HP XP P9500 Storage - Manual (Page 11)

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 P9500 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 falls into two fundamental categories:
•
“Basic provisioning” (page 11) (or traditional provisioning).
•
“Thin Provisioning Overview” (page 13) (or virtual provisioning). Thin provisioning includes
pooling physical storage and creating logical devices for hosts.
Basic provisioning
Several basic provisioning techniques traditionally are used to manage storage volumes. These
strategies are useful in specific scenarios based on user needs, such as whether you use open or
mainframe storage systems, or you prefer manual or automated control of your storage resources.
Basic provisioning relies on carving up physical storage into smaller units. Custom sizing is possible,
and requires using Virtual LVI software.
Basic provisioning includes:
•
“Fixed-sized provisioning” (page 11)
•
“Custom-sized provisioning” (page 12)
Fixed-sized provisioning
Fixed-sized provisioning is the logical choice for mainframe systems that need to be compatible
with IBM systems. It is easy to define the storage system, and then get on with your business. Later,
you can attach additional storage as the initial volumes fill up.
Fixed-sized provisioning is a good choice for mainframe systems.
Disadvantages
Some disadvantages to using fixed-sized provisioning are:
•
If you use only part of the entire capacity specified by an emulation type, the rest of the
capacity is wasted.
•
After creating fixed-sized volumes, typically some physical capacity will be wasted due to
being less than the fixed-size capacity.
•
In a fixed-sized environment, manual intervention can become a costly and tedious exercise
when a larger volume size is required.
About provisioning 11