Chapter 3. Ibm System Storage Ds3500 Storage System Planning Tasks - IBM System Storage DS3500 Introduction And Implementation Manual

Draft Document for Review March 28, 2011 12:24 pm
IBM System Storage DS3500
Chapter 3.
Storage System planning tasks
Careful planning is essential to any new storage installation. This chapter provides guidelines
to help you with the planning process.
Choosing the right equipment and software, and also knowing what the right settings are for a
particular installation, can be challenging. Every installation has to answer these questions
and accommodate specific requirements, and there can be many variations in the solution.
Having a well thought-out design and plan prior to the implementation will help you get the
most out of your investment for the present and protect it for the future.
During the planning process, you need to answer numerous questions about your
environment:
What are my SAN requirements?
What hardware do I need to buy?
What reliability do I require?
What redundancy do I need? (For example, do I need off-site mirroring?)
What compatibility issues do I need to address?
Will I use any storage virtualization product such as IBM SAN Volume controller?
Will I use any unified storage product such as the IBM System Storage N series?
What operating system am I going to use (existing or new installation)?
What applications will access the storage subsystem?
What are the hardware and software requirements of these applications?
What will be the physical layout of the installation? Only local site, or remote sites as well?
What level of performance do I need?
How much does it cost?
This list of questions is not exhaustive, and as you can see, certain questions go beyond
simply configuring the storage system. But the focus in this chapter is to help with the creation
of a successful solution and that frequently extends beyond a single subsystem.
Use this chapter as a reference to help you gather the information for the statements.
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