HP 3PAR StoreServ Concepts Guide: HP 3PAR OS 3.1.3

moving frequently accessed data to the higher-performance tier—for example, RAID 1 using solid
state disks, or SSDs—while infrequently accessed data is moved to the lower-cost tier—for example,
RAID 6 on near line (NL) disks.
Active use of AO requires an HP Adaptive Optimization license. Contact your HP representative
for information.
AO uses HP System Reporter statistics gathered from logical disks and physical disks to relocate
customer data on physical volumes in an optimal way. AO relocation accomplishes two primary
goals:
• Increases performance of frequently accessed regions of data by moving those regions to
higher-tier storage (for example, moving to solid state drives from normal spinning media).
• Improves cost-efficiency by moving lightly accessed regions of data to a lower performance
and less expensive tier of storage (for example, moving from regular drives to nearline drives).
Because storage tiers can be of different RAID types, capacity efficiency is maximized by using
only RAID1 for the most frequently accessed storage and by using RAID5 or RAID6 for less frequently
accessed storage. Other benefits include:
• AO can migrate data from a fully occupied tier of storage to another tier that has more
available capacity.
• AO can also be regularly scheduled so that it can adjust the data layout as your data usage
changes over time.
AO is built on top of the new version of HP System Reporter (SR), which also now runs as part of
the HP 3PAR OS. SR must have been actively gathering data on virtual volume regions for a period
of time.
Analysis of the data collected by SR is performed to identify regions within virtual volumes that are
either heavily used or lightly used, and then generates a series of secondary tasks to move these
regions to faster or slower storage tiers.
Running AO on the HP 3PAR OS itself offers these advantages:
• AO configurations can now be created, modified, and removed using the CLI or the HP 3PAR
Management Console.
• Beginning with HP 3PAR 3.1.2, the external HP System Reporter is no longer necessary to
use Adaptive Optimization
• The database scheme has been restructured on node to be more efficient and reliable.
• The actual movement of data can use data from a given time period in the past rather than
only from the immediate past. This means data movement can occur at low-utilization time
periods while using an analysis of statistics gathered during peak periods.
• A time limit can be set for data movement so that scheduled data is moved only during
low-utilization periods rather than during peak periods.
If data service times become too high and meet a latency threshold then AO will move the data
from a lower-cost tier drive to a high performance drive tier.
Latency thresholds by drive type:
MillisecondsDrive Type
15 msSolid State Drive
40 msFiber Channel Drive
60 msNearline Drive
58 Enhanced Storage Applications