C H A P T E R 1

Planning Your Archiving System

This chapter provides an overview of the Sun StorEdge SAM-FS product and outlines design considerations for setting up a Sun StorEdge SAM-FS storage and archive management system. It also provides a high-level overview of the installation process.

This chapter contains the following sections:

- Product Overview

- SAM-Remote

- Design Considerations

- Installation Process Overview

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Product Overview

The Sun StorEdge SAM-FS environment includes a storage and archive manager and a basic file system. The Sun StorEdge SAM-FS software enables data to be archived to automated libraries at device-rated speeds. In addition, it enables data to be archived to files in another file system through a process known as disk archiving. The user is presented with a standard file system interface and can read and write files as though they were all on primary disk storage.

The Sun StorEdge SAM-FS software archives files by copying the files from online disk cache to archive media. The archive media can consist of disk slices in another file system, or it can consist of removable tape or magneto-optical cartridges in automated or manually loaded storage devices. In addition, the Sun StorEdge SAM-FS software automatically maintains online disk space at site-specified usage thresholds. It releases disk space associated with archived file data and restores the files to online disk when they are needed.

If you purchase licenses for both Sun StorEdge QFS and Sun StorEdge SAM-FS software, you can run the Sun StorEdge QFS file system with the storage and archive manager found in the Sun StorEdge SAM-FS software. Such a system is referred to as SAM-QFS.

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SAM-Remote

The Sun SAM-Remote client and server storage management system enables you to share libraries and other removable media devices in a Sun StorEdge SAM-FS environment. All host systems included in a Sun SAM-Remote environment must have the same Sun StorEdge SAM-FS software release level installed and operational.

If you want to configure the SAM-Remote software, follow the procedures in this manual to create a Sun StorEdge SAM-FS file system. After the Sun StorEdge SAM-FS file system is tested and is known to be configured properly, you can use the SAM-Remote instructions in the Sun StorEdge SAM-FS Storage and Archive Management Guide to enable remote storage and archive management.

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Design Considerations

The following are some of the design considerations that need to be taken into account in the planning and implementation of a Sun StorEdge SAM-FS environment:

- Access and usage patterns will have a significant impact on the tape systems required, including the types of tapes and the number and types of drives and libraries needed. If much staging is anticipated, linear rather than helical scan tapes are strongly recommended.

- The following will strongly influence the number of drives and media required:

- File system sizes and usage patterns: frequency of file updates, average file sizes, batch jobs that will wait for drives/media or users that must have priority

- Archiving policies: number of media copies, release policies, level of disk over-subscription

- Media characteristics: size, drive setup times

- For best performance, Fibre Channel tape drives and disk devices should be accessed through separate host bus adapters (HBAs).

If you are managing a server that has the Sun StorEdge SAM-FS software installed locally and you are configuring standalone file systems on the server to be archiving, it is recommended that you have at least one tape library associated with the current server. The library must contain media of a single media type.

The following table describes archiving configuration guidelines, on a per-tape-library basis, that can prevent you from overextending your environment.

TABLE 1-1 Archiving Configuration Guidelines
Number of Tape Drives | Number of Archive Policies (Sets) | Max. Number of File Systems | Max. Number of Files per File System | Library Recycler Values
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
2-3 | 1 | 4 | 6 million | Minimum Gain - 90% VSN Limit (#) - 2 High Water Mark - 50% Size Limit - 30 Gbytes
4-5 | 1 | 6 | 6 million | Minimum Gain - 90% VSN Limit (#) - 3 High Water Mark - 50% Size Limit - 40 Gbytes
6-7 | 2 | 10 | 8 million | Minimum Gain - 90% VSN Limit (#) - 5 High Water Mark - 50% Size Limit - 50 Gbytes
8-10 | 4 | 10 | 10 million | Minimum Gain - 90% VSN Limit (#) - 8 High Water Mark - 50% Size Limit - 70 Gbytes

The following are some further considerations that can help you from overloading your archiving system:

- Tape drives are designed to write large amounts of data at one time, so a well-designed archiving system should reduce the number of loads for the tape drives and increase the amount of data being written at one time.

- If you have only one tape drive with one media type, the `startage`, `startsize`, and `startcount` archive parameters should be set as follows:

- `startage` - no less than 8 hours

- `startsize` - no less than 50% of the capacity of a single tape

- `startcount` - use some number in the thousands; do not exceed 500,000

- Do not run the recycler more than three times per day.

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Installation Process Overview

The following list is a high-level overview of the software installation process. For detailed installation instructions, see Chapter 3 of this manual.

1. Verify that the hardware and software requirements have been met (see Hardware and Software Requirements).

2. Install the software packages (Installing the Software Packages).

3. If you want to configure the system using File System Manager, install the File System Manager software (Installing the File System Manager Software).

4. Configure the Sun StorEdge SAM-FS environment (beginning with Configuring Storage Devices).

Copyright © 2006, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.