexpensive storage

RAID 6 – dual distributed parity across drives– Suitable for larger RAID Groups where data availability is a priority

Support mixed types of RAID in the same chassis


Creating Storage Pools RAID protection levels are set when the storage pool is

created

Physical disks part of one storage pool only

– Drive types cannot be mixed in the RAID Group

May include disks from any enclosure

RAID types may be mixed in an array

Some storage pools can be expanded

Users do not access storage pools directly5 disk RAID 5 RAID Group


Storage Pools – Thin

Thin Pools– Collection of disks that are dedicated for use by thin LUNs

– Can contain a few disks or hundreds of disks

– Consist of any supported Fibre Channel or SATA disk drive

– RAID 5 and RAID 6 only

– Smallest pool size is three drives for RAID 5 and four drives for RAID 6

– Monitored using “threshold alerts”


Storage Pools – RAID Groups

RAID Groups– Limited to 16 disks

– All capacity is allocated

– Consist of any supported Fibre Channel, SATA, or EFD drives

– All existing RAID types are supported

– Defragmentation is allowed except for RAID 6 Groups


Creating a Storage Pool – General


Creating a LUN (Binding)

Creating a LUN (referred to as binding) is the process of building LUNs onto storage pools

Limited number of LUNs per storage pool

Limited number of LUNs per CLARiiON array

LUNs are assigned to one SP at a time– The SP owns the LUN

– The SP manages the RAID protection of the LUN

– The SP manages access to the LUN

LUNs occupy a part of each disk in the storage pool– Same sectors on each disk


Create LUN Operations – Setting Parameters

Fixed LUN parameters– Disk numbers, RAID type, LUN #, element size

– Cannot be changed without unbinding and rebinding

Variable parameters– Cache enable, rebuild time, verify time, auto assignment

– Can change without unbinding

– Thin LUNs have cache property settings

Bind operation– Fastbind is the almost instantaneous bind achieved on a factory

system or implemented in the latest code


Storage Groups

Storage Groups are a feature of Access Logix and used to implement LUN masking

Storage Groups define the LUNs each host can access – A Storage Group contains a subset of LUNs grouped for access by

one or more hosts and inaccessible to other hosts Without Storage Groups, all hosts can access all LUNs

– Access Logix controls which hosts have access to a Storage Group

– Hosts access the array and provide information through the Initiator Registration Records process

Storage Group planning is required


Module 3 Summary


CLARiiON management software suite

CLARiiON management options

CLARiiON storage provisioning objects


Course Summary

Key points covered in this course:

Models, components, and basic architecture of a CLARiiON

Supported CLARiiON RAID types

CLARiiON data integrity features

CLARiiON data availability features

CLARiiON management options

CLARiiON storage provisioning objects

clariion foundations r29 - ppt

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