Storage space and service management

After deployment and storage system attachment, the IBM Spectrum Connect administrators must define the new virtual entities, resulting in simpler and more flexible storage management.

Note: The virtual volume functionality is supported by storage systems that run IBM Spectrum Virtualize (7.6 or later).

The virtual storage entities include:

  • Storage service – A combination of assigned storage resources (pools) and user-defined policies (capabilities). The storage resources which are assigned to the service may reside on any storage system, as illustrated below. The policies are additional capabilities, or storage requirements for the service. They are compression, encryption, etc.
  • Storage space – A logical grouping of several storage services. Usually, a single space is assigned to a specific organization (storage tenant).
Figure 1. Storage elements without VVol utilization
This image shows the storage elements utilized in a non-VVol environment.

When the use of VMware virtual volumes (VVols) is enabled for a service, its storage resources contain child pools on storage systems that run IBM Spectrum Virtualize.

Figures below illustrate different deployment scenarios for VVol-enabled services.
Figure 2. Single service per space and storage system
This image shows the storage elements utilized in a VVol environment.
Figure 3. Multiple services per storage space and single service per storage system
This image shows the storage elements utilized in a VVol environment.
Figure 4. Multiple services per storage space and storage systems
This image shows the storage elements utilized in a VVol environment.

The combination of storage space and service is created by storage administrators to include the required resource capacity and storage capabilities on a matching storage system. Then the space/service combination is used by VMware administrators for volume provisioning instead of physical objects.