Third-party information provided to you courtesy of Dell. DELL/EMC CX SERIES INITIAL CONFIGURATION BEST PRACTICES PLANNING Abstract This white paper provides basic best practice recommendations for Dell/EMC CX Series® storage system settings. The recommendations provide parameters that will apply to 80 percent of the configurations installed.
Copyright © 2005, 2007 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” EMC CORPORATION MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
CONTENTS Executive summary.............................................................................................5 Introduction..........................................................................................................6 Audience........................................................................................................................................6 General hardware ...............................................................................................
iSCSI connections.......................................................................................................................25 NIC cards.................................................................................................................................25 TOE cards................................................................................................................................25 iSCSI security..............................................................................
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This white paper is provided to expedite deployment of the Dell/EMC® CX3 Series. It defines how to best implement the new/enhanced technology into customer environments. The paper provides best practices that will satisfy 80 percent of customer configurations; they meet the 80/20 rule. (The 80/20 rule states if X is done, X will satisfy 80 percent of the situations or configurations.) The guidelines in this white paper are not rules but rather recommendations within the rules.
INTRODUCTION Customers are requiring simpler installs on Dell/EMC CX Series CX3 Series storage systems. One way to accommodate this requirement, without reducing the power and flexibility of Dell/EMC CX Series storage systems, is to provide best practices that meet the 80/20 rule. Many customers have requested that EMC provide basic recommendations for configurations, and have suggested that EMC “put a stake in the ground” for most configurations.
capacity drive in the RAID group. This usually coincides with the capacity of the replaced drive. • Rotational speed – ATA and SATA-II drives currently have a rotational speed of 7,200 revolutions per minute (rpm). Fibre Channel drives that rotate at 7,200, 10,000, or 15,000 rpm are available. • Backend speed – EMC provides two different back-end speed drives for CX3 systems. The two available speeds are 4 Gb/s or 2 Gb/s.
RAID group settings This type of table is used throughout the document. It follows what Navisphere Manager presets for a particular configuration area. Table headings indicate the following: • Set is the 80 percent recommendation for the particular parameter. • Default Setting is what the system presents to the user. • Notes provide either extra explanation or mitigating circumstances that could cause different settings. Table 1.
LUNs LUNs are created from a RAID group. The RAID type for a RAID group will be assigned when the first LUN is bound on the RAID group. LUNs can be bound in many different ways on a Dell/EMC CX Series. For maximum availability all LUNs should be bound with protected RAID, such as RAID 1/0, or RAID 5. A number of hot spares should also be bound (see hot spares section). LUN creation settings Table 2 lists the recommended settings for creating LUNs. Table 2.
Special LUN considerations When binding LUNs destined for the reserved LUN pool, give these LUNs high numbers. Place these LUNs in the “private LUN number” range. If the array to be configured supports a max of 2,048 addressable LUNs, then these reserved LUNs should start at 2100 and increase as more reserved LUNs are added. LUN expansion: MetaLUNs Create metaLUNs from LUNs in separate RAID 5 RAID groups. Use the striping method and wait for the extra space.
MetaLUN settings Table 3 describes the user-defined and default parameters for metaLUNs Table 3. MetaLUN settings Set Default setting Notes Striping Striping The user will need to wait for the striping to complete before the space can be made available to the host. LUN Expansion Type of expansion Select LUN All LUNs that meet the rules will be displayed. Select one LUN. User capacity GB GB This part of the capacity represents the units of measure.
• Response Time – This is the time it takes to complete a transaction. A transaction can be one or many I/Os. Typical response time is calculated on a per-I/O basis. Online transaction processing (OLTP) environments typically measure response time by a full transaction, which is usually many I/Os. Online transaction processing (OLTP) OLTP environments have special behaviors and requirements. Typically, a database will have two primary components: the table space and the log.
paper published by Microsoft for the correct configuration. You can also use EMC Dell/EMC CX Series Storage Solutions Microsoft Exchange 2003 Best Practices on EMC Powerlink. Backup-to-disk Backup-to-disk is sequential in nature and typically uses medium (64 KB) to large (256 KB) I/O sizes. For these types of applications use ATA or SATA-II drives, although you can use Fibre Channel drives.
