S T O R A G E M A N A G E M E N T. Veritas CommandCentral and ITIL. Key Concepts and Guidelines in Considering a Storage Management Solution

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1 WHITE PAPER: P customize S T O R A G E M A N A G E M E N T Confidence in a connected world. Veritas CommandCentral and ITIL Key Concepts and Guidelines in Considering a Storage Management Solution January 2009

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3 Veritas CommandCentral and ITIL Key Concepts and Guidelines in Considering a Storage Management Solution Contents Executive summary...4 Introduction...4 Configuration management...4 Capacity management....9 Cost management Service quality management Incident/problem management Change management Conclusion Why Veritas CommandCentral?

4 Executive Summary The purpose of this document is to be a quick reference guide for the key concepts and features considered in a storage management investigation, proof-of-concept assessment, or product deployment. The concepts in this document have been aligned with the industry best practices outlined by ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library). The information included in this document is intended to serve as a guideline and is not exhaustive in the discussion of storage management. Introduction Companies today are very aware of the high costs associated with managing stored data and keeping this data available to business-critical applications. These management costs are escalating at a time when corporate IT organizations seek to streamline operations to ensure that infrastructure investments are leading to increases in productivity and profitability. At the same time, pressure to manage more infrastructure resources with fewer personnel is at an all-time high. This document will shed light on how Veritas CommandCentral can be used to support a storage service management framework using ITIL to get the most out of your existing storage infrastructure and cost-effectively scale storage resources for future growth. The following seven ITIL processes will be covered: Configuration Management What does my storage infrastructure contain? Capacity Management Do I really need to buy more storage? Do my priority application services have sufficient resources? Cost Management How do I explain who is using all of this storage? How can I get my users to be more efficient in the use of their allocated storage? Service Quality Management Is my storage infrastructure performing well? Incident/Problem Management Am I the first to know when an incident occurs? Can I isolate and do root-cause analysis? How can I be more proactive in reducing incidents in the storage infrastructure? Change Management Can I define standard configuration policies and monitor changes to those configurations? Can I detect changes across Server, SAN and Storage domain in near real-time? If I need to update the storage infrastructure, what will be impacted? Can I articulate who, what, and when a change was made in the storage infrastructure? To management? To an auditor? 4

5 Release Management How much time and effort does it take us to fulfill a request for more storage capacity? Configuration management CommandCentral automatically discovers, classifies, and reports on all assets in your storage infrastructure, thus creating an always up to date, centralized repository of information for managing the cost and service quality of your storage environment. Objectives Automate asset discovery Enable product architecture Automated asset discovery By automating the discovery process, CommandCentral reduces the requirement for Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) to track storage assets and their dependencies. Asset compatibility Step 1: Asset Support Are your storage assets supported? Can they be automatically discovered? CommandCentral automatically discovers the following heterogeneous platforms and infrastructure: Example of Supported Vendors 5

6 Asset dependency mapping Step 2: Upon completion of the discovery process, CommandCentral automatically identifies all assets and their associations across the environment. The following topology map is an example of a Microsoft SQL database and its connectivity to the infrastructure that supports it. Example Fields: Hosts, Device Handles, File Systems, Files, Volumes, Disks, SQL Instances, SQL Databases, SQL Tablespaces, SQL Files 6

7 Asset inventory Step 3: CommandCentral automatically discovers, inventories, and categorizes the following hardware and software assets: Asset reporting Step 4: CommandCentral reports on assets and their relevant attributes. For example, the HBA Inventory Report provides information such as WWN, Host, Vendor Name, Product Name, Driver Information, and Firmware Version. Another example is the Software Attribute Report for Oracle. Example Fields: Display Name, Version, Host, Mode, DB Size, Used Size, Available (MB), % Used 7

8 Enabling product architecture Product scalability Step 1: CommandCentral scales to the largest heterogeneous environments with a single Management Server instance. Product performance Step 2: Through tunable Explorers, CommandCentral can be optimized for responsiveness across the various discovered and monitored physical and logical elements in the environment, including servers, switches, array volumes, file systems, and databases. Tunable Explorers Explorer Details 8

9 Product security Step 3: CommandCentral enables administrators to define and assign the correct set of privileges for its users. For example, User A may be assigned a set of active management capabilities at the switch and array levels, while User B may only create reports. Additionally, read-only access can be assigned to other interface users. User Roles Example: Definable Rights Per User/Role Capacity Management CommandCentral enables end-to-end visibility from the application to the physical storage device. With this visibility, users can understand how much storage they have and how it is being consumed by their applications. More important, they can identify lost or orphaned storage for reclamation. In many cases, CommandCentral allows users to delay their next storage purchase by identifying immediate opportunities to streamline available storage capacity for hard cost savings. In addition, users can prioritize and forecast storage capacity for critical applications. 9

