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FAST VP for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Theory and Best Practices for Planning and Performance

Technical Notes
P/N 300-012-014 REV A06 May 2013

This technical note contains information on these topics:

Executive summary ................................................................................... 2 Introduction ................................................................................................ 2 Fully Automated Storage Tiering ............................................................ 3 FAST VP ...................................................................................................... 7 FAST VP architecture .............................................................................. 14 FAST VP configuration ........................................................................... 16 FAST VP performance data collection .................................................. 23 FAST VP performance data analysis ..................................................... 28 FAST VP data movement ........................................................................ 34 Advanced FAST VP features .................................................................. 41 FAST VP interoperability ........................................................................ 50 Best practice considerations and recommendations ........................... 55 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 86 Appendix A: FAST VP state ................................................................... 87 Appendix B: Feature support ................................................................. 89 Appendix C: Best practices quick reference ......................................... 91 References ................................................................................................. 94

Executive summary
Information infrastructures must continuously adapt to changing business requirements. EMC Symmetrix Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP ) automates tiered storage strategies, in Virtual Provisioning environments, by easily moving workloads between Symmetrix tiers as performance characteristics change over time. FAST VP performs data movements, improving performance, and reducing costs, all while maintaining vital service levels.

Introduction
EMC Symmetrix VMAX FAST VP automates the identification of active or inactive application data for the purposes of reallocating that data across different performance/capacity tiers within an array. FAST VP proactively monitors workloads at both the LUN and sub-LUN level to identify busy data that would benefit from being moved to higherperforming drives. FAST VP also identifies less-busy data that could be moved to higher-capacity drives, without affecting existing performance. This promotion/demotion activity is based on policies that associate a storage group to multiple drive technologies, or RAID protection schemes, by way of virtual pools, as well as the performance requirements of the application contained within the storage group. Data movement executed during this activity is performed non-disruptively, without affecting business continuity and data availability.

Audience
This technical notes document is intended for anyone who needs to understand FAST VP theory, best practices, and associated recommendations to achieve the best performance for FAST VP configurations. This document specifically targets EMC customers, sales, and field technical staff who are either running FAST VP or are considering FAST VP for future implementation.

Implementing FAST VP for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Notes

Fully Automated Storage Tiering


Significant portions of this document assume a base knowledge regarding the implementation and management of FAST VP. For information regarding the implementation and management of FAST VP in Virtual Provisioning environments, refer to the Implementing Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Family Arrays Technical Note, available at EMC Online Support.

Fully Automated Storage Tiering


Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) automates the identification of active and inactive data for the purposes of relocating application data across different performance/capacity tiers within an array. The primary benefits of FAST include: Improving application performance at the same cost, or providing the same application performance at lower cost. Cost is defined as: acquisition (both hardware and software), space/energy, and management expense. Elimination of manually tiering applications when workload characteristics change over time. Automating the process of identifying data that can benefit from Enterprise Flash Drives (EFDs) or that can be kept on highercapacity, less-expensive SATA drives without impacting performance. Optimizing and prioritizing business applications, allowing customers to dynamically allocate storage resources within a single array configuration. Delivering greater flexibility in meeting different price/performance ratios throughout the lifecycle of the stored information.

The need for FAST


Due to advances in drive technology, and the need for storage consolidation, the number of drive types supported by Symmetrix arrays has grown significantly. These drives span a range of storage-service specializations and cost characteristics that differ greatly. Several differences exist between the drive types supported by the

Implementing FAST VP for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Notes

Fully Automated Storage Tiering

Symmetrix VMAX Family arrays. The primary differences are: Response time Cost per unit of storage capacity Cost per unit of storage request processing

At one extreme lie Enterprise Flash Drives (EFDs), which have a very low response time and the ability to handle very high levels of requests, but with a high cost per unit of storage capacity. At the other extreme are rotating drives with a speed of 7,200 RPM or lower, such as SATA or near-line SAS drives, which have a low cost per unit of storage capacity, but high response times and high cost per unit of storage request processing. Between these two extremes lie rotating drives with speeds between 10,000 and 15,000 RPM, such as Fibre Channel and SAS drives. Based on the nature of the differences that exist between these four drive types, the following observations can be made regarding the most suitable workload type for each drive: EFDs are more suited for workloads that have a high back-end random-read storage request density. Such workloads take advantage of both the low service time provided by the drive, and the low cost per unit of storage request processing, without requiring a lot of storage capacity. SATA and near-line SAS drives are suited towards workloads that have a low back-end storage request density. FC and SAS drives are the best drive type for workloads with a backend storage request density that is neither consistently high nor low.

This disparity in suitable workloads presents both an opportunity and a challenge for storage administrators. To the degree that it can be arranged for storage workloads to be served by the best-suited drive technology, the opportunity exists to improve application performance, reduce hardware acquisition expenses, and

Implementing FAST VP for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Notes

Fully Automated Storage Tiering


reduce operating expenses (including energy costs and space consumption). The challenge, however, lies in how to realize these benefits without introducing additional administrative overhead and complexity. FAST automates the identification of data that should reside on a given drive technology, and to automatically, and non-disruptively, move data between tiers to optimize storage resource usage accordingly. This also needs to be done while taking into account optional constraints on tier capacity usage that may be imposed on specific application storage groups.

FAST DP and FAST VP


EMC Symmetrix VMAX FAST DP and FAST VP automate the identification of data volumes for the purposes of relocating application data across different performance/capacity tiers within an array, or to an external array using Federated Tiered Storage (FTS).
Note: Federated Tiered Storage is only available for Open Systems environments. Also, FTS support applies only to FAST VP. For more information on Federated Tiered Storage, refer to the Design and Implementation Best Practices for EMC Symmetrix Federated Tiered Storage (FTS) Technical Note available at http://support.emc.com.

FAST DP operates on disk group provisioning Symmetrix volumes. Data movements executed between tiers are performed at the full-LUN level. FAST VP operates on Virtual Provisioning thin devices. As a result, data movements can be performed at the sub-LUN level. A single thin device may have extents allocated across multiple thin pools within an array or on an external array using FTS.
Note: For more information on Virtual Provisioning, refer to the Best Practices for Fast, Simple Capacity Allocation with EMC Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning Technical Note available at http://support.emc.com.

Because FAST DP and FAST VP support different device types (diskgroup provisioning and Virtual Provisioning, respectively), they both
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Fully Automated Storage Tiering

can operate simultaneously within a single array. Aside from some shared configuration parameters, the management and operation of each can be considered separately. The main focus of this document is to discuss the implementation and management of FAST VP in Virtual Provisioning environments.
Note: For more information on FAST, refer to the Implementing Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Note available at http://support.emc.com.

FAST managed objects


There are three main elements related to the use of both FAST and FAST VP on Symmetrix VMAX arrays. These are: Storage tier: A shared resource with common drive technologies and RAID protection. FAST policy: A set of tier usage rules that provide guidelines for data placement and movement across Symmetrix tiers to achieve service levels for one or more storage groups. Storage group: A logical grouping of devices for common management.

Figure 1 shows the FAST managed objects.

Figure 1. FAST managed objects

Implementing FAST VP for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Notes

FAST VP
Each of the three managed objects can be created and managed by using either Unisphere for VMAX, Symmetrix Management Console, or the Solutions Enabler Command Line Interface (SYMCLI).

FAST VP
FAST VP automates the identification of thin device extents for the purposes of reallocating application data across different performance tiers within a single array, or to an external array. FAST VP proactively monitors workloads at the LUN level and sub-LUN level in order to identify busy data that would benefit from being moved to higherperforming drives. FAST VP also identifies less-busy data that could be moved to higher-capacity drives, without impacting performance. For FAST VP to operate, the three storage elements that need to be configured are: Storage tiers, FAST policies, and storage groups.

Storage tiers
A Symmetrix storage tier is a specified set of resources of the same drive technology type (EFD, FC, or SATA) and location (internal or external), combined with a given RAID protection type (RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, or unprotected), and the same emulation (FBA or CKD).
Note: The Unprotected RAID type may only be applied to an external tier, residing on an FTS-connected storage array.

There are two types of storage tiers: Disk-group provisioning (DP) and Virtual Provisioning (VP). Disk-group provisioning tiers The storage-tier type used by FAST is called a DP tier. It is defined by combining one or more physical disk groups of the same technology type and a RAID protection type.
Note: A FAST DP tier may not be external.

Virtual Provisioning tiers For FAST VP, the storage tier is called a VP tier. When defined, VP tiers
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FAST VP

contain between one and four thin storage pools. Each thin pool in a single tier must contain data devices of the same RAID protection type (with the same number of data members), and be configured on the same drive technology. VP tier characteristics For use with FAST VP, a thin storage pool must contain data devices configured as the same RAID protection on a single-drive technology, and of the same emulation. In the case of FC, SAS, and SATA drives, the rotational speed of the drives must also match. However, two or more thin pools containing data devices configured on rotating drives of different speeds, but the same emulation, may be combined in a single VP tier.
Note: For the purposes of FAST VP, all drives with a rotational speed between 10,000 and 15,000 RPM are categorized as FC. As such, they can be combined into a single tier. Similarly, all drives with a rotational speed of 7,200 RPM, or lower, are categorized as SATA.

A thin pool may only belong to one VP tier. Overlapping of pools between tiers is not allowed. All VP tiers are considered to be static, meaning that thin pools must be explicitly added to the tier. However, if data devices are added to an existing pool, the additional capacity is automatically made available within the VP tier. A Symmetrix VMAX storage array supports up to 256 Symmetrix tiers. Each Symmetrix tier name may contain up to 32 alphanumeric characters, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Tier names are not case sensitive.

FAST policies
A FAST policy groups between one and four tiers (up to three internal tiers and one external tier). The policy assigns an upper-usage limit for

Implementing FAST VP for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Notes

FAST VP
each storage tier, which specifies the maximum amount of capacity of a storage group associated with the policy that can reside on that particular tier. FAST policies may include storage tiers of only one type, disk group provisioning (DP) or Virtual Provisioning (VP). Similarly, FAST policies may only include storage tiers of a single emulation type, FBA or CKD. The first tier added to a policy determines the type of tiers that can subsequently be added. For policies that include VP tiers, the upper capacity usage limit for each storage tier is specified as a percentage of the configured, logical capacity of the associated storage group. The usage limit for each tier must be between 1 percent and 100 percent. When combined, the upper-usage limit for all thin storage tiers in the policy must total at least 100 percent, but may be greater than 100 percent. Creating a policy with a total upper-usage limit greater than 100 percent allows flexibility with the configuration of a storage group. Data may be moved between tiers without necessarily having to move a corresponding amount of other data within the same storage group. Multiple FAST policies may reuse the same tier, allowing different usage limits to be applied to different storage groups for the same tier. A Symmetrix VMAX storage array supports up to 256 FAST policies. Each FAST policy name may be up to 32 alphanumeric characters, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Policy names are not case sensitive.
Note: FAST VP only performs promotion/demotion activity between tiers defined on differing drive technologies. RAID protection and drive rotational speed are not considered. As a result, a FAST VP policy should not be created where two or more tiers use the same drive type. For example, a FAST VP policy should not contain two or more FC tiers.

Storage groups
A storage group is a logical collection of Symmetrix devices that are to be managed together. Storage group definitions are shared between FAST and Auto-provisioning Groups. However, a Symmetrix device may only
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FAST VP

belong to one storage group that is under FAST control. Storage groups are associated with a FAST policy, thereby defining the VP tiers to which data in the storage group can be allocated on. FAST VP only supports the movement of certain device types. As a result of this, a storage group created for the purposes of FAST VP may not contain the following device types: Diskless IBM i (520-byte block emulation), ICOS, ICL Metadevice members SAVE (SAVDEV) DATA (TDAT) DRV SFS Vault
Note: Support for IBM i D910 emulation (512-byte block) is provided by means of FBA emulation pools, tiers, and FAST VP policies.

A Symmetrix VMAX storage array supports up to 8,192 storage groups. Storage groups may contain up to 4,096 devices. Each storage group name may be up to 64 alphanumeric characters, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Storage group names are not case sensitive.

FAST policy association


A policy associates a storage group with up to four tiers, and defines the maximum percentage of logical storage capacity in the storage group that can exist in a particular tier. The same FAST policy may be applied to multiple storage groups. However, a storage group may only be associated with one policy. FAST VP supports the association of up to 1,000 storage groups with FAST policies containing thin storage tiers.

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FAST VP
It is possible to have both disk-group-provisioning devices and thin devices in the same storage group. However, the storage group can only be associated with one policy. If it is required that both device types be managed by FAST and FAST VP, then separate storage groups need to be created. These storage groups then need to be associated with policies of the appropriate type. A storage group associated with a FAST policy may only contain thin devices configured for a single emulation (FBA or CKD). No mixing is allowed. Similarly, the emulation of the thin devices in the storage group must match the emulation of the FAST policy to which the group is being associated.
Note: When associating a storage group to a policy containing VP tiers, the bound thin devices in the group must be bound to at least one of the thin pools contained within the policys tiers. A storage group associated with a FAST VP policy may contain unbound devices. However, those devices may then only be bound to a thin pool contained within the tiers in the policy.

Priority When a storage group is associated with a FAST policy, a priority value must be assigned to the storage group. This priority value can be between 1 and 3, with 1 being the highest priority. The default is 2. When multiple storage groups are associated with FAST VP policies, the priority value is used when the data contained in the storage groups is competing for the same resources in one of the associated tiers. Storage groups with a higher priority are given preference when deciding which data needs to be moved to another tier. Storage group considerations The type of policy, DP or VP, associated with a storage group determines which devices are managed under that policy. For example, if a storage group is associated with a policy containing VP tiers, then only the thin devices in that group are managed by that policy.

FAST policy configuration


The FAST VP environment can contain multiple thin storage tiers, FAST
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FAST VP

policies, and storage groups. Figure 2 shows three storage groups. Each storage group is associated with a policy. These policies associate the storage groups with up to three storage tiers that are defined in the array.

Figure 2. FAST policy association Based on the System_Optimization policy, FAST VP can place up to 100 percent of the configured, logical capacity of the VP_ProdApp1 storage

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FAST VP
group in any of the three associated tiers: RAID 5 (3+1) configured on EFD, RAID 1 on FC, or RAID 6 (6+2) on SATA. Such a policy gives the greatest flexibility, as at any given time, all the data can be located on the most appropriate tier.
Note: The default for any newly created policy is to allow 100 percent of the storage groups capacity to be placed on any of the included tiers.

