Introduction To Provisioning; About Provisioning; Key Terms - HP XP7 User Manual

1 Introduction to provisioning

Provisioning a storage system requires balancing the costs of the solution with the benefits that the
solution provides. The following is an overview of provisioning strategies that you can implement
on the HP XP7 Storage to support your business.

About provisioning

Provisioning is a method of managing storage system devices or volumes. Some provisioning
methods are host-based, while others use existing storage system capabilities such as concatenated
array groups. Some provisioning methods are hardware-based, and others are software-based.
Each technique has its particular use and benefit, for example, capacity, reliability, performance,
or cost considerations, in a given storage environment. Used in the wrong scenario, each can be
expensive, awkward, time consuming to configure and maintain, and can be potentially error
prone. Your support representatives are available to help you configure the highest quality solution
for your storage environment.
Provisioning strategies fall into two fundamental categories:
1. "Basic provisioning" (page 11)
2. "Thin Provisioning " (page 13)
physical storage and creating logical devices for hosts.

Key terms

The following are provisioning key terms:
Term
access attributes
CV (variable volume)
expiration lock
FV
meta_resource
page
pool
pool threshold
pool-VOL, pool volume
resource group
subscription limit
10 Introduction to provisioning
(or traditional provisioning).
(or virtual provisioning). Thin provisioning includes pooling
Description
Security function used to control the access to a logical volume. Access attributes are
assigned to each volume: read only, read/write, and protect.
Customized Volume. A fixed volume that is divided into arbitrary sizes.
Security option used to allow or not allow changing of the access attribute on a volume.
Abbreviation for fixed-sized volume. With the exception of OPEN-V, FV is a logical
volume of an emulation type that constitutes a parity group immediately after installation.
The FV size varies according to the emulation type.
A resource group in which additional resources (other than external volumes) and the
resources existing before installing Resource Partition belong.
In Thin Provisioning Z, a page is 38 MB of continuous storage allocated from a THP pool
to store data written to a THP V-VOL.
A set of volumes that are reserved for storing Thin Provisioning Z write data.
In Thin Provisioning Z, the proportion (%) of used capacity of the pool to the total pool
capacity. Each pool has its own pool threshold values for warning and depletion.
A volume that is reserved for storing Thin Provisioning Z data.
A group that is assigned one or more resources of the storage system. The resources that
can be assigned to the resource group are LDEV IDs, parity groups, external volumes,
and ports.
In a thin provisioned storage system, the proportion (%) of total THP V-VOL capacity
associated with the pool versus the total capacity of the THP pool.
You can set the percentage of THP V-VOL capacity that can be created to the total
capacity of the pool. This can help prevent THP V-VOL blocking caused by a full pool.
For example, when the subscription limit is set to 100%, the total THP V-VOL capacity is
equal to the THP pool capacity.