Drive size EMC has currently certified different FC and ATA/SATA-II drive capacities. EMC does not require any specific disk size within the supported list of disk sizes and types. Select disk sizes and types based on capacity and performance requirements. Drive technology The chosen technology must match the performance requirements of the customer application. For OLTP environments, data warehouses, and environments where response time1 is critical, use FC drives.
Alternating 8+1 and 4+1 Raid groups KEY: Vault drive All groups are Raid 5 Hot spare Figure 1. Alternating 8+1 and 4+1 RAID groups 8+1 Raid groups All groups are Raid 5 KEY: ---- Vault drives setup as a 4+1 RAID 5 ---- Hot spare Figure 2.
Raid 1/0 configuration All groups are Raid 1/0 KEY: ---- Vault drives ---- Hot spare Figure 3.
Storage Groups A single-host system connected to the CX3 Series storage system will be added to a dedicated Storage Group. Multi-system cluster nodes will be added to a shared resource Storage Group for disk access. EMC does not provide a Storage Group naming standard as a best practice. Create a Storage Group Storage Groups must be defined before you can assign LUNs to a specific host. Table 4 describes the user-defined and default parameters to create a Storage Group. Table 4.
Caching For 80 percent of the configurations, enable both read and write cache. Assign as much as possible to write cache. Split the remaining memory between SP A read cache and SP B read cache. Ensure that read and write cache is enabled for each LUN. Cache settings and other SP information Table 6 describes the user-defined and default storage system properties. Table 6.
The Dell/EMC CX Series allows reverting to a prior revision as long as the FLARE code has not been committed. The tradeoffs are: • No changes are allowed to the Dell/EMC CX Series. • New features in the new revision of FLARE may not be usable. Not committing allows you to confirm that the basic I/O functions work in your environment. Once committed, the FLARE code can only be upgraded. EMC recommends committing the new FLARE revision at installation.
In-array management EMC supports management of the Dell/EMC CX Series directly. The storage system limits recommended for off-array management also apply to in-array management. EMC does not have a best practice for which management method to use; both off-array and in-array are effective ways to manage a Dell/EMC CX Series. Follow your corporate standards for Navisphere user account names. This will cut down on confusion and allow for better accounting and security measures.
Event Monitor The default template provides logging capability only. Critical and hard errors will be logged. Do not change this template. Event Monitor settings In the Monitors tab of the Navisphere UI, right-click Templates and select Create New Template. ClarAlert will use Event Monitor, so at the minimum use these settings. If you wish to extend alerting internally to your company, use the other options shown in Table 7. Table 7.
Phone Home settings Table 8 describes the user-defined and default Phone Home settings. Table 8. Phone Home settings Events Set Default setting Notes Explicit Events General Events were selected by EMC Log to System Logs Do not change Box checked Combine Events for Storage System.
For SNMP notification, enable SNMP traps in event monitor. Use the Phone Home template for the list of errors. See Table 10 for the SNMP settings. Table 10. SNMP settings Set Default setting SNMP Management Host Enter target host Field empty Community Enter community Field empty Notes SNMP Tab SNMP traps Object Identifiers (OIDs) uniquely identify any object on a network. See Table 11 for a list of OIDs contained in a Dell/EMC CX Series trap. Table 11.
SECURITY This section discusses access rights and protection mechanisms in the Dell/EMC CX Series. Storage systems All Dell/EMC CX Series should be in a secure room. The only “back door” access to the Dell/EMC CX Series requires physical access to the serial port. Enable security on each installed Dell/EMC CX Series. This establishes the username-password access to the user interface (UI).
