Thin Provisioning Setup; Restrictions And Notes When Using The Thin Provisioning Function - Fujitsu ETERNUS DX80 S2 User Manual

Chapter 3 Setup

3.1 Thin Provisioning Setup

• When the Thin Provisioning Feature License is purchased as a factory-installed option, the license is
registered as a factory setting.
Attach the license label plate provided with the Thin Provisioning Feature License to the rack rail near the
ETERNUS DX Disk storage system which holds its license, for future reference.
• Check whether the license has already been registered using the provided license label plate or the
ETERNUS Web GUI screen. In the following conditions, the license is registered.
- The license key (barcode and 16-character alphanumerical string) is printed on the "LicenseKey" field
of the license label plate.
- In the Thin Provisioning [License] screen of ETERNUS Web GUI, "Registered" is shown in "Status".
3.1.2 Thin Provisioning Setup
For details on the setup and operation management of the Thin Provisioning function, refer to "ETERNUS Web
GUI User's Guide" or "ETERNUS CLI User's Guide".
For details on operation management when using ETERNUS SF Storage Cruiser, refer to "ETERNUS SF Storage
Cruiser Operation Guide".
3.1.3

Restrictions and Notes When Using the Thin Provisioning Function

The restrictions and points to note when using the Thin Provisioning function are as follows:
• Storage capacity virtualization
- The maximum number of Thin Provisioning Pools (TPP) is 60 for the ETERNUS DX80 S2 and 120 for the
ETERNUS DX90 S2.
- The maximum TPP capacity is 128TB.
- The maximum Thin Provisioning Volume (TPV) capacity is 128TB. Note that the total TPV capacity must
be smaller than the maximum capacity of the TPP.
- Physical allocation to the created virtual volume is performed in units of 32MB when write operations
from a host to a TPV is performed.
- If the usage of a TPP exceeds the threshold, a notification is sent to the address (SNMP Trap, e-Mail, or
syslog) that is specified by the event notification function of ETERNUS Web GUI or ETERNUS CLI. In
addition, the used capacity can be checked with ETERNUS SF Storage Cruiser. Make sure to add drives to
expand the TPP capacity before insufficient TPP capacity is detected.
- The Thin Provisioning function is unsuitable for using with OSes that write meta-information to all of
the LUNs when creating a file system.
- It is recommended that backing up of a TPV is performed in file units. If a complete backup is
performed, areas that are not allocated to the drives are also backed up as dummy data. The dummy
data is also restored when backed up data is restored for a TPV. If this occurs, drive allocation for the
entire volume capacity is required and the Thin Provisioning function does not work.
- Do not use the Thin Provisioning function when tuning performance.
- The encryption status of a TPP cannot be changed once the TPP is created. To create an encrypted TPP,
specify encryption by firmware when creating the TPP or use Self Encrypting Drives (SED) to configure
the TPP.
ETERNUS DX80 S2/DX90 S2 Disk storage system User's Guide -Operation-
42
Copyright 2013 FUJITSU LIMITED P3AM-4842-12ENZ0