10 Objectives Increase storage utilization/reduce procurement frequency Plan storage infrastructure capacity in context of applications Increase storage utilization/reduce procurement frequency Reclaiming Storage: Can I postpone my next storage procurement? Step 1: Unclaimed Storage Identify unconfigured or unknown storage for the creation of logical devices Step 2: Unassigned Storage Identify available, unallocated, and unknown LUNs for allocation Step 3: Underutilized Storage Identify underutilized storage assigned to an LVM Step 4: Storage Allocation Tuning Identify unconfigured or unknown storage for the creation of logical devices Total Online Storage CommandCentral reports on total storage across the environment. Users can drill through the graphic to identify where higher storage utilization can be achieved. The Total Online Storage report includes network attached storage. However, CommandCentral also provides a report that displays network attached storage capacity only. 10

11 Example Fields: Quota Detail, QTree Detail, SnapMirrors, Snapshots CommandCentral provides an Allocation of Array Storage by Vendor report that provides insight into the utilization of a particular vendor s storage. CommandCentral provides a Potentially Wasted Storage report that provides insight into unclaimed capacity that could be utilized. 11

12 Plan storage infrastructure capacity in context of applications Application Management CommandCentral helps you produce a capacity plan that predicts the storage resources needed to achieve agreed-upon service levels. Step 1: CommandCentral reports on database storage utilization for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, and Sybase. The following reports identify storage consumption by host, database, and tablespace. CommandCentral shows overall database growth as well as tablespace projections. Step 2: CommandCentral reports on applications such as Microsoft Exchange. Example Fields: Mailbox Stores, Mailboxes, Messages, Used (MB) and files 12

13 Step 3: CommandCentral reports on backup applications, for example, NetBackup. Example Fields: LUNs, Tape Device, Path Count Additional Capacity Planning Reports Cost Management CommandCentral reports on detailed information about your storage capacity and can map the utilization of that capacity to your users. In addition, it enables you to transparently reflect storage consumption to your users, creating opportunities to drive more efficient use of the capacity allocated to them. 13

14 Objectives Recover storage costs Encourage more efficient use of storage resources Recover costs from storage capacity allocated to customers Step 1: The first step in recovering costs from storage capacity allocated to customers is to define the cost drivers. Example metrics driving storage management costs include the following. 14

15 Step 2: The next step is to define a cost recovery model. It is important to keep the charging processes simple, understandable, fair, and realistic. Possible charging policies include: Cost: Price = Cost Cost-plus: Price = Cost+/- x% Going rate: Price is comparable with other internal departments costs within the organization or with similar organizations Market rate: Price matches that charged by external suppliers Fixed price: A set price agreed for a set period with the customer, based on anticipated usage Possible chargeable storage metrics include: Used file system capacity Total file system capacity Ports assigned to host Claimed LUN capacity Step 3: Once the cost metrics and model are defined, you can deliver reports that reflect the consumed storage capacity and associated cost. CommandCentral collects detailed information about the storage environment and rolls the data into CommandCentral Enterprise Reporter. The following report provides an example of cost and capacity mapping from CommandCentral Enterprise Reporter. Encourage more efficient use of storage resources CommandCentral provides detailed file-level reports that enable you to show your users possibilities to reduce their storage costs. For example, inappropriate or nonbusiness-related content may be flagged for deletion or identified for movement to another, less costly tier of storage. 15

16 Step 1: CommandCentral identifies potentially wasted space. This information can be used to influence the demand for storage resources by sharing relevant areas for users to reduce their wasted space. Examples: Potentially Wasted Space Duplicate Files Summary For each file, CommandCentral reports on the number of files and the amount of storage used. Stale Files Summary By Last Accessed Date CommandCentral reports on the files that have gone the longest without being accessed by a user or application, ranked by the date they were last accessed Stale Files Summary By Last Modified Date CommandCentral reports on files that have gone the longest without being modified by a user or application, listed by the date they were last modified. Stale Files Summary By Creation Date CommandCentral reports on the files that have existed the longest, listed by the date they were created. 16

17 Service Quality Management CommandCentral helps ensure that the quality of storage service meets internal customer expectations by managing the performance of key storage components, specifically, switch port, HBA, and array performance. It helps you identify a potential service quality issue before it impacts your customers. Objective: Deliver optimal performance to users Deliver optimal performance to users CommandCentral tracks asset performance metrics and reduces the risk of performance problems and failure. Monitor Quality of Service Delivery: Host Performance Example Performance Metrics: Host, Physical Disk/Tape, Virtual Disk/LUN 17

18 Example Performance Metrics: Array/Cache, CPU Example NTAPP Performance Metrics: Storage Operations, FC Controller/Storage Adapter 18

19 CommandCentral tracks asset performance metrics, eliminates unnecessary spare capacity, and optimizes storage equipment. Monitor Quality of Service Delivery: Switch Performance Incident/Problem Management CommandCentral assists in reducing the mean time to resolution (MTTR) for all storage-related incidents through predefined policies and alerts, alert forwarding, and visual dependency maps to identify the root cause of an event. When an event does occur, it provides the JIT (just-in time) information for you to identify, understand, and remediate the problem. Objectives Issue identification Issue isolation Proactive reduction of incidents Issue identification Step 1: CommandCentral enables users to leverage predefined alert notification policies, prioritize them, and classify the incidents. Alert Policies: Leverage Predefined Policies to Drive Prioritized Alerting 19