In the case of the Custom policy, 10 percent of the configured capacity of the VP_ProdApp2 storage group can be placed in the EFD tier, 50 percent on the FC tier, and up to 100 percent on both the SATA tier and external FTS tier. The No_EFD policy will not move any data to EFD, but does allow 100 percent of the VP_Development storage groups capacity to be on the SATA or FTS tier, and up to 50 percent on the FC tier. If the total for all the tiers combined equals 100 percent and if the thin devices in the storage group are fully allocated, then each tier is utilized as set in the policy. For example, if a policy was set up as 10 percent EFD, 20 percent FC, and 70 percent SATA, then 10 percent of the storage groups capacity will always be located on the EFD tier, and so on for the remaining tiers.

FAST policy compliance


A storage group is considered to be compliant with its associated FAST policy when all data in the storage group is allocated within the bounds of the upper-usage limits for each tier contained with the policy. If all of the data in the storage group is allocated within the tiers contained within the FAST policy, but the allocated capacity in one tier exceeds the upper-usage limit for that tier, then the storage group is considered to be noncompliant. In such a case, the FAST controller attempts to correct this noncompliance by relocating data from the VP tier where the usage limit is exceeded to one, or both, of the other tiers contained in the policy. The desired result is to bring the storage group into compliance. A special case of noncompliance is when some of the data in the storage group is allocated in thin pools not contained within any of the VP tiers
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FAST VP architecture

within the FAST policy. In this case, the storage group is considered to be noncompliant, and the data considered to be out-of-policy. Again, the FAST controller attempts to correct this situation by relocating the outof-policy data to one, two, or all three of the tiers contained in the policy.

FAST VP architecture
There are two components of FAST VP: Symmetrix Enginuity and the FAST controller. Symmetrix Enginuity is the storage operating environment that controls components within the array. The FAST controller is a service that runs on the service processor.

Figure 3. FAST VP components

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FAST VP architecture
When FAST VP is active, both components participate in the execution of two algorithms (the intelligent-tiering algorithm and the allocationcompliance algorithm) to determine appropriate data placement. The intelligent-tiering algorithm uses performance data collected by Enginuity, as well as supporting calculations performed by the FAST controller, to issue data-movement requests to the VLUN VP datamovement engine. The allocation-compliance algorithm enforces the upper limits of storage capacity that can be used in each tier by a given storage group by also issuing data-movement requests to the VLUN VP data-movement engine. Performance time windows can be defined to specify when the FAST VP controller should collect performance data. Analysis is then performed to determine the appropriate tier for devices. By default, performance data collection occurs 24 hours a day. Data-movement windows are used to determine when to execute the data movements necessary to move data between tiers. Data movements performed by Enginuity are achieved by moving allocated extents between tiers. The size of data movement can be as small as 12 tracks, representing a single allocated thin device extent. More typically, movements are a unit known as an extent group (10 thin device extents), which is 120 tracks in size.
Note: FAST VP data movement on page 34 provides more information on the actual data movement.

FAST VP has two modes of operation, Automatic or Off. When operating in the Automatic mode, data analysis and data movements occur continuously during the defined data movement windows. In the Off mode, performance statistics continue to be collected, but no data analysis or data movements take place.

FAST VP state
There are five reported states for FAST VP. These are: Enabled: All FAST VP functions are performed (performance data
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FAST VP configuration

collection, performance data analysis, data-movement request generation, and data-movement execution). Disabled: Only performance data collection is performed. Data analysis is not performed and data movements are not executed. Disabling: The FAST controller is transitioning from Enabled to Disabled. DisabledwithError: The FAST controller has stopped operation due to an internal error. Statistics collection and FAST VP performance data movements continue to be performed, however, FAST VP compliance movements are not performed. Degraded: FAST VP can perform some or all of its functions. However, it cannot perform each function fully.
Note: Appendix A: FAST VP state on page 87 provides more information on each of the FAST controller states.

FAST VP configuration
FAST VP has multiple configuration parameters that control its behavior. These include time windows that can control when performance data is collected, included in analysis, and when data movements take place. Other settings determine the relevance of historical performance data when analyzed, what percentage of space to reserve in each pool for activities not associated with FAST VP, and an aggressiveness factor in generating and executing data-movement requests.

FAST VP time windows


FAST VP utilizes time windows to define certain behaviors regarding performance data collection and data movement. There are two possible window types: Performance time window Data movement time window

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FAST VP configuration
The performance time windows are used to specify when performance data should be collected by Enginuity. The data movement time windows define when to perform the data relocations necessary to move data between tiers. Separate data movement windows can be defined for full LUN movement, performed by FAST and Optimizer, and sub-LUN data movement, performed by FAST VP. Both performance time windows and data movement windows may be defined as inclusion or exclusion windows. An inclusion time window indicates that the action should be performed during the defined time window. An exclusion time window indicates that the action should not be performed during the defined time window. There are two methods for defining time windows, legacy and enhanced. The legacy method uses the Symmetrix Optimizer interface for creating and managing time windows. The enhanced method uses a time window management interface. On Symmetrix VMAX arrays, both the legacy and enhanced methods are supported. However, only one method can be used at a time. The legacy method is the default method, but legacy time windows may be converted to enhanced time windows.
Note: The conversion from legacy to enhanced is a one-way conversion. There is no method for converting from enhanced to legacy.

Legacy time window characteristics Using the legacy method, both inclusive and exclusive time windows may be defined as periodic or non-periodic. Periodic windows allow a recurrence pattern to be specified as weekly or weekly-by-day. Nonperiodic windows are defined to occur only once. Multiple time windows, of both performance and data movement, may be defined. If multiple legacy time windows of the same type have time ranges that overlap one another, the most recently added time window supersedes the others, including the system-default time windows. All defined time windows apply to all devices configured within the Symmetrix array.
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FAST VP configuration

A Symmetrix VMAX storage array supports up to 128 defined legacy time windows. Each time window name may be up to 32 alphanumeric characters, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Enhanced time window characteristics Using the enhanced method, inclusive windows are defined by specifying the days of the week and the times in each day during which performance metrics are collected or data is moved. Each time window is defined with a start and end time, in 30-minute increments, and the days of the week to apply the window. Exclusive windows are defined as a specific time period during which performance metrics collection or data movement are prevented. Each exclusive window contains a start date and time, as well as an end date and time, and may cover several days. The start and end time must be specified in 30-minute increments. Multiple inclusive and exclusive enhanced time windows can be defined. The exclusive time windows have the highest priority and override any overlapping inclusive time windows. Enhanced time windows have no associated time-window name. Performance time window The performance time windows are used to identify the business cycle for the Symmetrix array. They specify date and time ranges when performance samples should be collected, or not collected, for the purposes of FAST VP performance analysis. The intent of defining performance time windows is to indicate to FAST which activity periods should be considered for optimization. For example, weekends may be used for special utility operations that should be excluded from optimization. Excluding weekends from the performance time window means that the activity from the days prior to the weekend is the best predictor for operations immediately following the weekend. If the weekend workload is similar to the rest of the week,

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FAST VP configuration
and the performance sensitivity is the same, then using all days of the week may be appropriate. For legacy time windows, a default performance time window includes all performance data samples, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Note: For legacy time windows, in order to prevent FAST VP from collecting performance statistics on a continuous basis, the first user-defined window should be created to exclude data collection. Inclusive time windows can then be created on top of this exclusive time window.

For enhanced time windows, the default behavior is also to collect performance data, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When the first inclusive performance window is created, the default behavior is overridden, and performance metrics are only collected during the defined window. Data movement time window Data movement time windows are used to specify date and time ranges when data movements are allowed, or not allowed. FAST VP data movements run as low-priority tasks on the Symmetrix back end. They can introduce additional processing overhead on the back end, however, host I/O should not be impacted. Data-movement windows can be planned so they minimize any impact on the performance of other, more critical workloads. For legacy time windows, a default data movement time window prevents any data movement, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. For enhanced time windows, there is no default data-movement window. However, until an inclusive window is defined, the default behavior leads to not allowing any data movement to occur.

FAST VP settings
There are multiple settings that affect the behavior of FAST VP. These include: FAST VP Data Movement Mode
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FAST VP configuration

Workload Analysis Period Initial Analysis Period Pool Reserved Capacity (PRC) FAST VP Relocation Rate (FRR) VP Allocation by FAST Policy FAST VP Time to Compress FAST VP Compression Rate

The following sections describe each of these settings, their effect on the behavior of FAST VP, as well as possible values and the default-setting values. FAST VP Data Movement Mode FAST VP, when enabled, may operate in one of two modes , Automatic or Off. In Automatic mode, a data movement request can be generated to move data based on performance workload. Also, data-movement requests based on capacity utilization may be generated. These operations are performed during the periods allowed by the data-movement windows. In Off mode, no data-movement requests are generated. As a result, no data movements occur. However, performance metrics continue to be collected. The default mode is Off. Workload Analysis Period The Workload Analysis Period determines the degree to which FAST VP metrics are influenced by recent host activity, and also less-recent host activity, that takes place while the performance time window is considered open. The longer the time defined in the Workload Analysis Period, the greater the amount of weight assigned to less-recent host activity. The Workload Analysis Period can be configured to be between 2 hours and 4 weeks. The default is 1 week (7 days).

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FAST VP configuration
Note: For more information on the effect of the Workload Analysis Period, refer to FAST VP performance data collection on page 23.

Initial Analysis Period The Initial Analysis Period defines the minimum amount of time a thin device should be under FAST VP management before any performancerelated data movements should be applied. This period only accounts for time passed while the performance time window is open. This value should be set to allow sufficient data samples for FAST VP to establish a good characterization of the typical workload on that device. This value allows FAST VP to commence analysis and movement activities on the device, prior to the full Workload Analysis Period elapsing (if so desired). The Initial Analysis Period can be configured to be between 2 hours and 4 weeks, however, it cannot exceed the Workload Analysis Period. The default is 8 hours. Pool Reserved Capacity The Pool Reserved Capacity (PRC) reserves a percentage of each pool included in a VP tier for activities not associated with FAST VP. This ensures that FAST VP data movements do not fill a thin pool, and subsequently cause a new extent allocation to fail, as result of a host write. When the percentage of unallocated space in a thin pool is equal to the PRC, FAST VP no longer moves data into that pool. However, data movements may continue to occur out of the pool to other pools. When the percentage of unallocated space becomes greater than the PRC, FAST VP can begin performing data movements into that pool again. The PRC can be set both system-wide and for each individual pool. By default, the system-wide setting is applied to all thin pools that have been included in VP tier definitions. However, this can be overridden for each individual pool by using the pool-level setting. The system-wide PRC can be configured to be between 1 percent and 80 percent. The default system-wide PRC is 10 percent. The pool-level PRC can be configured to be between 1 percent and 80
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FAST VP configuration

percent, or set to NONE. If the PRC is set to NONE, then the systemwide setting is used. The default pool-level PRC is NONE. FAST VP Relocation Rate The FAST VP Relocation Rate (FRR) is a quality of service (QoS) setting for FAST VP and affects the aggressiveness of data-movement requests generated by FAST VP. This aggressiveness is measured as the amount of data that is requested to be moved at any given time, and the priority given to moving the data between pools. The FRR can be configured to be between 1 and 10, with 1 being the most aggressive. The default is 5.
Note: The rate at which data is moved between pools can also be controlled by the Symmetrix Quality of Service VLUN setting.

VP Allocation by FAST Policy The VP Allocation by FAST Policy feature allows new allocations to come from any of the thin pools included in the FAST VP policy that the thin device is associated with. With this feature enabled, FAST VP attempts to allocate new writes in the most appropriate tier first, based on available performance metrics. If no performance metrics are available, an attempt is made to allocate to the pool to which the device is bound. If the pool initially chosen to allocate the data is full, FAST VP then looks to other pools contained within the FAST VP policy and allocates from there. As long as there is space available in at least one pool within the policy, all new extent allocations will be successful. The allocation by policy feature is enabled at the Symmetrix array level and applies to all allocations for all devices managed by FAST VP. The feature is either Enabled or Disabled. The default setting is Disabled. When disabled, new allocations only come from the pool to which the thin device is bound.

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FAST VP performance data collection


Note: For more information on the decision making process of the VP allocation by FAST policy feature, refer to VP Allocation by FAST Policy on page 41.

FAST VP Time to Compress FAST VP Compression automates VP compression at the sub-LUN level for thin devices that are managed by FAST VP. The FAST VP Time to Compress parameter enables the use of FAST VP Compression and sets the inactivity threshold for when data becomes eligible for compression. The time to compress can be configured to be between 40 and 400 days, as well as never. The default is never, meaning FAST VP will not automatically compress any data. When set to a particular number of days, any data managed by FAST VP that has been inactive for at least that number of days will be considered eligible for compression.
Note: For a thin devices data to be compressed by FAST VP, the policy the device is associated with must also contain a pool that has been compression enabled. For more information on automated VP compression, refer to FAST VP Compression on page 45.

FAST VP Compression Rate The FAST Compression Rate is a quality of service (QoS) setting for the automate VP compression performed by FAST VP. It affects the aggressiveness with which data is compressed, after it has been inactive beyond the time to compress value. The compression rate can be configured to be between 1 and 10, with 1 being the most aggressive. The default is 5.

FAST VP performance data collection


As previously discussed, performance data for use by FAST VP is collected and maintained by Symmetrix Enginuity. This data is then
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FAST VP performance data collection

analyzed by the FAST controller and guidelines are generated for the placement of thin device data on the defined VP tiers within the array. The following sections discuss the collection and decaying of the thin device performance metrics.

Thin device performance collection


Performance metrics collected by FAST VP are measured at both the fullLUN and sub-LUN levels for all thin devices associated with a policy. At the sub-LUN level, each thin device is broken up into multiple regions, known as extent groups and extent group sets. Each thin device is made up of multiple extent group sets which, in turn, contain multiple extent groups. Figure 4 shows a graphic representation of a thin device divided into each of these separate regions.

Figure 4. Thin device performance collection regions Each extent group is made up of ten contiguous thin device extents. With each thin device extent being 12 tracks in size, an extent group represents 120 tracks of the device.

