Storage space and service management
After deployment and array attachment, the IBM® Spectrum Control Base Edition administrators define the virtual entities, resulting in simpler and more flexible storage management.
The virtual storage entities include:
- Storage service
- Storage space
A service is a combination of assigned storage resources (pools) and user-defined policies. The storage pools, assigned to the service, may reside on any array, as illustrated below. The policies are additional capabilities, such as compression, encryption, etc.
Spaces are groups of services. Usually, a single space is assigned to a specific organization (storage tenant).
When the use of VMware virtual volumes (VVOLs) is enabled for a service, it is assigned to a space which must reside on a single array (see drawing below). Such array holds a storage resource (group pool) connected to the service. The storage resource consists of the following pools:
- Thin pool for thin provisioning.
- Thick pool for thick provisioning.
- Meta pool for holding VM-related management metadata.