CONNECTIVITY This section discusses the different connectivity methods. Management EMC has customers that use either the on-array or off-array Navisphere management. Provide one LAN connection to each Dell/EMC CX Series SP. Use Host Agents to automate connectivity of hosts at boot time. The agent is not always necessary if a connection was already established, but it will be needed after a power fail and a restart of the Dell/EMC CX Series. Therefore, it is recommended to always run the Host Agent.
For HBA device driver settings, driver levels, or components in the data path, tape or disk configurations should include any patches, firmware updates, or configuration settings for each component in or on the data path. Emulex HBAs Use the EMC setting in the HBA configuration utility. Supported Emulex HBAs and driver revs can be found in the EMC Support Matrix on EMC Powerlink. Settings for Emulex Use the settings defined in the Emulex driver installation manual for the specific HBA.
Fibre Channel SAN link speed The recommended Dell/EMC CX Series link speed is 4 Gb/s. In any case, EMC recommends setting the link speed to auto. If the switch does not support 4 Gb/s, then the Dell/EMC CX Series SP port will automatically set itself to the lower speed. Currently, the port-speed choices are auto, 4 Gb/s, 2 Gb/s and 1Gb/s. Set the switch to auto negotiate. Zoning EMC strongly recommends World Wide Name (WWN) zoning on all switches in the SANs. EMC also recommends single initiator zoning.
Figure 4 shows the recommended path layout for a single host. This configuration provides both failover and load-balancing capability. Server H B A 0 0 1 2 3 SP A Mirrored Cache H B A 1 0 1 2 3 SP B Mirrored Cache Figure 4. Single host path layout DMP VERITAS DMP is supported on Windows, HP/UX, Solaris and Linux systems. DMP can coexist with PowerPath, but no load balancing will be provided by DMP.
little performance advantage to splitting the disks across all the buses, so configuring the disks across all different buses is not worth the added complexity. Back-end connectivity Back-end connectivity is controlled by the EMC installer to help minimize complexity and maximize balance of the number of disks on a pair of back-end buses. Let Dell/EMC CX Series manage its own back end connectivity. Clustering EMC supports several clustering products.
Dell/EMC CX Seriess can be used to accommodate these configurations. This is considered outside the 80 percent rule for best practices. Consultation is required for these configurations. Windows clusters: Microsoft Cluster Server Current SCSI port or SCSI miniport drivers cannot share the same path for the boot device as for the shared cluster devices. As a result, a dedicated adapter is required for each path (if booting from internal disk, it is already on a separate Adapter).
Exchange environments Exchange environments are defined by size and load. Size is measured in numbers of users, and load is defined as the number of I/O per second per user. • Small environments are less than 1,000 users. • Medium environments have 1,000 to 5,000 users. • Large environment have greater than 5,000 users. • Light loads are less than .18 IOPS (OWA and POP3) per user. • Medium loads consist of .4 to 1 IOPS (Outlook Rich Client) per user. • Heavy loads consist of greater than .
Drives per RAID group Select 5, 9, 2, or 1 for the number of drives per RAID group. 5= 4+1 RAID 5 9 = 8+1 RAID 5 2 = 1+1 RAID 1 or RAID 1/0 1 = Hot spare Cabinets A second cabinet is required once a total of 11 DAEs has been reached. A third cabinet is required once a total of 13 DAEs has been reached in the second cabinet. CONCLUSION This white paper describes the Dell/EMC CX Series storage system and the connection settings that satisfy 80 percent of the Dell/EMC CX Series environments.
The information contained in this document, including all instructions, cautions, and regulatory approvals and certifications, is provided by EMC Corporation and has not been independently verified or tested by Dell. Dell cannot be responsible for damage caused as a result of either following or failing to follow these instructions. All statements or claims regarding the properties, capabilities, speeds or qualifications of the part referenced in this document are made by EMC and not by Dell.