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Each extent group set is made up of 48 contiguous extent groups, representing 5,760 tracks of the device. The metrics collected at each sub-LUN level allow FAST VP to make separate data-movement requests for each extent group of the device, 120 tracks. Emulation considerations FAST VP supports both FBA and CKD emulations. The size of the extent groups and extent group sets are the same size for both emulations, in terms of tracks. However, the tracks sizes are different for each of the emulations, 64 KB for FBA and 57 KB for CKD. The following table shows the relative size of the thin device extent, extent group, and extent group set for both FBA and CKD. Element Thin device extent FAST VP extent group FAST VP extent group set Tracks 12 120 5,760 FBA 768 KB 7,680 KB/ 7.5 MB 360 MB CKD 684 KB 6,840 KB/ 6.7 MB 320.6 MB

Performance metrics
When collecting performance data at the LUN level and sub-LUN level for use by FAST VP, Enginuity only collects statistics related to Symmetrix back-end activity that is the result of host I/O. The metrics collected are: Read miss Write

Prefetch (sequential read) The read-miss metric accounts for each DA read operation that is performed. Reads to areas of a thin device that have not had space allocated in a thin pool are not counted. Also, read hits, which are serviced from cache, are not considered. Write operations are counted in terms of the number of distinct DA
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FAST VP performance data collection

operations that are performed. The metric accounts for when a write is destaged. Write hits, to cache, are not considered. Writes related to specific RAID protection schemes are not counted. In the case of RAID 1 protected devices, the write I/O is only counted for one of the mirrors. In the case of RAID 5 and RAID 6 protected devices, parity writes are not counted. Prefetch operations are accounted for in terms of the number of distinct DA operations performed to prefetch data spanning a FAST VP extent. This metric considers each DA read operation performed as a prefetch operation. Workload related to internal copy operations, such as drive rebuilds, clone operations, VLUN migrations, or even FAST VP data movements, is not included in the FAST VP metrics.
Note: Performance metrics are only collected during user-defined performance time windows.

I/O activity rates For each thin device, a short-term and long-term activity rate is maintained at the sub-LUN level. Both activity rates are calculated as weighted moving averages, modeling both recent and less recent workload on each region of the thin device. As new performance metrics are collected, the previously stored shortterm and long-term activity rates are decreased by the application of an exponential decay function. This lessens the influence of previously collected metrics. The newly collected metrics are then added to the decayed rates to calculate the new short-term and long-term activity rates. The rate of decay applied to the stored I/O rates depends upon the userdefined Workload Analysis Period, with the short-term rate decayed at a faster rate than then long-term rate.

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Note: The decay function is only applied to previously collected metrics while the user-defined performance time window is open.

As an example, when calculating the long-term activity rate with the default Workload Analysis Period of 168 hours, an I/O that has just been received is weighted twice as much as an I/O received 24 hours earlier. Thin device performance score Based on the performance statistics collected, a prioritized performance score is generated for the extent groups of each thin device. This score is calculated by combining two activity rates maintained in Enginuity (the short-term activity rate and the long-term activity rate) and multiplying that by a factor determined by the priority assigned to the storage group when it was associated with the FAST policy. Then FAST VP places those extent groups with the highest performance score onto the higher-performing tiers within the associated policy.

Storage group association


The sub-LUN performance metrics previously discussed are collected for all bound thin devices. Disassociating a storage group from a FAST policy, or removing devices from the storage group, causes Enginuity to stop including performance metrics for those devices in analysis for the purposes of FAST VP. If the thin device is associated again to a FAST policy, the Initial Analysis Period must pass for that device before data movements can be performed once again. Reassociation A storage group may be moved from one policy to another, without interruption to ongoing FAST VP management, by reassociating the storage group to a new policy. When a reassociation is performed, all performance metrics previously collected for the devices in the storage group are maintained within Enginuity. Also, all attributes of the association, for example priority, are maintained for the association to the new policy.

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FAST VP performance data analysis

Cache consumption To maintain the sub-LUN level metrics collected by Enginuity, the Symmetrix array allocates one cache slot for each thin device that is bound. When managing FBA metadevices, cache slots are allocated for both the metahead and for each of the metamembers.
Note: Each cache slot on a Symmetrix VMAX Series array is one track in size.

FAST VP performance data analysis


FAST VP uses two distinct algorithms, one performance oriented and one capacity allocation oriented, in order to determine the appropriate tier to which a device should belong. These algorithms are: Intelligent-tiering algorithm Allocation-compliance algorithm

The intelligent-tiering algorithm considers the performance metrics of all thin devices under FAST VP control and determines the appropriate tier for each extent group. The allocation-compliance algorithm is used to enforce the per-tier storage capacity usage limits. The following sections provide additional data on each of the algorithms.

Intelligent-tiering algorithm
The goal of the intelligent-tiering algorithm is to use the performance metrics collected at the sub-LUN level to determine which tier each extent group should reside in and to submit the needed data movements to the Virtual LUN (VLUN) VP data-movement engine. The determination of which extent groups need to be moved is performed by a task that runs within the Symmetrix array.

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FAST VP performance data analysis


Algorithm structure The intelligent-tiering algorithm is structured into two components: A main component that executes within Enginuity A secondary, supporting, component that executes within the FAST controller on the service processor

The main component assesses whether extent groups need to be moved to optimize the use of the FAST VP storage tiers. If so, the required datamovement requests are issued to the VLUN VP data-movement engine. When determining the appropriate tier for each extent group, the main component makes use of both the FAST VP metrics, previously discussed, and supporting calculations performed by the secondary component on the service processor. Tier ranking External tiers can be user-defined as a particular technology, which sets a performance expectation for that tier. Within a FAST VP policy, tiers are ranked based on the drive technology of the pools within the each tier (EFD, FC, or SATA) as well as the location of the tier (internal or external). For the six possible tier types that can be included in a FAST VP policy, the rankings are as follows: Internal EFD External EFD Internal FC External FC Internal SATA External SATA
Note: A FAST VP policy may only contain a maximum of four tiers, up to three internal and one external.

Promotion-and-demotion thresholds The supporting component of the intelligent-tiering algorithm, running on the service processor, does not make explicit data-movement requests. Rather, it produces a set of promotion-and-demotion thresholds that define recommendations for data placement across thin
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tiers. In a multi-tier configuration, depending on the number of tiers included in a policy, there are several thresholds that can be generated. These include: Internal EFD promotion threshold External EFD promotion threshold Internal FC promotion threshold External FC promotion threshold Internal SATA promotion threshold External EFD demotion threshold Internal FC demotion threshold External FC demotion threshold Internal SATA demotion threshold External SATA demotion threshold

However, as a FAST VP policy can only contain a maximum of four tiers, each extent group is only compared to up to four thresholds.
Note: There is no internal EFD demotion threshold, as data is never demoted to the internal EFD tier. Similarly, there is no external SATA promotion threshold, as data is never promoted to external SATA.

These thresholds allow Enginuity to determine and schedule specific data movements to optimize the allocation of thin devices under FAST VP control. The thresholds are calculated using the performance metrics collected and the capacity available in each tier. As a result, the thresholds are dynamic and may increase or decrease as the workload on the devices managed by FAST VP increases or decreases. When calculating the thresholds, the goal is to maximize the utilization of the highest performing tier in the FAST VP policy, while also proactively demoting inactive or lightly accessed data to the most costeffective tier.

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Intelligent-tiering data-movement requests The size of the data-movement requests generated by the intelligenttiering algorithm depends foremost on the amount of capacity that it deems not to be on the appropriate tier. It also depends on the size of the VMAX array. Each back-end disk adapter (DA) in the array is responsible for executing data movements. The more DAs there are available, the more data that can be moved at a single time, and, therefore, the larger the request size. The FAST VP relocation rate does not affect the size of the request generated, but it does influence the pace at which the requests are executed and data is moved. Intelligenttiering-algorithm execution Operating within Enginuity, the main component of the intelligenttiering algorithm runs continuously during open data-movement windows, when FAST is enabled and the FAST VP operating mode is Automatic. As a result, performance-related data movements can occur continuously during an open data-movement window. The supporting component, operating within the FAST controller on the service processor, runs every 10 minutes. It recalculates the promotionand-demotion thresholds based on changes in workload on the devices managed by FAST VP.

Allocation-compliance algorithm
The goal of the allocation-compliance algorithm is to detect and correct situations where the allocated capacity for a particular storage group within a thin storage tier exceeds the maximum capacity allowed by the associated FAST policy. Policy compliance A storage group is considered to be in compliance with its associated FAST policy when the configured capacity of the thin devices in the storage group is located on tiers defined in the policy, and when the usage of each tier is within the upper limits of the tier usage limits specified in the policy. Compliance violations may occur for multiple reasons, including:
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New extent allocations performed for thin devices managed by FAST VP Changes made to the upper-usage limits for a VP tier in a FAST policy Adding thin devices to a storage group that are themselves out of compliance Manual VLUN VP migrations of thin devices

Compliance data-movement requests When a compliance violation exists, the algorithm generates a datamovement request to return the allocations within the required limits. This request explicitly indicates which thin device extents should be moved, and the specific thin pools to which they should be moved. The size of the data-movement request depends on the amount of capacity that is currently out of compliance, but also on the user-defined relocation rate. The maximum size of request that can be generated by the allocation-compliance algorithm is 10 GB worth of data movements. When the relocation rate is set to anything other than 1, the FAST controller divides 10 GB by the relocation rate to determine the new maximum. For example, if the relocation rate is set to 2, the maximum request size is 5 GB; if it is 10, the maximum size is 1 GB.
Note: The allocation-compliance algorithm is not designed to be a tool for bulk data movement. To move large amounts of data from one pool to another, for a given set of devices, VLUN VP should be used. VLUN VP allows both a source pool and a target pool to be specified to zero in on the exact data to be migrated.

Intelligent-tiering-algorithm coordination The compliance algorithm attempts to minimize the amount of movements performed to correct compliance that may, in turn, generate movements performed by the intelligent-tiering algorithm.

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Compliance violations can be corrected by coordinating the movement requests with the analysis performed by the intelligent-tiering algorithm to determine the most appropriate extents to be moved to the most appropriate tier. Allocation-compliance-algorithm execution The compliance algorithm runs every 10 minutes during open datamovement windows, when FAST is enabled, and the FAST VP operating mode is Automatic.

FAST controller availability


Should the FAST controller, a resident on the service processor, become unavailable, FAST VP will continue operating, albeit in a degraded mode. During this time, each component of FAST VP is affected in a different way. In the case of the intelligent-tiering algorithm, the algorithm is structured into two components: The main component, which executes within Enginuity A supporting component that executes within the FAST controller (on the SP)

The FAST controller is responsible for performing supporting analysis, calculating the promotion-and-demotion thresholds. Each time the thresholds are recalculated and passed to Enginuity, an expiration timestamp is placed on the thresholds and is set at four hours from creation. At the same time, a more conservative, backup set of thresholds is created with an expiration timestamp of four days from creation. In the case where the FAST controller becomes unavailable and no new thresholds are generated, Enginuity will use the last good thresholds for four hours, and then switch to the backup thresholds for four days. After four days, the performance movements will stop. Performance data collection is unaffected by a controller outage, as it takes place completely within Enginuity. The short-term and long-term activity rates are also unaffected, as they are calculated and stored within Enginuity. No performance data information is lost. When the FAST controller is restarted, the most recent activity rates are read from Enginuity, and new thresholds are calculated based on the
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FAST VP data movement

most recent workload information. In the case of the allocation-compliance algorithm, however, when the FAST controller becomes unavailable, no compliance-based movement requests are generated. As such, the ability of FAST VP to correct allocation-compliance violations is impaired. However, performance movements may correct compliance as it moves data.

FAST VP data movement


There are two types of data movement that can occur under FAST VP: Intelligent-tiering-algorithm-related movements and allocationcompliance-algorithm-related movements. Both types of data movement occur only during user-defined data movement windows. Intelligent-tiering-algorithm-related movements are requested and executed by Enginuity. These data movements are governed by the workload on each extent group, but are executed only within the constraints of the associated FAST policy. This is to say that performance movements will not cause a storage group to become noncompliant with its FAST policy. Allocationcompliance-algorithm-related movements are generated by the FAST controller, and executed by Enginuity. These movements bring the capacity of the storage group back within the boundaries specified by the associated policy. Performance information from the intelligenttiering algorithm is used to determine the more appropriate sub-extents to move when restoring compliance.

Data-movement engine
Data movements executed by FAST VP are performed by the VLUN VP data-movement engine. They involve moving thin device extents between thin pools within the array.

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FAST VP data movement


Extents are moved by way of a move process only. Extents are not swapped between pools. The movement of extents, or extent groups, does not change the thin device binding information. The thin device remains bound to the pool it was originally bound to. New allocations for the thin device, as the result of host writes, continue to come from the bound pool, unless VP allocation by FAST VP is enabled. Movement considerations To complete a move, the following must hold true: The FAST VP operating mode must be Automatic. The VP data movement window must be open. The thin device affected must not be pinned. There must be sufficient unallocated space in the thin pools included in the destination tier to accommodate the data being moved. The destination tier must contain at least one thin pool that has not exceeded the pool reserved capacity (PRC).
Note: If the selected destination tier contains only pools that have reached the PRC limit, then an alternative tier may be considered by the movement task.

Other movement considerations include: Only extents that are allocated are moved. No back-end configuration changes are performed during a FAST VP data movement, and, as a result, no configuration locks are held during the process. As swaps are not performed, there is no requirement for any swap space, such as DRVs, to facilitate data movement.

Data-movement process
The following section details the process followed during a FAST VP data movement. In the following illustration, device 100 is bound to an FC thin pool. The device is associated with a FAST policy that also contains tiers with an EFD pool and a SATA pool. Over time, FAST VP has determined that several of the devices extents
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FAST VP data movement

need to be moved to the other tiers within the policy. As data movements can occur continuously during the thin data movement time window, a single devices allocations may change multiple times while it is actively managed by FAST VP. Initial allocation Figure 5 shows the thin device with its initial binding and allocation on a FC tier. The additional tiers the device is associated with as part of the FAST policy are also shown.

