CPGs and AO changes

[LuisPinto]

Hello Everyone!
I am new to this forum and this is my first post. Apologies beforehand for any mistakes I may incur.

First of all, an overview of my current setup:
HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8200
12x 1.2TB FC 10K HDD
8x 480GB 100K SSD
SSMC v3.2.0.23766
Two CPG's in one AO:
1. Raid 5, 4 Data, 1 Parity, Device Type: FC 10K
2. Raid 5, 4 Data, 1 Parity, Device Typr: also FC 10K
And I have volumes in production enviroment on both CPGs.

As you can see, my issue is in the fact that I dont have any CPGs for my SSDs 100K, and that prevents me from using their space capacity and performance but also, I have two CPGs using identical physical drives.

Question #1
My first solution for these issues would be to create a new CPG for my SSDs 100K drives and add it to my AO(tier 2). After that I would promote the SSDs CPG to Tier 0 and demote the FC 10K CPGs to Tier 1 and 2 in order to benefit from the SSDs performance. Would these sequence of events risk data loss or system failure for the current volumes allocated to the already in use FC 10K CPGs?

Question #2
Since I have two CPGs using the same type of physical drives, the logical would be to have one CPG for all drives of that type(FC 10K). How would you recommend me to merge both FC 10K CPGs without risk of data loss or system corruption?

I have been reading the StoreServ Management Console 3.2 User Guide and although most administration tasks are explained I am finding hard to find comments to give me peace of mind on doing these kind of operational changes. Please, I'll be glad to read any materials where these sort of issues are explained.

Thanks in advance.

[Sheldon Smith]

Hello LuisPinto,

Welcome the the forum. First of all, you should update the SSMC to at least v3.3.1. Bug fixes and features. :)

See the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Information Library for all related documentation. The Storage Information Library currently defaults to 3PAR StoreServ Storage documentation. Click on the Products & Solutions green bar for other choices including Storage Switches and StoreOnce Backup.

You will want to review the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage Concepts Guide.
It sounds like you already have the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Management Console Administrator’s Guide and HPE 3PAR StoreServ Management Console User Guide.
In addition, you may want to skim the HPE 3PAR Command Line Interface Administrator's Manual and HPE 3PAR Command Line Interface Reference.
Down in the white papers, start with the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage best practices guide.

Now: The AO configuration you mentioned is a mess and as such completely useless. And I doubt it's doing much anyway since the device types are the same. It's certainly accomplishing nothing. Technically, there is no reason to have two CPGs with only a total of twelve FC disks. With larger systems, sometimes having two or more CPGs like that can help for accounting purposes, such as when there are multiple company divisions and you need to be able to tell how much each is using.

It would help to show us the actual CPGs. The best way is via the command line. The simplest is to use an SSH terminal, such as PuTTY for Windows. Connect to the 3PAR (not the Service Processor) then log in with the same credentials you use with SSMC.
Once at the command line, issue the command "showcpg -sdg" and reply.
It is very likely to make more sense to condense the two FC CPGs into a single CPG.
While you are at it, issue the commands "showaocfg" and "showsched" and reply with their output as well.

Adaptive Optimization uses storage tiers made up of different device types. In your case, Tier0 should be an SSD CPG and Tier1 should be a FC CPG. If it's doing anything now, it's just moving data from FC disk to FC disk. In SSMC under SCHEDULES, look for the schedule that starts AO, then under actions, Disable it.

Assuming you only need a single FC CPG, do you have a preference on which one to keep? We can look at tuning the volumes in the other CPG to all use the one you want to keep.

Reply, and we can point you in the direction you would be best served to go.

Regards

[LuisPinto]

Dear Sheldon Smith,
Thank you very much for your reply.
First of all,  I will be looking into updating the SSMC and also, thanks for the library link provided.

As per requested, see below the output for all commands you mentioned:
LDAHP3PAR cli% showcpg -sdg
------(MB)------
Id Name Warn Limit Grow Args
0 3PAR_SAS - - 32768 -t r5 -ha mag -ssz 5 -p -devtype FC
3 3PAR_SSD - - 8192 -t r5 -ha mag -ssz 5 -ss 64
LDAHP3PAR cli% showaocfg
---------CPG--------- -Min(MB)- --Max(MB)-- -Warn(MB)-- -Limit(MB)-
Id Name T0 T1 T2 T0 T1 T2 T0 T1 T2 T0 T1 T2 T0 T1 T2 Mode
1 AO_CFG_DFLT 3PAR_SSD 3PAR_SAS --- 0 0 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Balanced
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 total
LDAHP3PAR cli% showsched
No scheduled tasks listed

If I would merge the CPGs I would prefer to retain the one named "3PAR_SSD". And also, I cant find any schedules that starts the AO... In fact, I have no schedules at all.

[Sheldon Smith]

Looking at the CPGs, it's questionable how much of the SSD storage has been used, if any. 3PAR_SSD does not specify a device type; the default would be FC.
For now, the command "setcpg -sdgs 8192 -t r5 -ha mag -ssz 4 -p -devtype SSD 3PAR_SSD" will set the 3PAR_SSD CPG to actually use SSDs.
The command "showsched -all" will also show all the system schedules. But seeing nothing, Adaptive Optimization is not active.

Not knowing about your environment and workload, my typical recommendation would be to

1. enable Adaptive Flash Cache with some of the SSD storage
2. have all volumes thinly provisioned
3. tune all volumes use the 3PAR_SAS CPG for both the user and snap CPG

The AO configuration is set with the desired CPGs for the two tiers. It's just that the tier0 CPG should actually use SSDs. ;)
Finally, review your workload to determine the optimal window for analysis as well as the optimal time to run AO daily.
And two more white papers you would be advised to read are for Adaptive Optimization and Adaptive Flash Cache.

You would be well-advised to reach out to HPE's Pointnext consulting group for in-depth analysis, further configuration advice, and knowledge transfer regarding the 3PAR StoreServ.

Regards

[vibeesh1]

Hello

From the update, i understand you have 2 tiers in your system. One is SSD and another one is FC. SO you will get benifited out of AO configuration.

Wat you want to do is to select the FC and SSD CPGs for the AO pool, Keep all VVs Base CPG as FC and let the SSD CPG to be empty without any bas VVs in it.

Then refer the guide and choose appropriate AO pilicy (cost/.balance..etc) and complete the schedule.

Thanks!
Vvb