EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 User Manual

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EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 Product Guide
Performance and Optimization
Virtual Provisioning
Note: Refer to the Symmetrix DMX-3, DMX-4 Enginuity Release Notes and
consult your local EMC Sales Representative for currently supported Virtual
Provisioning features and availability.
This new Enginuity 5773 product enables open systems users to be
granted what appear to be very large quantities of storage space,
while the actual space consumed on physical disk storage is only that
used by actual data being written. Virtual Provisioning can reduce
the amount of allocated but unused storage for appropriate
environments. Virtual Provisioning will support local and remote
replication, including “thin to thin” replication with SRDF and
TimeFinder.
Virtual Provisioning can be set up and managed by Symmetrix
Management Console (SMC) and SYMCLI. Virtual Provisioning can
be purchased under a separate license from EMC.
Virtual Provisioning
description
Virtual Provisioning provides for the separation of the physical
storage devices from the storage devices as perceived by the host
systems. The actual physical storage is not perceived by the host. This
allows alterations in the physical storage to occur without causing
changes which affect the hosts. The result is nondisruptive
provisioning.
Virtual Provisioning has the ability to define to the host servers an
apparent disk configuration that is far larger than current needs. It
may be possible to provision an amount of storage for applications
which will last the life of the applications themselves. This means
applications need to be disrupted much less frequently to make
changes or add storage.
Virtual Provisioning also means simplification of choices as to which
volumes to use for which files. Whether these choices are made by
people or software, the choices will be less often restricted by limited
space. The choices made will more often reflect the needs of
simplicity of management, or performance requirements.
Wide striping allows the data to be spread evenly across a broad pool.
It allows all data in an application group, known in this case as a thin
pool, to be spread fairly evenly across all the disk drives supporting
that group. This balancing of the workload across physical devices
can translate into improved performance. It can reduce queuing and

EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 Specifications

General

Brand	EMC
Model	Symmetrix DMX-3
Category	Storage
Language	English