Figure 5. FAST VP data movement: Initial allocation and associated tiers Extent movements After the initial analysis period has passed, the performance metrics collected for device 100 are analyzed by the FAST controller. Based on this performance analysis, it is determined that several of the allocated extents need to be moved to the other tiers in the FAST policy.

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FAST VP data movement


Due to a higher level of activity, the extents labeled 1 and 6 are promoted to the EFD tier. Meanwhile, the extents labeled 2, 3, 7, and 8 are demoted to SATA, as they were determined to be less active. The data movements are queued up on each DA, and the data is transferred. When the data transfer is complete, the space originally consumed by the extents in the FC tier is deallocated and is reported as free space in that tier, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. FAST VP data movement: Extent relocations Even though data has been moved to other tiers within the array, the thin device remains bound to the pool it was originally bound to, which is contained in the FC tier. New host writes By default, new allocations that occur as a result of host writes come from the pool to which the thin device is bound.

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FAST VP data movement

Note: The default behavior of allocating new extents from the pool to which the device is bound may be changed. See VP Allocation by FAST Policy on page 41.

Figure 7 shows additional extents 9 and 10 that have been allocated in the pool.

Figure 7. FAST VP data movements: New host writes Continuous operations Over longer periods of time, new data is generated, causing more allocations. Also, data access patterns may change, causing additional promotions and demotions to be performed. Figure 8 shows a snapshot of device 100 and its data allocation across all three tiers.

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FAST VP data movement

Figure 8. FAST VP data movement: Continuous operations

Data movement control


Several mechanisms exist for controlling the movement of data related to thin devices under FAST VP control. Device pinning To prevent FAST VP changing the current tiering allocation of a thin device, a feature called device pinning may be used. Pinning a device locks all extent allocations for the device in their current locations, and prevents FAST VP from relocating them. Any new allocations performed for a pinned device comes from the thin pool to which the device is bound. If allocation by policy is enabled, new allocations for a pinned thin device will be performed as if no performance metrics are available for the device. These allocations are not moved by FAST VP. The thin device needs to be unpinned to re-enable data movement.

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FAST VP data movement

Note: While a device is pinned, performance statistics continue to be collected for that device.

FAST policy disassociation Aside from pinning a device to prevent a thin devices allocation from being changed by FAST VP, the device may be removed from the storage group that is associated to a FAST policy. Removing the device from the storage group disassociates it from the FAST policy and removes the device from the control of FAST VP. As a result, no further data movements are performed for that device. Allocated data previously moved by FAST VP remains in its current locations and is not automatically returned to the thin devices bound pool.
Note: Disassociating a device from a FAST policy prevents performance statistics from being collected for that device, and all previously collected metrics are discarded. If the thin device is associated again to a FAST policy, the Initial Analysis Period must pass for that device before data movements can once again be performed.

Changing the quality of service If the performed data movements by FAST VP are impacting other applications or replication tasks within the Symmetrix array, quality of service (QoS) tools may be used to change the pace at which data is moved. Slowing down the FAST VP data movements gives higher priority to the other tasks running on the Symmetrix back end. The VLUN copy pace can be set between 0 and 16 inclusively, with 0 being the fastest and 16 being the slowest. The default QoS value is 0. Setting the pace value to 16 gives the FAST VP data movements the lowest priority on the array. Once the unrelated copy tasks have completed, the pace setting can be reset to 0.

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Advanced FAST VP features


Note: QoS can be used to change the copy pace for individual devices under FAST VP control. The FAST Relocation Rate can be used to change the copy pace for all devices under FAST VP control.

Operating mode To stop data movements for all thin devices under FAST VP control, the operating mode may be set to Off. While off, performance statistics continue to be collected by Enginuity. However, no data-movement requests are generated by Enginuity or the FAST controller.

Advanced FAST VP features


Along with the features already described, advanced features exist that further improve the ease of management and usability of FAST VP. These advanced features include: VP Allocation by FAST Policy: Allows thin device allocations to come from thin pools other than the pool to which the devices are bound. FAST VP SRDF coordination: Allows promotion-and-demotion decisions of data belonging to a thin R2 device to account for workload on the corresponding thin R1 device. FAST VP Compression: Automates VP compression at the sub-LUN level for thin devices that are managed by FAST VP. User-defined FTS tier: Allows an external FTS tier to be specified as something other than the lowest tier.

The following sections describe each of these advanced features in detail.

VP Allocation by FAST Policy


By default, new extent allocations generated by writes to a thin device come from the thin pool to which the device is bound. This behavior has two potential consequences. First, data allocated from the bound pool may be promoted or demoted shortly after the allocation that causes an additional movement of data on the back end. Second, should the bound pool fill up, a write generating a new allocation to the pool may fail. The VP Allocation by FAST Policy feature addresses these potential consequences for devices managed by FAST VP. When the feature is
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Advanced FAST VP features

enabled, new allocations can come from any of the thin pools included in the FAST VP policy to which the thin device is associated. (Allocations are not limited to just the bound pool.) The allocation by policy feature is a setting that is either Enabled or Disabled across the entire Symmetrix array. The default setting is Disabled. When disabled, new allocations come only from the pool to which the thin device is bound. When this feature is enabled, FAST VP attempts, based on available performance metrics, to direct the allocation to the most appropriate tier. If the selected pool is full, an alternate pool is chosen from the other thin pools included within the FAST VP policy. The following section describes the decision-making criteria for selecting the thin pool from which to allocate. Allocation by policy decision criteria As previously mentioned, FAST VP collects performance metrics at three distinct levels for a thin device: Full LUN, extent group set, and extent group. Performance metrics already collected for each extent group set can be applied to newly allocated data within each of those sets. When allocation by policy is enabled on a Symmetrix array, FAST VP first checks for the existence of performance metrics on the extent group set for which the new allocation is generated. If available, the performance metrics are used to determine the most appropriate tier, from a workload perspective, from which to allocate the extent. Once the tier has been selected, a pool within the tier is selected, and the allocation is attempted. If there are no performance metrics available for the extent group set being written to (this would happen when the entire set is unallocated), FAST VP attempts to allocate new extents from the pool to which the device is bound.

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Advanced FAST VP features


In either of these cases, should the selected pool be full, an alternate pool within the policy is chosen. To determine the alternate pool, the tiers are sorted in ascending order of the configured capacity of each tier. Each tier is then checked for available space within each pool in the tier, and the allocation attempted. Should the selected pool be full, FAST VP moves onto the next pool within the tier (if it exists), or the next tier on the list. If a selected tier contains multiple pools, the allocation pool is selected at random. This continues until the allocation is successful, or until a determination is made that all pools within the policy are full. As long as there is space available in at least one of the pools within the policy, all new extent allocations will be successful.
Note: If the device generating the allocation is pinned, the existence of performance metrics is ignored. FAST VP first attempts to allocate from the bound pool. If the bound pool is full, an alternate pool within the policy is chosen.

FAST VP SRDF coordination


FAST VP has no restrictions in its ability to manage SRDF devices. However, it must be considered that FAST VP data movements are restricted to the array upon which FAST VP is operating. By default, however, there is no coordination of data movements between the source and target arrays. FAST VP acts independently on both. While an R1 device typically undergoes a read-and-write workload mix, the corresponding R2 device only sees a write workload. (Reads against the R1 are not propagated across the link.) A consequence of this is that the R2 device data may not be located on the same tier as the related data on the R1 device. FAST VP SRDF coordination allows R1 performance metrics to be used when making promotion-and-demotion decisions for data belonging to an R2 device. SRDF coordination is Enabled or Disabled by the storage group associated with a FAST VP policy. The default state is Disabled.
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Advanced FAST VP features

Note: FAST VP SRDF coordination requires that both the local and remote Symmetrix array be at a code level that supports SRDF coordination.

This feature can be enabled when the storage group is associated with a policy. It can also be enabled by modifying an existing association. You only need to enable this feature on a storage group containing R1 devices. If it is enabled on a storage group containing R2 devices, the setting has no effect. The only case that this would not be true is if an SRDF swap operation occurs and converts the R2 devices to R1 devices. FAST VP SRDF coordination is supported for single, concurrent, and casdcaded SRDF pairings in any mode of operation: Synchronous, asynchronous, adaptive copy, SRDF/EDP, and SRDF/Star. In the case of cascaded SRDF configurations, the R21 device acts as a relay, transmitting the R1 metrics to the R2 device. In the case of an R22 device, metrics will only be received across the SRDF link that is currently active.
Note: FAST VP SRDF coordination is supported in mainframe environments running PPRC.

Effective performance score When enabled on a storage group, the collected FAST VP performance metrics for R1 devices are periodically transmitted across the SRDF link to the corresponding R2 devices.
Note: Performance metrics are only sent for R1 devices when their corresponding R2 devices are being managed by FAST VP.

On the R2 device, the R1 performance metrics are merged with the actual R2 metrics. This creates an effective performance score for data on the R2 devices.

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Advanced FAST VP features


When promotion-and-demotion decisions are made on the remote array, the effective score is used for the R2 data, thereby allowing the R1 workload to influence the movement of the R2 data. Data that is heavily read on the R1 device is likely to be promoted to the higher tiers in the policy to which the R2 device is associated.
Note: The R2 devices effective performance score also influence s the calculation of promotion-and-demotion thresholds on the remote array.

SRDF coordination considerations When the SRDF link between the R1 and R2 devices is not ready, the R1 performance metrics are not transmitted to the R2 device. When the link is restored, the metrics are transmitted again. The SRDF link is considered to be not ready when the SRDF pair state is in one of the following states: Split Suspended Failedover Partitioned

During the period that the metrics are not being sent, previously received R1 metrics are decayed in a manner similar to normally collected performance data.
Note: For more information on decaying of performance metrics, see I/O activity rates on page 26.

If an SRDF personality swap operation is performed, performance metrics are only transmitted when SRDF coordination is enabled on the storage group containing the new R1 devices.
Note: After a swap operation, performance metrics are automatically transmitted from the new R1 devices, as long as SRDF coordination had been previously enabled while the storage group contained R2 devices.

FAST VP Compression
VP Compression provides the ability to compress data belonging to thin devices. Compressed data consumes less physical space in a thin pool,
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Advanced FAST VP features

thus providing additional space for more data to be written to the pool. EMC compression capabilities for Virtually Provisioned and FAST VP environments provide customers with 2:1 or greater data compression for lightly and very infrequently accessed data. EMC defines infrequently accessed data as that which is not accessed within monthend, quarter-end, or year-end activities, nor accessed as part of full backup processing. Data can be compressed manually for an individual thin device, or group of devices, by means of Solutions Enabler and Unisphere for VMAX. Alternatively, inactive data belonging to thin devices managed by FAST VP can be automatically compressed using FAST VP Compression.
Note: For more information on VP Compression, refer to the Best Practices for Fast, Simple Capacity Allocation with EMC Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning Technical Note, available at http://support.emc.com.

FAST VP Compression is enabled at the system level by setting the time to compress parameter to a value between 40 and 400 days. Data that is seen to be inactive for a period of time longer than this parameter will be considered eligible for automatic compression. The default value for the time to compress is never. Automated compression FAST VP Compression automates VP Compression for thin devices that are managed by FAST VP. This automated compression takes place at the sub-LUN level. Compression decisions are based on the activity level of individual extent groups (120 tracks), similar to promotion-anddemotion decisions. However, the actual compression itself is performed per thin device extent (12 tracks). Extent groups that have been inactive on disk for a user-defined period of time, known as the time to compress, will be considered eligible for

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compression. The time to compress parameter can be set between 40 and 400 days. The default time to compress is never. In order for thin device extent to be compressed automatically by FAST VP, all of the following criteria must be met: The extent must belong to an extent group that has been inactive for a period equal to or greater than the time to compress. The extent must be located in a thin pool that has been enabled for compression. The extent must compress by at least 50 percent.

Policy compliance For the purposes of calculating a storage groups compliance with a policy, FAST VP does not take into account any compression that has occurred on any of the devices within the group. Only the logical, allocated capacity consumed by the devices is considered. For example, if 50 GB of data belonging to a storage group was demoted to the SATA tier and subsequently compressed to only consume 20 GB, the compliance calculation for the storage group would be based on 50 GB consumed within the SATA tier. Pool reserved capacity The pool reserved capacity (PRC) reserves a percentage of each pool included in a VP tier for activities not associated with FAST VP. The PRC is based on the actual capacity allocated within a thin pool. This applies even if there is compressed data allocated in the pool. Compression task execution Extent groups are evaluated for compression at the same time extent groups are evaluated for promotion or demotion. However, performance-related promotions and demotions have a higher priority than compression activity, so there may be some time lag between an extent group becoming eligible for compression and it actually being compressed. SRDF interoperability By default, FAST VP runs independently on each side of an SRDF link, and movement decisions are based on the workload seen by the data locally on each array. This applies to FAST VP Compression, too. This
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means that compression decisions made on the R1 side may not necessarily be made on the R2 side. If FAST VP SRDF coordination is enabled for a storage group associated with a FAST VP policy, performance metrics collected for an R1 device are transferred to the R2, allowing the R1 workload to influence promotion-and-demotion decisions on the R2 data. As a part of the performance metrics collected, the length of time the data has been inactive is also transferred. This period of inactivity on R1 data can then influence compression decisions on the corresponding R2 data. This does not guarantee, however, that data compressed on the R1 side will have its corresponding data compressed on the R2 side, and vice versa. Compression decisions on each side of the SRDF link will be influenced by the Time to Compress parameter configured on each array, and also by the pools that are enabled for compression.

User-defined FTS tier


By default, any external tier added to a FAST VP policy is considered to be the lowest performing tier within the policy, even below the SATA tier. However, depending on the configuration of the external tier, it may be possible that the tier can provide a higher level of performance than an internal SATA, or even FC, tier. In the case where it is expected that an external tier will perform at a higher level than one or more internal tiers, the relative performance expectation can be user-defined. This will then affect the tiers ranking amongst other tiers when added to a FAST VP policy.

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Note: Performance of external arrays may vary under changing workloads, especially when the external array is not fully devoted to VMAX I/O. As a result, FAST VP may not always be able to make the optimal choices for data placement when used with FTS-based tiers defined as other than the lowest tier of storage.

External technology type When an external tier is created, an optional technology type (EFD, FC, or SATA) may be specified, in addition to the external location. By specifying a technology type, a related expectation of performance is associated with the tier. For example, an external tier created with the technology type of FC will be expected to have similar performance characteristics to that of an internal FC tier, with some allowance for latency that may be introduced by the SAN connectivity between the local and external storage arrays. As such, an external FC tier will be ranked below an internal FC tier, but above an internal SATA tier when included in a multi-tier policy. After an external tier has been created, the technology type can be modified. If the type is changed, the ranking of the tier will change within any policy in which it has been included. As such, an external tier can be upgraded or downgraded within a policy.
Note: The technology type of a tier can only be modified for an external tier. It cannot be changed for an internal tier.

External tier performance discovery When a technology type, other than SATA, is specified for an external tier, the tier is potentially expected to perform at a higher level than other tiers contained within a FAST VP policy. However, there may be circumstances where this is not the case, and the performance expectations cannot be met. For example, unexpected latency in the SAN may cause the performance of an external tier to fall below that of an internal tier of a lower-ranked technology. Having a higher-ranked tier perform less than a lowerranked tier could potentially have an adverse affect on the behavior of FAST VP.
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To address this possibility, Enginuity executes an initial performance discovery of the tier when it is first added to a FAST VP policy. This is done to ensure that the performance of the external tier is in line with the user-defined expectations. This initial performance test is known as full discovery testing. Similar testing is performed when a change is made to the underlying eDisks for the tier, or if the technology type is modified in the tier definition. Once the full performance discovery completes, an ongoing task periodically executes a lighter performance discovery. This is known as discovery validation testing. The purpose of this discovery is to validate, or incrementally adjust, the previously discovered performance. At any point, if the performance of an external tier falls below expectations, an event is triggered, alerting users to this fact. The event (event ID 1511) is triggered when the performance of an external tier changes, dropping below the expected level. Based on this alert, users can address the discrepancy between the actual performance and the expected performance of the tier. This can be done by either addressing the cause of the degraded performance on the external tier, or by lowering the expectations of the tier.

FAST VP interoperability
FAST VP is fully interoperable with all Symmetrix replication technologies: EMC SRDF, EMC TimeFinder/Clone, TimeFinder/Snap, and Open Replicator. Any active replication on a Symmetrix device remains intact while data from that device is being moved. Similarly, all incremental relationships are maintained for the moved or swapped devices. FAST VP also operates alongside Symmetrix features such as Symmetrix Optimizer, Dynamic Cache Partitioning, and Auto-provisioning Groups.

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SRDF Thin SRDF devices, R1 or R2, can be associated with a FAST policy. Extents of SRDF devices can be moved between tiers while the devices are being actively replicated, in either synchronous or asynchronous modes.
Note: For more information on using FAST VP with SRDF, see FAST VP SRDF coordination on page 43.

TimeFinder/Clone Both the source and target devices of a TimeFinder/Clone session can be managed by FAST VP. However, the source and target are managed independently, and, as a result, may end up with different extent allocations across tiers. TimeFinder/Snap The source device in a TimeFinder/Snap session can be managed by FAST VP. However, the target device (VDEV) may not be brought under FAST VP control. TimeFinder VP Snap The source device in a TimeFinder VP Snap session can be managed by FAST VP. Target devices may also be managed by FAST VP, however, extent allocations that are shared by multiple target devices are not moved. Open Replicator The control device in an Open Replicator session, push or pull, can have extents moved by FAST VP. Virtual Provisioning Each thin device, whether under FAST VP control or not, may only be bound to a single thin pool. All host-write-generated allocations, or userrequested pre-allocations, are performed on this pool. FAST VP data movements do not change the binding information for a thin device. It is possible to change the binding information for a thin device without changing any of the current extent allocations for the device. However, when rebinding a device that is under FAST VP control, the thin pool the device is being rebound to must belong to one of the VP tiers contained
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in the policy with which the device is associated. Virtual Provisioning space reclamation Space reclamation may be run against a thin device under FAST VP control. However, during the space-reclamation process, the sub-LUN performance metrics are not updated, and no data movements are performed.
Note: If FAST VP is actively moving extents of a device, a request to reclaim space on that device will fail. Prior to issuing the space-reclamation task, the device should first be pinned. Pinning a device suspends any active FAST VP data movements for the device and allows the request to succeed.

Virtual Provisioning T10 unmap Unmap commands can be issued to thin devices under FAST VP control. The T10 SCSI unmap command for thin devices advises a target thin device that a range of blocks are no longer in use. If this range covers a full thin device extent, then that extent can be deallocated, and the free space is returned to the pool. If the unmap command range covers only some tracks in an extent, those tracks are marked Never Written by Host (NWBH). The extent is not deallocated. However, those tracks do not have to be retrieved from the drive should a read request be performed. Instead, the Symmetrix array immediately returns all zeros.
Note: The T10 SCSI unmap command is only supported in Open Systems (FBA) environments.

Virtual Provisioning pool management Data devices may be added to or removed from a thin pool that is in the FAST VP tier. Data movements related to FAST VP, into or out of the thin pool, continue while the data devices are being modified.

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When adding data devices to a thin pool, pool rebalancing may be run. Similarly, when disabling and removing data devices from the pool, they drain their allocated tracks to other enabled data devices in the pool. While running either data-device draining or automated pool rebalancing on a thin pool that is included in a VP tier is allowed, both processes may affect performance of FAST VP data movements. Virtual LUN VP mobility A thin device under FAST VP control may be migrated using VLUN VP. Such a migration results in all allocated extents of the device being moved to a single thin pool. While the migration is in progress, no FAST VP related data movements are performed. Once the migration is complete, all allocated extents of the thin device will be available to be retiered. To prevent the migrated device from being retiered by FAST VP immediately following the migration, it is recommended that the device first be pinned. The device can later be unpinned to re-enable FAST VPrelated data movements. FAST Both FAST and FAST VP may coexist within a single Symmetrix array. FAST only performs full-device movements of non-thin devices. As a result, there is no impact to FAST VPs management of thin devices. Both FAST and FAST VP share some configuration parameters. These are: Workload Analysis Period Initial Analysis Period Performance Time Windows

Symmetrix Optimizer Symmetrix Optimizer operates only on non-thin devices. As such, there is no impact on FAST VPs management of thin devices. Both Optimizer and FAST VP share some configuration parameters. These are: Workload Analysis Period Initial Analysis Period
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Performance Time Windows

Dynamic Cache Partitioning Dynamic Cache Partitioning (DCP) can be used to isolate storage handling of different applications. As data movements use the same cache partition as the application, movements of data on behalf of one application do not affect the performance of applications that are not sharing the same cache partition. FBA Auto-provisioning Groups Storage groups created for the purposes of Auto-provisioning FBA devices may also be used for FAST VP. However, while a device may be contained in multiple storage groups for the purposes of Autoprovisioning, the device may only be contained in one storage group that is associated with a FAST policy (DP or VP). If a storage group contains a mix of device types, thin and non-thin, only the devices matching the type of FAST policy the group is associated with are managed by FAST. If it is intended that both device types in an Auto-provisioning storage group be managed by FAST and FAST VP, then separate storage groups need to be created. A storage group with the non-thin devices may then be associated with a policy containing DP tiers. A separate storage group containing the thin devices needs to be associated with a policy containing VP tiers. If separate storage groups are created for the purposes of applying separate FAST policies, then these groups can be added to a parent storage group, using the cascaded SG feature. A masking view can then be applied to the parent SG, provisioning both sets of devices.
Note: FAST policies may only be associated to storage groups containing devices. A parent SG, containing other storage groups, cannot be associated to a FAST policy.

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Best practice considerations and recommendations

Best practice considerations and recommendations


The following sections detail best practice recommendations for planning the implementation of a FAST VP environment. The best practices documented are based on features available in Enginuity 5876.229.145, Solutions Enabler V7.6, and Unisphere for VMAX 1.6.

FAST VP configuration parameters


FAST VP has multiple configuration parameters that control its behavior. These include settings to determine the effect of past workloads on data analysis, quality of service for data movements, and pool space to be reserved for activities not associated with FAST VP. Also, performancecollection and data-movement time windows can be defined. The following sections describe best practice recommendations for each of these configuration parameters.
Note: For more information on each of these configuration parameters, refer to the Implementing Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Note available at http://support.emc.com.

Performance time window The performance time windows specify date and time ranges what collected performance metrics should be included, or not, for the purposes of FAST VP performance analysis. By default, performance metrics are collected 24 hours a day, every day. Time windows may be defined, however, to include only certain times of day or days of the week, as well as exclude other time periods. While the performance time window is open, in addition to performance metrics being collected, the long-term and short-term activity rates are also being incremented and decayed. As such, the performance time window can greatly influence the performance scores of data. For example, if some data is only busy during production hours of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., limiting the performance time window to just these hours can
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cause the data accessed during production hours to much higher scores than the default 24-hour window. As a best practice, the performance time windows should be configured to target the specific workloads the user wishes to optimize. For example, if the normal production workload typically occurs between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays then the performance time windows should be configured to match these periods. Similarly, if the workload on weekends or during holiday periods, are not as important or representative of the other days; you should consider excluding them from the performance time window.
Note: The performance time window is applied system-wide. If multiple applications are active on the array, but active at different times, including weekends, then the default performance time window behavior should be left unchanged.

Data movement time window Data movement time windows are used to specify date and time ranges when data movements are allowed, or not allowed, to be performed. The best practice recommendation is that, at a minimum, the data movement window should allow data movements for the same period of time that the performance time windows allow data collection. This allows FAST VP to react quickly and dynamically to any changes in workload that occur on the array. Unless there are specific time periods to avoid data movements, during a backup window, for example, it may be appropriate to set the data movement window to allow FAST VP to perform movements 24 hours a day, every day.
Note: If there is a concern about possible impact of data movements occurring during a production workload, the FAST VP Relocation Rate can be used to minimize this impact.

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Workload Analysis Period The Workload Analysis Period (WAP) determines the degree to which FAST VP metrics are influenced by recent host activity, and also lessrecent host activity, that takes place while the performance time window is considered open. The longer the time defined in the WAP, the greater the amount of weight is assigned to less-recent host activity. Lowering the WAP may allow FAST VP to react to changes in workload more quickly, but may lead to greater amounts of data being moved between tiers. The influence of the WAP setting is applied only when the performance time window is open. For example, if the performance time window is left at the default (open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week), the default WAP (one week) will cover one calendar week. However, if the performance window is configured to be open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, the default WAP will actually incorporate two calendar weeks. The best practice recommendation for the Workload Analysis Period is to match it to the performance time window to cover one calendar week. Initial Analysis Period The Initial Analysis Period (IAP) defines the minimum amount of time a thin device should be under FAST VP management before any performance-related data movements should be applied. This parameter should be set to a value that allows sufficient data samples for FAST VP to establish a good characterization of the typical workload on that device. At the initial deployment of FAST VP, it may make sense to set the IAP to 168 hours (one week) to ensure that a typical weekly workload cycle is seen. However, once FAST VP data movement has begun, you may reduce the IAP to 24 hours (one day), which allows the newly associated devices to benefit from FAST VP movement recommendations more quickly. FAST VP Relocation Rate The FAST VP Relocation Rate (FRR) is a quality of service (QoS) setting for FAST VP. The FRR affects the aggressiveness of data-movement
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requests generated by FAST VP. This aggressiveness is measured as the amount of data that is requested to be moved at any given time, and the priority given to moving the data between pools. Setting the FRR to the most aggressive value, 1, causes FAST VP to attempt to move the most data it can, as quickly as it can. Depending on the amount of data to be moved, an FRR of 1 is more likely to impact host I/O response times, due to the additional back-end overhead being generated by the FAST VP data movements. However, the distribution of data across tiers completes in a shorter period of time. Setting the FRR to the least aggressive value, 10, causes FAST VP to greatly reduce the amount of data that is moved, and the pace at which it moves. This setting causes no impact to host I/O response time, but the final redistribution of data across tiers takes longer. Figure 1 shows the same workload, 1,500 IOPS of type OLTP2, being run on an environment containing two FAST VP tiers, Fibre Channel (FC) and Enterprise Flash (EFD). The same test was carried out with three separate relocation rates: 1, 5, and 8. With a FRR of 1, an initial increase in response time is seen at the twohour mark, when FAST VP data movement began, while no increase in response time is seen when the relocation rate is set to 8. However, the steady state for the response time is seen in a much shorter period of time for the lower, more aggressive, setting.

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Figure 9. Example workload with varying relocation rates The default value for the FRR is 5. However, the best practice recommendation for the initial deployment of FAST VP is to start with a more conservative value for the relocation rate, perhaps 7 or 8. The reason for this is that when FAST VP is first enabled, the amount of data to be moved is likely to be greater, compared to when FAST VP has been running for some time. At a later date, when it is seen that the amount of data movements between tiers is less, the FRR can be set to a more aggressive level, possibly 2 or 3. This allows FAST VP to adjust to small changes in the workload more quickly. Pool Reserved Capacity The Pool Reserved Capacity (PRC) reserves a percentage of each pool included in a VP tier for activities not associated with FAST VP. When the percentage of unallocated space in a thin pool is equal to the PRC, FAST VP no longer performs data movements into that pool. The PRC can be set both as a system-wide setting and for each individual pool. If the PRC has not been set for a pool, or the PRC for the pool has
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been set to NONE, then the system-wide setting is used. For the system-wide setting, the best practice recommendation is to use the default value of 10 percent. For individual pools, if thin devices are bound to the pool, the best practice recommendation is to set the PRC based on the lowest allocation warning level for that thin pool. For example, if a warning is triggered when a thin pool has reached an allocation of 80 percent of its capacity, then the PRC should be set to 20 percent. This ensures that the remaining 20 percent of the pool is only used for new host-generated allocations, and not FAST VP data movements. If no thin devices are bound to the pool, or are going to be bound, then the PRC should be set to the lowest possible value, 1 percent.
Note: In an environment where only two tiers are configured in the VMAX storage array, and VP allocation by FAST policy is enabled, it may be beneficial to set the PRC to 1 percent for all thin pools.

VP Allocation by FAST Policy The VP Allocation by Fast Policy feature allows new allocations to come from any of the thin pools included in the FAST VP policy to which the thin device is associated. With this feature enabled, FAST VP attempts to allocate new writes in the most appropriate tier first, based on available performance metrics. If no performance metrics are available, the allocation is attempted in the pool to which the device is bound. If the pool initially chosen to allocate the data is full, FAST VP looks to other pools contained within the FAST VP policy and allocates from there. As long as there is space available in at least one of the pools within the policy, all new extent allocations will be successful. The allocation by policy feature is enabled at the Symmetrix array level and applies to all allocations for all devices managed by FAST VP. The

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feature is either Enabled or Disabled (the default setting is Disabled). When disabled, new allocations only come from the pool to which the thin device is bound. As a best practice, it is recommended that VP Allocation by FAST Policy be enabled.
Note: For more information on the decision making process of the VP allocation by FAST policy feature, refer to the Advance FAST VP features section of the Implementing Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Note.

FAST VP tier configuration A Symmetrix storage tier is a specification of a set of resources of the same disk technology type (EFD, FC/SAS, SATA, or FTS storage), combined with a given RAID protection type (RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, or Unprotected), and the same emulation (FBA or CKD).
Note: The Unprotected RAID type may only be applied to a tier residing on an FTS-connected storage array.

FAST VP tiers can contain between one and four thin storage pools . To be included in a FAST VP tier, a thin pool must contain data devices configured on the same drive technology and emulation (and the same rotational speed, in the case of FC, SAS, and SATA drives). To combine multiple pools in a single tier, the pools must be of the same RAID protection and configured on the same drive technology. When a tier contains multiple pools, FAST VP movements into the tier will be striped across all pools within the tier.
Drive-speed considerations

Two or more thin pools containing data devices configured on rotating drives of different speeds, but of the same drive technology, may be combined in a single VP tier. This is not recommended, however, as there is the potential for uneven performance across the tier due to the difference in drive speeds.
Drive-size considerations

Drive size is not a factor when adding data devices to a thin pool. For
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example, data devices configured on 300 GB FC 15 k drives can coexist in a pool with data devices configured on 600 GB FC 15 k drives. It is not recommended to combine drives of different sizes into the same tier. The larger drives will ultimately contain more data than the smaller drives. As such, they are likely to see a larger I/O workload than the smaller drives, which may lead to different performance levels on data devices across the tier. If combining data devices on different drive sizes in the same storage tier cannot be avoided, it is recommended to create separate pools for each drive size, and then combine those pools into a single tier.
Note: For more information on best practices for configuring thin pools, refer to the Best Practices for Fast, Simple Capacity Allocation with EMC Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning Technical Note, available at http://support.emc.com. External tiers

External tiers can only be configured on storage configured for external provisioning. Encapsulated storage is not supported by FAST VP. When creating a tier on an external array, it is highly recommended that the same best practices for the creation of internal thin pools and tiers be followed for external pools and tiers. Primarily, external thin pools should be configured on eDisks with similar performance profiles.
Note: For more information on best practices for configuring eDisks, refer to the Design and Implementation Best Practices for EMC Symmetrix Federated Tiered Storage (FTS) Technical Note, available at http://support.emc.com.

To that end, external thin pools should be created on eDisks from a single external storage array. These eDisks should also be configured on external LUNs of the same RAID protection and configured on the same drive technology.

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Similarly, if two or more external thin pools are added to an external tier, the external pools should be configured on the same external array, sharing the same RAID protection and drive technology type. Greater care must be taken, however, in creating external pools and tiers. The reason for this is that the Symmetrix array has no visibility into the RAID protection or the drive technology of the external LUNs. As such, there are no software protections to ensure that all the eDisks in a disk group follow the rules that are applied to internal thin pools and tiers.
User-defined technology type

Depending on the configuration of the external tier (external RAID protection and technology type), it may be possible that the tier can provide a higher level of performance than an internal SATA, or possibly an internal FC, tier. In the case where it is expected that an external tier will perform at a higher level than one or more internal tiers, the relative performance expectation can be user-defined by specifying the technology type that equates to the expected performance. When the external tier is first added to a FAST VP policy, the Symmetrix array executes a performance discovery in order to evaluate if the actual performance is in line with the user-defined expectations. Because of this performance discovery, it is recommended that external tiers by added to a FAST VP policy at times when host workload is relatively light. In this way, the full-discovery workload will compete less with host workload. Similarly, the external tier should also be added to the FAST VP policy as early as is practical, prior to host applications accessing the external storage. FAST VP policy configuration A FAST VP policy groups between one and four VP tiers and assigns an upper-usage limit for each storage tier. The upper limit specifies the maximum amount of capacity a storage group associated with the policy can use on that particular tier. The upper-capacity usage limit for each storage tier is specified as a percentage of the configured, logical capacity

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of the associated storage group. The usage limit for each tier must be between 1 percent and 100 percent. When combined, the upper-usage limit for all thin storage tiers in the policy must total at least 100 percent, but may be greater than 100 percent.
Tier ranking

FAST VP ranks tiers within a policy based on known performance models. Tiers are ranked based on the drive technology of the pools within the each tier (EFD, FC, or SATA), as well as the location of the tier (internal or external).
Tier usage limits

Creating a policy with a total upper-usage limit greater than 100 percent allows flexibility with the configuration of a storage group, whereby data may be moved between tiers without necessarily having to move a corresponding amount of other data within the same storage group. The default FAST VP policy would be to specify 100 percent for each of the included tiers. Such a policy can provide the greatest amount of flexibility to an associated storage group, as it allows 100 percent of the storage groups capacity to be promoted or demoted to any tier within the policy, as appropriate. Operationally, it may not be appropriate to deploy the 100/100/100 policy. There may be reasons to limit access to a particular tier within the array. As an example, it may be appropriate to limit the amount of a storage groups capacity that can be placed on EFD. This may be used to prevent one single storage group, or application, from consuming all of the EFD resources. In this case, a policy containing just a small percentage for EFD would be recommended.

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Note: Care must also be taken, however, to not set the policy percentage too low for the higher-performing tiers in a policy. A percentage that is too low may force FAST VP to leave active data on a lower tier, potentially overloading that tier.

Similarly, it may be appropriate to restrict the amount of SATA capacity a storage group may utilize. Some applications, which can become inactive from time to time, may require a minimum level of performance when they become active again. For such applications, a policy excluding the SATA tier could be appropriate. The best way to determine appropriate policies for a FAST VP implementation is to examine the workload skew for the application data to be managed by FAST VP. The workload skew defines an asymmetry in data usage over time. This means a small percentage of the data on the array may be servicing the majority of the workload on the array. One tool that provides insight into this workload skew is Tier Advisor.
Tier Advisor

Tier Advisor is a utility available to EMC technical staff that estimates the performance and cost of mixing drives of different technology types (EFD, FC, and SATA) within Symmetrix VMAX Family storage arrays. Tier Advisor can examine performance data collected from Symmetrix, VNX, or CLARiiON storage arrays and determine the workload skew at the full LUN level. It can also estimate the workload skew at the subLUN level. With this information, Tier Advisor can model an optimal storage-array configuration by enabling the ability to interactively experiment with different storage tiers and storage policies, until achieving the desired cost and performance preferences. Thin device binding Each thin device, whether under FAST VP control or not, may only be bound to a single thin pool. By default, all host-write-generated allocations, or user-requested pre-allocations, are performed from this pool. From an ease-of-management and reporting perspective, it is
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recommended that all thin devices be bound to a single pool within the Symmetrix array.
Note: FAST VP data movements do not change the binding information for a thin device.

In determining the appropriate pool, both performance requirements and capacity management should be taken into consideration, as well as the use of thin device pre-allocation and the system write-pending limit.
Note: Unless there is a very specific performance need, it is not recommended to bind thin devices under FAST VP control to a thin pool in the EFD tier. Performance consideration

With VP allocation by FAST policy enabled, FAST VP attempts to allocate new extents in the most appropriate tier. This is based on available performance metrics for the thin device being allocated. Should performance metrics not be available, the allocation comes from the pool to which the thin device is bound. As a result, the best practice recommendation is to bind all thin devices to a pool within the FC tier in the policy.
Capacity-management consideration

Binding all thin devices to a single pool ultimately causes that single pool to be oversubscribed. If the allocation by policy feature is not enabled, this could potentially lead to issues as the pool fills up. Host writes to unallocated areas of a thin device will fail if there is insufficient space in the bound pool. In an EFD, FC, SATA configuration, if the FC tier is significantly smaller than the SATA tier, binding all thin devices to the SATA tier reduces the likelihood of the bound pool filling up. If performance needs require the thin devices to be bound to FC, the Pool Reserved Capacity or the FAST VP policy configuration, or a

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combination of both, can be used to alleviate a potential pool-full condition.
Note: Enabling VP allocation by FAST policy on the Symmetrix VMAX array greatly alleviates the capacity-management consideration. Pre-allocation

A way to avoid writes to a thin device failing due to a pool being fully allocated is to pre-allocate the thin device when it is bound. However, performance requirements of newly written data should be considered prior to using pre-allocation. When FAST VP performs data movements, only allocated extents are moved. This applies not only to extents allocated as the result of a host write, but also to extents that have been pre-allocated. These preallocated extents will be moved even if no data has yet been written to them.
Note: When moving pre-allocated, but unwritten, extents, no data is actually moved. The pointer for the extent is simply redirected to the pool in the target tier.

Pre-allocated, but unwritten, extents show as inactive and, as a result, are demoted to the lowest tier included in the associated FAST VP policy. When these extents are eventually written to, the write performance will be that of the tier it has been demoted to. A best-practice recommendation is to not pre-allocate thin devices managed by FAST VP. Pre-allocation should only be used selectively for those devices that can never tolerate a write failure due to a full pool.
System write-pending limit

FAST VP is designed to throttle back data movements, both promotions and demotions, as the write-pending count approaches the system writepending limit. This throttling gives an even higher priority to host I/O to ensure that tracks marked as write pending are destaged appropriately.
Note: By default, the system write-pending limit on a Symmetrix VMAX array is set to 75 percent of the available cache.

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If the write-pending count reaches 60 percent of the write-pending limit, FAST VP data movements stop. As the write-pending count decreases below this level, data movements automatically restart. A very busy workload running on SATA disks, with SATA disks at or near 100 percent utilization, causing a high write-pending count, impacts FAST VP from promoting active extents to FC or EFD tiers. In an environment with a high write workload, it is recommended to bind thin devices to a pool in the FC tier.
Note: If a large amount of write activity is being seen on the SATA tier, it may be worth considering placing the DATA devices configured on SATA into a separate dynamic cache partition. Doing so could prevent an increase in the write-pending count and alleviate any impact on FAST VP and the storage array as a whole. Rebinding a thin device

It is possible to change the binding information for a thin device without moving any of the current extent allocations for the device. This is done by a process called rebinding. Rebinding a thin device increases the subscription level of the pool to which the device is bound, and decreases the subscription level of the pool to which it was previously bound. However, the allocation levels in both pools remain unchanged.
Note: When rebinding a device that is under FAST VP control, the thin pool to which the device is being rebound must belong to one of the VP tiers contained in the policy to which the device is associated.

Thin pool oversubscription Thin pool oversubscription allows an organization to present larger than needed devices to hosts and applications without having to purchase enough physical drives to fully allocate all of the space represented by the thin devices.

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Note: For more information on oversubscription, refer to the Best Practices for Fast, Simple Capacity Allocation with EMC Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning Technical Note, available at http://support.emc.com.

In a FAST VP configuration, the capacity available for thin devices is now spread across multiple pools. Even if there is no plan to oversubscribe the available capacity in the Symmetrix array, there typically is insufficient space in a single tier to accommodate the configured thin device capacity. By following the previous recommendation, binding all thin devices being managed by FAST VP to a single thin pool inherently causes that pool to be oversubscribed. As a result, the oversubscription limit for that pool needs to be set to a value greater than 100 percent.
Available capacity

To determine the level to set the oversubscription limit, the total capacity available to devices under the control of FAST VP should first be calculated. If the VP Allocation by FAST Policy feature is enabled, then 100 percent of the capacity of each pool within the policy is available. If the allocation by policy feature is not enabled, the following points should be considered: For pools with thin devices bound, 100 percent of the capacity is available. For pools with no thin devices bound, 100 percent of the pool, less the capacity reserved by the PRC, is available.

Note: The pool reserved capacity value only affects FAST VP movements into the pool. The PRC does not affect the ability for the thin devices to allocate extents within the pool. Oversubscription limits

After determining the capacity available to FAST VP, an oversubscription limit can then be calculated for the pool devices that are going to be bound to it. To ensure the configured capacity of the array is not oversubscribed, the limit can be calculated by dividing the capacity of the thin pool being
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used for binding into the available capacity of all the pools. This value is then multiplied by 100 to get a percent value. For example, consider a configuration with a 1 TB EFD pool, a 5 TB FC pool, and a 10 TB SATA pool. The total available capacity is 16 TB. If all thin devices are bound to FC, the oversubscription limit could be set to 320% (16/5)*100. This value can be set higher if the intention is to initially oversubscribe the configured physical capacity of the array, and then add storage on an as-needed basis. For thin pools where devices will never be bound, the subscription limit can be set to 0 percent. This prevents any accidental binding or migration to that pool. RAID protection considerations When designing a Virtual Provisioning configuration, and particularly when choosing a corresponding RAID protection strategy, both devicelevel performance and availability implications should be carefully considered.
Note: For more information on these considerations, refer to the Best Practices for Fast, Simple Capacity Allocation with EMC Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning Technical Note, available at http://support.emc.com.

FAST VP does not change these considerations and recommendations from a performance perspective. What FAST VP does change, however, is that a single thin device can now have its data spread across multiple tiers of varying RAID protection and drive technology within the array. Because of this, the availability of an individual thin device is not based just on the availability characteristics of the thin pool to which the device is bound. Instead, availability is based on the characteristics of the tier with the lowest availability.

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While performance and availability requirements ultimately determine the configuration of each tier within the Symmetrix array, it is recommended as a best practice to choose RAID 1 or RAID 5 (preferably 3+1) protection on EFDs. The faster rebuild times of EFDs provide higher availability for these protection schemes on that tier. Also, it is recommended to use either RAID 1 or RAID 6 (preferably 6+2) on the SATA tier. This is due to the slower rebuild times of the SATA drives (compared to EFD and FC), and the increased chance of a dualdrive failure, leading to data unavailability with RAID 5 protection. For the FC tier, RAID 1 is the recommended protection level. Mirrored data devices on FC pools provide a higher level of performance than both RAID 5 and RAID 6, particularly for write workloads. Availability of RAID 1, in regard to a dual-drive failure, is also greater than RAID 5. To obtain the best availability numbers for RAID 1 on FC, the use of lower-capacity drives is recommended.
Note: For new environments being configured in anticipation of implementing FAST VP, or for existing environments adding more tiers, it is highly recommended that an EMC representative be engaged to assist in determining the appropriate RAID protection schemes for each tier.

Drive configuration For most customer configurations, the best-practice configuration guidelines recommend an even, balanced distribution of physical disks across the disk adapters (DAs) and DA CPUs. This is of particular relevance for EFDs, which are each able to support thousands of I/Os per second, and, therefore, are able to create a load on the DA equivalent to that of multiple hard disk drives. An even distribution of I/O across all DA CPUs is optimal to maximize their capability and the overall capability of the Symmetrix array. However, there are scenarios where it is not appropriate to evenly distribute disk resources. An example of this is when the customer desires partitioning and isolation of disk resources to separate customer environments and workloads within the VMAX array. Generally, it is appropriate to configure more, smaller drives, than fewer, larger drives for both EFD and FC tiers. Doing so spreads I/O load as
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wide as possible across the Symmetrix back-end. Storage group priority When a storage group is associated with a FAST policy, a priority value must be assigned to the storage group. This priority value can be between 1 and 3, with 1 being the highest priority . The default is 2. The best-practice recommendation is to use the default priority of 2 for all storage groups associated with FAST VP policies. These values may then be modified if it is seen, for example, that a high-priority application is not getting sufficient resources from a higher tier. SRDF FAST VP has no restrictions in its ability to manage SRDF devices, however, what must be considered is that data movements are restricted to the array upon which FAST VP is operating. By default, there is no coordination of data movements; FAST VP acts independently on both the local and remote arrays. However, enabling FAST VP SRDF coordination allows R1 performance metrics to be used when making promotion-and-demotion decisions for data belonging to an R2 device.
Note: For more information on the operation of FAST VP SRDF coordination, refer to Implementing Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) for EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Arrays Technical Note, available at http://support.emc.com.

As a general best practice, FAST VP should be employed for both R1 and R2 devices, particularly if the remote R2 array has also been configured with tiered storage capacity. Where possible, similar FAST VP tiers and policies should be configured at each site. When available, FAST VP SRDF coordination should be enabled for each storage group containing SRDF devices that is associated with a FAST VP policy.

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Each SRDF configuration, however, presents its own unique behaviors and workloads. Prior to implementing FAST VP in an SRDF environment, the information in the following sections should be considered.
Note: The following sections assume that SRDF is implemented with all Symmetrix arrays configured for Virtual Provisioning (all SRDF devices are thin devices) and capable of running FAST VP. FAST VP behavior

For SRDF R1 devices, FAST VP promotes and demotes extent groups based on the read-and-write activity experienced on the R1 devices. Meanwhile, by default, the SRDF R2 devices typically only experience write activity during normal operations. As a result, FAST VP is likely to promote only R2 device extents that are experiencing writes. If there are R1 device extents that only experience read activity, no writes, then the corresponding extents on the R2 devices will see no I/O activity. This will likely lead to these R2 device extents being demoted to the SATA tier, assuming this was included in the FAST VP policy. SRDF coordination changes this default behavior by periodically transmitting FAST VP performance metrics collected for R1 devices across the SRDF link to the corresponding R2 devices. On the R2 device, the R1 performance metrics are merged with the actual R2 metrics. Movement decisions made by FAST VP for these R2 devices are then based on the merged performance metrics. In this way, read activity on the R1 device can be reflected on the R2.
SRDF operating mode

EMC best practices, for both synchronous and asynchronous modes of SRDF operation, recommend implementing a balanced configuration on both the local (R1) and remote (R2) Symmetrix arrays. Ideally, data on each array would be located on devices configured with the same RAID protection type, on the same drive type. As FAST VP operates independently on each array, and also promotes and demotes data at the sub-LUN level, there is no guarantee that such a balance may be maintained.
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In SRDF synchronous (SRDF/S) mode, host writes are transferred synchronously from R1 to R2. These writes are only acknowledged by the host when the data has been received into cache on the remote R2 array. These writes to cache are then destaged asynchronously to disk on the R2 array.
Note: For more information on SRDF/S, see the EMC Solutions Enabler Symmetrix SRDF Family CLI Product Guide, available at http://support.emc.com.

In an unbalanced configuration, where the R2 data resides on a lowerperforming tier than on the R1, performance impact may be seen at the host if the number of write pendings builds up and writes to cache are delayed on the R2 array. With FAST VP, this typically does not cause a problem, as the promotions that occur on the R2 side are the result of write activity. Areas of the thin devices under heavy write workload are likely to be promoted and maintained on the higher-performing tiers on the R2 array. To avoid potential problems with the configuration becoming unbalanced, it is recommended that FAST VP SRDF coordination be enabled in SRDF/S environments. In SRDF asynchronous (SRDF/A) mode, host writes are transferred asynchronously in predefined time periods or delta sets. At any given time, there are three delta sets in effect: The capture set, the transmit/receive set, and the apply set.
Note: For more information on SRDF/A, see the EMC Solutions Enabler Symmetrix SRDF Family CLI Product Guide, available at http://support.emc.com.

A balanced SRDF configuration is more important for SRDF/A, as data cannot transition from one delta set to the next until the apply set has

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completed destaging to disk. If the data resides on a lower-performing tier on the R2 array, compared to the R1, then the SRDF/A cycle time may elongate and eventually cause the SRDF/A session to drop. This is similar to SRDF/S mode in most environments, so this may not be a large issue, as the data under write workload is promoted and maintained on the higher-performing tiers. To avoid potential problems with the configuration becoming unbalanced, it is strongly recommended that FAST VP SRDF coordination be enabled in SRDF/A environments. SRDF/A DSE (delta set extension) should be considered to prevent SRDF/A sessions from dropping in situations where writes propagated to the R2 array are being destaged to a lower tier, potentially causing an elongation of the SRDF/A cycle time.
Note: For more information on SRDF/DSE, see the Best Practices for EMC SRDF/A Delta Set Extension Technical Note, available at http://support.emc.com. SRDF failover

As FAST VP works independently on both the R1 and R2 arrays, it should be expected that the data layout will be different on each side if SRDF coordination is not enabled. When an SRDF failover operation is performed, and host applications are brought up on the R2 devices, it should then also be expected that the performance characteristics on the R2 will be different from those on the R1. In this situation, it takes FAST VP some period of time to adjust to the change in workload and start promotion-and-demotion activities based on the mixed read-and-write workload. To better prepare for a failover, and to shorten the time period to achieve an adjustment to the new workload, FAST VP SRDF coordination should be enabled.
Note: FAST VP performance metrics are only transmitted from R1 to R2. When failed over, and with applications are running on R2 devices, performance metrics will not be sent from R2 to R1.

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Personality swap

An SRDF personality swap follows a similar pattern of behavior to an SRDF failover scenario. Applications are brought up on the devices that were formerly R2 devices. For performance metrics to be transmitted from the new R1 devices to the corresponding R2 devices, SRDF coordination needs to be enabled on the storage groups containing the R1 devices. SRDF coordination can be enabled in advance on a storage group containing R2 devices. However, the setting only takes effect when a personality swap is performed, converting the R2 devices to R1.
SRDF bi-directional

Best-practice recommendations change slightly in a bi-directional SRDF environment. In this case, each Symmetrix array has both R1 and R2 devices configured. With SRDF coordination enabled, it is possible that data belonging to an R2 device could displace data belonging to an R1 device on a higher tier. This may happen if the R2 devices corresponding R1 device has a higher workload than the local R1 device. In this scenario, it is recommended to reserve the EFD tier for R1 device usage. This can be done by excluding any EFD tiers from the policies associated with the R2 devices. Should a failover be performed, then the EFD tier can be added dynamically to the policy associated with the R2 devices. Alternatively, the storage group containing the R2 devices could be reassociated with a policy containing EFD.
Note: This recommendation assumes that the lower tiers are of sufficient capacity and I/O capability to handle the expected SRDF write workload on the R2 devices.

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EFD considerations

If there is a smaller EFD configuration on the remote array, it is recommended not to include the EFD tier in the FAST VP policies on the R2 array. Similarly, if the EFD configuration on the R2 array does not follow the best-practice guideline of being balanced across DAs, do not include the EFD tier on the R2 side.
Note: This recommendation assumes that the lower tiers are of sufficient capacity and I/O capability to handle the expected SRDF write workload on the R2 devices.

FAST VP Compression FAST VP Compression automates VP compression for thin devices that are managed by FAST VP. The behavior of FAST VP Compression is controlled by two configuration parameters: FAST VP Time to Compress and FAST VP Compression Rate. FAST VP Compression also requires that at least one tier within the policy contains at least one thin pool that has been enabled for VP compression.
FAST VP Time to Compress

The FAST VP Time to Compress parameter enables the use of FAST VP Compression and sets the inactivity threshold for when data becomes eligible for compression. The time to compress can be configured to be between 40 and 400 days, as well as never. The default is never, meaning FAST VP will not automatically compress any data. Prior to enabling FAST VP Compression, users should have an understanding of their typical business cycle, and the frequency at which all data may be considered active. For example, end-of-month reporting or batch processing. As a best practice, the time to compress should initially be set to a minimum of 40 days. This ensures data needed for any potential end-ofmonth activity during the month the data was created in will not be compressed prior to the end of that month. If the typical access cycle for data stretches over a business quarter (three
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months), it would then be appropriate to set the time to compress to a minimum of 100 days.
FAST VP Compression Rate

The FAST Compression Rate is a quality of service setting for the automated VP compression performed by FAST VP. It affects the aggressiveness with which data is compressed, after it has been inactive beyond the time-to-compress value. The compression rate can be configured to be between 1 and 10, with 1 being the most aggressive. Setting the compression rate to 1 allows FAST VP to attempt to compress data as quickly as possible. However, if there is a large amount of data to be compressed, this may add additional overhead to the back end, potentially impacting the host I/O response times. Setting the compression rate to the least aggressive value, 10, causes FAST VP to greatly reduce the amount of data that will be compressed at any given time. This setting is less likely to impact the host response time, but it will take longer for the compression to complete. The default value for the compression rate is 5. However, the bestpractice recommendation for the initial deployment of FAST VP is to start with a more conservative value, perhaps 7 or 8. At a later date, when the level of impact compression has on the array has been observed, the compression rate can potentially be increased to a more aggressive setting.
Compression-enabled tiers

In order for data to be automatically compressed it must be allocated in a thin pool that has been enabled for compression. Compression can be enabled on any pool, or any location (internal or external), and any technology type (EFD, FC, SATA). Typically, any data that has been inactive for a period of time longer than the time to compress will have already been demoted to the lowest

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tier in the policy. As such, the recommendation for FAST VP Compression is that only the lowest tier configured for the Symmetrix VMAX array, internal or external, should be enabled for compression. Migration to a FAST VP environment Migrating from a non-tiered environment to a tiered environment can provide several challenges. Considerations must be made regarding both capacity and performance. From a capacity perspective, not all the data on the single-tiered storage array may fit into any one tier on the multi-tiered array, so migrations must be planned very carefully. When performing a migration to thin devices, it is possible that the thin devices may become fully allocated as a result of the migration. Because of this, the target thin devices being migrated to should be configured in such a way that 100 percent of the space required to complete the migration is available.
Note: The possibility of a migration fully allocating the target thin devices can be mitigated by employing existing zero-space reclamation tools. For more information refer to Zero space reclamation on page 84.

From a performance perspective, there are two different aspects to be considered. The first is the performance of the data on the target array when the migration has completed. The second aspect is the performance of the migration itself. Any migration into a multi-tiered environment should consider whether the target tier can provide a sufficient level of performance to the applications migrated until such time that FAST VP can appropriately redistribute the data across multiple tiers. Similarly, the target tiers should be able to absorb a large amount of writes at a performance level that allows the migration to complete in an acceptable timeframe. Migration planning When migrating into a multi-tiered FAST VP environment, there are three primary migration methods available, each of which has options to ensure the necessary space is available to the target thin devices. The three methods are:
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Migration to a single tier Migration to multiple tiers Migration to a FAST VP policy

The following sections discuss the options available to ensure sufficient space is available to complete the migration successfully for each migration method.
Migration to a single tier

When migrating to a thin device, the device can only be bound to a single pool. Typically, all thin devices being used for a single application are bound to the same pool. In this scenario, the target pool needs to have sufficient space to allow each of the thin devices to be fully allocated in order to guarantee the migration will be completed successfully. If the target pool has less free space than is needed, the pool reserve capacity (PRC) can be increased prior to the migration in order to make the space available. Increasing the PRC makes less space available in the pool for use by FAST VP. As a result, if the PRC of a pool is increased to a level greater than the percent of free space in the pool, FAST VP actively starts moving data out of the pool in order to bring the percent of free space in line with the new PRC value. For example, if a pool is 200 TB in size and has a PRC of 10 percent defined, 180 TB is available for use by FAST VP. Increasing the PRC to 20 percent means that only 160 TB is available to FAST VP. If the pool was 170 TB allocated to devices managed by FAST VP prior to the increase in PRC, FAST VP would attempt to relocate 10 TB worth of data to decrease the allocation level to 160 TB. Prior to starting a migration, the PRC should be changed to a level that reserves the required capacity in the pool the target devices are bound to. When migrating to a single tier, the target devices should not be associated with a FAST VP policy until after the migration has completed.

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Note: Depending on the amount of data to be moved, and the existing level of activity on the array, it may take a significant amount of time to move data from the pool to reach the new PRC level. As such, any decision to increase the PRC for the purposes of a migration should be made well in advance of the migration being executed. Migration to multiple tiers

If there is insufficient space in a single pool to accept all the data to be migrated, it may be necessary to involve multiple thin pools on the target array. Migration to multiple tiers implies that the target thin devices are not all bound to a single pool. Rather, multiple target pools are used to complete the migration. Individual target devices should be bound to the most appropriate pool to complete the migration of each device. The appropriateness of the pool used can be based on the amount of free capacity of the pool, but also on the performance requirements of the devices being migrated. For example, the most active devices can be migrated to a pool, or pools, in the FC tier, while the remaining, less active devices are bound to a pool, or pools, in the SATA tier. Ideally, performance data for the devices being migrated is available prior to the planning of the migration. If this information is not available, a determination should be made as to which are the most performancesensitive devices being migrated. Care should be exercised when migrating a large amount of data to the SATA tier. If the tier is configured with RAID 6 protection, the migration activity will generate a higher level of write activity to the disk drives. This could impact both the performance of the migration as well as the overall performance of the target storage array. When migrating to multiple tiers, the target devices should not be associated with a FAST VP policy until the migration has completed.
Migration to a FAST VP policy

If there is insufficient space in a single target pool to accept all the migration data, the VP Allocation by FAST VP Policy feature may be used to aid the migration. Using allocation by policy, the target thin
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devices can all be bound to a single pool. Prior to starting the migration, the target devices should also be associated with a FAST VP policy. With the allocation by policy feature enabled, if the pool to which the target devices are bound fills up during the migration, allocations spills over to other pools in the FAST VP policy. As long as there is sufficient space in the pools within the FAST VP policy, all the data will be migrated successfully. As with a migration to multiple tiers, care should be taken when migrating a large amount of data to drives configured with RAID 6 protection. FAST VP also cannot take the performance requirements of the data being migrated into account, since no performance history is available. This means that highly active data may end up being placed on a lowerperforming tier while inactive data may be placed on a higherperforming tier. For some period of time after the migration, the migrated data may suffer from degraded performance until such time that FAST VP has the opportunity to optimize the layout of the data for the actual workload. When using the migration to a FAST VP policy strategy, the target devices should be associated with a policy prior to the migration starting.
Zero space reclamation

Because of the potential for a migration to fully allocate the target thin device, Virtual Provisioning zero space reclamation should be used following the migration to deallocate zero data copied during the migration. It is recommended to pin thin devices managed by FAST VP prior to starting a zero-space-reclamation task on them. If either SRDF or Open Replicator is being used, the zero-detection capability of each should be used during the migration. This can prevent target thin devices from being fully allocated during the migration itself.

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Upgrade planning When planning a drive upgrade in a multi-tier, FAST VP environment, the biggest question is to which tier capacity should be added. In trying to determine that, an understanding is required of the increase in overall workload for the storage array that will come as a result of the added capacity. If it is anticipated that not much additional workload will be generated, and the existing configuration is providing satisfactory performance, it may be appropriate to simply add more capacity to the SATA tier.
Note: Adding capacity to only one tier will change the relative percentage of data that can live on the other tiers, which may cause some of the current workloads to be migrated to new (perhaps lower) tiers in the future.

If a large increase in workload is anticipated, however, the overall performance of the array and the performance of each storage tier need to be considered before deciding where capacity should be added. The following sections describe some key performance indicators (KPIs) available in Performance Analyzer that can be viewed, along with some general considerations, to help determine how a drive upgrade should be planned. System From the system level, the overall activity level of the array should be examined, including the total number of I/Os being performed, as well as the read/write workload mix. Performance metrics should also be examined to differentiate between the front-end workload and the backend workload. Performance metrics that should be looked at in Performance Analyzer include: Host IOs/sec % Reads % Writes Host MBs/sec BE IOs/sec BE Reads/sec
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BE Writes/sec

% Cache write pending

Systems with a high number of writes, or high percentage of writes, should consider adding drives to the higher-performing tiers, EFD and FC. If FC is configured as RAID 1, this may be the most appropriate tier to expand.
Note: Systems with a high write-pending level are likely to need additional cache installed as a part of supporting any significant increase in the usable capacity of the array.

Virtual Pool tiers The workload and behavior of each individual tier should also be examined, primarily at the back end. Metrics that should be looked at in Performance Analyzer include: BE Reqs/sec BE % Reads BE % Writes BE Avg Response Time Total Pool Capacity (GB) Used Pool Capacity (GB)
Note: If a tier contains multiple pools, these metrics should be examined for each individual pool in the tier.

Tiers with higher response times, or a higher used-capacity percentage, are most likely to benefit from being expanded. Expanding a higher tier may reduce the workload on a lower tier as more active data is promoted upwards. Back-end directors One of the best-practice recommendations for FAST VP is to have a balanced configuration on the back end of the VMAX storage array. As a result, the workload on each back-end director (DA) should be examined

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to determine if a similar workload is being seen on each DA. If not, the upgrade plan should include drives to achieve a better balance. The relevant performance metrics for the DAs include: IOs/sec % Reads % Writes

% Busy

Ideally, each logical DA should have a similar workload profile for each of these metrics. Should any imbalance exist, the drive upgrade should include the correct mix of drives to achieve balance on the DAs.

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Conclusion

Conclusion
EMC Symmetrix VMAX FAST VP for Virtual Provisioning environments automates the identification of active or inactive application data for the purposes of reallocating that data across different performance/capacity tiers within an array. FAST VP proactively monitors workloads at both the LUN and sub-LUN level in order to identify busy data that would benefit from being moved to higher-performing drives. FAST VP also identifies less-busy data that could be moved to higher-capacity drives, without existing performance being affected. This promotion/demotion activity is based on policies that associate a storage group to multiple drive technologies, or RAID protection schemes, by way of thin storage pools, as well as the performance requirements of the application contained within the storage group. Data movement executed during this activity is performed non-disruptively, without affecting business continuity and data availability.

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Appendix A: FAST VP state

Appendix A: FAST VP state


There are five possible states that the FAST controller can be reported in. These are: Enabled: All FAST VP functions are performed. Performance data collection, performance data analysis, data-movement request generation, and data-movement execution. Disabled: Only performance data collection is performed. Data analysis is not performed, and data movement is not executed. Disabling: The transition of the FAST controller from Enabled to Disabled. DisabledwithError: The FAST controller has stopped operation due to an internal error. Statistics collection and FAST VP performance data movements continue to be performed, however, FAST VP compliance movements are not performed. Degraded: FAST VP can perform some or all of its functions. However, it cannot perform each function fully.

Enabled state When the state of the FAST controller is queried, and the state is Enabled, the current activity being performed by the controller is also displayed. Valid activities include: Idle: The FAST controller is currently idle. RunningPlan: There are currently active data-movement tasks running, moving thin device data between tiers.

Degraded state When the state of the FAST controller is Degraded, a reason code is displayed when the FAST state is queried, and it indicates the cause of the degraded state. These reason codes include: Invalid Swap/Performance time windows: At least one of the defined time windows is invalid. To correct, each time window should be checked, and any invalid time windows should be deleted or modified. Invalid device attributes: One or more storage groups have an invalid priority in a FAST policy. To correct, each storage groups priority should be checked in the FAST policy they are associated
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Appendix A: FAST VP state

with. Any invalid priority should be modified to a valid value. Invalid FAST parameters: One or more of the FAST controller configuration settings are invalid. To correct, each configuration setting should be checked and set to a valid value. Performance time window is not present or does not extend into the future: No performance time window, default or user-defined, exists, or any that do exist have expired. To correct, a valid, inclusion performance time window should be created. FAST thin move time window is not present or does not extend into the future: No thin data movement time window, default or userdefined, exists, or any that do exist have expired. To correct, a valid, inclusion thin data movement time window should be created. FAST VP compliance movement failed: The most recent attempt to perform a FAST VP compliance movement was not successful. EMC customer service should be contacted to investigate the reason for the failure. If a subsequent attempt to perform a compliance movement is successful, the degraded state is cleared. FAST VP performance movement policy update failed: The most recent attempt to generate a data-movement policy failed. EMC customer service should be contacted to investigate. If a subsequent attempt to generate a movement policy is successful, the degraded state is cleared. FAST VP is not licensed: An entitlement file including FAST VP has not been loaded to the Symmetrix array. To correct, the appropriate entitlement file should be obtained from EMC and loaded to the Symmetrix array. Statistics collection is failing for thin devices - No Performance movement will happen: Performance statistics are not being collected for thin devices under FAST VP control. EMC Customer Service should be contacted to investigate. If a subsequent attempt to collect statistics is successful, the degraded state is cleared. Timed out attempting to communicate with the FAST controller: Either the FAST controller running on the service processor is unavailable, or the service processor itself is unavailable. EMC Customer Service should be contacted to investigate.

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Appendix B: Feature support

Appendix B: Feature support


The following table describes the minimum Enginuity and management interface levels needed to support various FAST VP features.

Feature FAST VP (Base)

Enginuity 5875.135.91

Management interface Solutions Enabler V7.3 SMC 7.3 Unisphere for VMAX 1.0

Setting PRC per pool

5875.198.38

Solutions Enabler V7.3.1 SMC 7.3.1 Unisphere for VMAX 1.0

VP Allocation by FAST Policy FAST VP SRDF coordination FAST VP SRDF coordination for multi-site SRDF External tier (FTS)

5876.82.57

Solutions Enabler V7.4 Unisphere for VMAX 1.0

5876.82.57

Solutions Enabler V7.4 Unisphere for VMAX 1.0

5876.229.145

Solutions Enabler V7.6 Unisphere for VMAX 1.6

5876.82.57

Solutions Enabler V7.4 Unisphere for VMAX 1.0

Storage group reassociation

5876.82.57

Solutions Enabler V7.4 Unisphere for VMAX 1.0

FAST VP for CKD

5876.82.57

Solutions Enabler V 7.4 Unisphere for VMAX 1.0

FAST VP for IBM i

5876.82.57

Solutions Enabler V 7.4 Unisphere for VMAX 1.0

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Appendix B: Feature support

FAST VP Compression

5876.159.102

Solutions Enabler V7.5 Unisphere for VMAX 1.5

Four tiers in a FAST VP policy User-defined FTS tier

5876.159.102

Solutions Enabler V 7.5 Unisphere for VMAX 1.5

5876.159.102

Solutions Enabler V7.5 Unisphere for VMAX 1.5

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Appendix C: Best practices quick reference

Appendix C: Best practices quick reference


The following provides a quick reference to the general best-practice recommendations for planning the implementation of a FAST VP environment. The best practices documented are based on features available in Enginuity 5876.229.145, Solutions Enabler V7.6, and Unisphere for VMAX 1.6.
Note: For more details on these recommendations, and other considerations, see Best practice considerations on page 56.

FAST VP configuration parameters FAST VP includes multiple configuration parameters that control its behavior. This appendix provides a brief summary of each of the best-practice recommendations. For more details on each recommendation, click on a heading to redirect to the appropriate section of the document.
Performance time window

Use the default performance time window to collect performance metrics 24 hours a day, every day.
Data movement time window

Create a data movement window to allow data movement for the same period of time that the performance time windows allow data collection.
Workload Analysis Period (WAP)

The best-practice recommendation for the Workload Analysis Period is to match it to the performance time window to cover one calendar week.
Initial Analysis Period (IAP)

At the initial deployment of FAST VP, set the Initial Analysis Period to 168 hours to ensure that a typical weekly workload cycle is seen. After this period has passed, the value can be dropped to 24 hours.
FAST VP Relocation Rate (FRR)

For the initial deployment of FAST VP, start with a conservative value for the relocation rate, perhaps 7 or 8. At a later date, the FRR can be gradually lowered to a more aggressive level.
Pool Reserved Capacity (PRC)

For individual pools with bound thin devices, set the PRC based on the lowest allocation
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Appendix C: Best practices quick reference

warning level for that thin pool. For pools with no bound thin devices, set the PRC to 1 percent.
VP Allocation by FAST Policy

VP Allocation by FAST Policy should be enabled.


FAST VP Time to Compress

The FAST VP Time to Compress should initially be set to a minimum of 40 days to account for a typical monthly workload cycle, or 100 days to account for a three-month cycle.
FAST VP Compression Rate

For the initial deployment of FAST VP, start with a more conservative value for the compression rate, perhaps 7 or 8. At a later date, the compression rate can potentially be increased to a more aggressive setting.
FAST VP Compression

For FAST VP Compression, it is recommended that only the lowest tier configured for the Symmetrix VMAX array, internal or external, be enabled for compression.
FAST VP policy configuration

The ideal FAST VP policy would be 100 percent EFD, 100 percent FC, and 100 percent SATA. While ideal, operationally it may not be appropriate to deploy the 100/100/100 policy. There may be reasons to limit access to a particular tier within the array. The best way to determine the appropriate policies for a FAST VP implementation is to examine the workload skew for the application data to be managed by FAST VP. This can be done by using a tool such as Tier Advisor.
Thin device binding

The best-practice recommendation is to bind all thin devices to a pool within the FC tier. VP allocation by FAST policy should be enabled. It is not recommended to bind thin devices, under FAST VP control, to the EFD tier. A best-practice recommendation is to not pre-allocate thin devices managed by FAST VP.
RAID protection considerations

For EFD, choose RAID 5 (3+1) protection.

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Appendix C: Best practices quick reference


For FC, choose RAID 1 protection. For SATA, choose RAID 6 (6+2) protection.
Drive configuration

Where possible, balance physical drives evenly across DAs. Configure more, smaller EFDs, rather than fewer, larger EFDs, to spread the I/O load as wide as possible.
Storage group priority

The best-practice recommendation is to use the default priority of 2 for all storage groups associated with FAST VP policies.
SRDF

As a general best practice, FAST VP should be employed for both R1 and R2 devices, particularly if the remote R2 array has also been configured with tiered storage capacity. Similar FAST VP tiers and policies should be configured at each site. FAST VP SRDF coordination should be enabled for storage groups containing SRDF R1 devices.

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References

References
EMC Solutions Enabler Symmetrix Array Controls CLI Product Guide EMC Solutions Enabler Symmetrix Array Management CLI Product Guide EMC Solutions Enabler Symmetrix CLI Command Reference HTML Help EMC Solutions Enabler Installation Guide EMC Symmetrix VMAX Series Product Guide
Implementing Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) for EMC VMAX Series Arrays

Best Practices for Fast, Simple Capacity Allocation with EMC Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning Technical Note z/OS and Virtual Provisioning Best Practices Design and Implementation Best Practices for EMC Symmetrix Federated Tiered Storage (FTS) Technical Note Best Practices for Nondisruptive Tiering via EMC Symmetrix Virtual LUN Technical Note

Copyright 2013 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.


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