20 Step 2: CommandCentral can be configured to forward alerts to the appropriate framework, team, or individual based on state or numeric policies. This provides ownership, monitoring, tracking, and communications for fast incident remediation. Event Management: Forward alerts via SNMP traps, , etc. Step 3: CommandCentral receives the alerts in a single repository for incident detection and recording. Alert Notifications: Summary of Active Alerts Issue isolation CommandCentral displays the alert and how it is related to the infrastructure and storage services. Step 1: Isolating the event and its impact on storage service aids investigation and diagnosis of the issue. 20

21 Event Isolation: Rapidly resolve service interruptions with accurate configuration information supporting root cause analysis into the service infrastructure. Proactive reduction of storage incidents Step 1: CommandCentral provides historical alert analysis, allowing you to analyze support action. The historical reporting also allows you to identify recurring issues so that you can implement a solution to prevent the problem from occurring again. Total Active Alerts Count CommandCentral reports on the total number of alerts, by severity. Top Critical Objects by Alert Count CommandCentral reports on objects with the greatest number of critical alerts over the requested report time frame. 21

22 Top Critical Objects by Alert Duration CommandCentral reports on objects that have active critical alerts for the longest total duration over the report time frame. (These are objects likely to have persistent or long-term problems.) Total Alert Duration CommandCentral reports on the average, maximum, and minimum duration for all alerts, in minutes. Data is grouped by alert severity level over the report time frame. Time to Acknowledge Duration CommandCentral shows average, maximum, and minimum time from when an alert was created until it was acknowledged, in minutes. Data is grouped by alert severity level over the report time frame. Acknowledge to Clear Duration CommandCentral shows the average, maximum, and minimum time from when an alert was acknowledged until it was cleared, in minutes. Data is grouped by alert severity level over the report time frame. 22

23 Change Management Change management is an IT Service Management discipline. The objective of change management in this context is to ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient and prompt handling of all changes to controlled IT infrastructure, in order to minimize the number and impact of any related incidents upon service. Changes in the IT infrastructure may arise reactively in response to problems or internal operational efficiency initiatives, e.g. proactively seeking imposed efficiency and effectiveness or to enable or reflect business initiatives, or from programs, projects or service improvement initiatives. CommandCentral provides change visibility; impact and root cause analysis to avoid any potential configuration drifts and to keep the storage infrastructure healthy. It also provides policy based management to ensure standard configuration of the storage infrastructure and also implement the best practices. CommandCentral provides IT managers with an ability to effectively manage their, ever increasing and complex, data center to meet the needs of the diverse set of business applications and end users. It helps them with storage infrastructure availability and reduces any downtime thus transforming their IT organization from a cost center to more strategic service enabler of the business by delivering higher storage SLAs, at the same time reducing the operational costs. Objectives Change Audit and compliance Assess impact and risk of unplanned / planned changes Improve Storage SLAs and reduce mean time to repair (MTTR) Change Audits and Compliance CommandCentral provides visibility into all the changes in the storage infrastructure, including server, SAN, NAS and storage domain. It also provides visibility into changes happening in the virtual infrastructure as well. CommandCentral fulfills audit requirements by keeping historical information about all these changes and being able to report on them for audit and compliance purpose. Users can view information on changes that have happened in past 24 hrs, week, month or any custom timeframe. 23

24 CommandCentral allows you to audit the frequency of requested changes by event type and user. Assess impact and risk of unplanned / planned changes CommandCentral provides visibility not only into various changes that are happening in the storage infrastructure but it also assesses the impact of those changes on mission critical business applications or servers. CommandCentral pre-ships various industry best practices and vendor best practices which help to identify hidden risks in the configuration which could potentially impact the service levels to the business critical applications or servers. 24

25 CommandCentral reduces service disruptions by identifying storage service dependencies before executing a planned change. In addition, CommandCentral clarifies the upstream and downstream impact of making a change on the storage infrastructure. For example, CommandCentral shows how a modification to an existing LUN will affect a customer s database. Improve Storage SLAs and reduce mean time to repair (MTTR) CommandCentral helps translate business level SLAs around availability into more measurable parameters in the IT infrastructure. It helps define policies around path connectivity, storage configuration, and compliance for various levels of SLAs that need to be provided to different business critical applications or services. 25

26 Once policies are defined, CommandCentral continuously monitors for various changes and assesses the impact of those changes as per the policies or best practices set into the product. This not only helps quickly identify any issues or violations, as CommandCentral raises alerts by sending s or integrating with ticketing tools, but it also identifies the root cause of the problem. This eliminates the need for multiple resources or multiple point tools to diagnose the actual change that caused the problem. This greatly helps in reducing the MTTR and improves storage service levels as well as operational efficiencies. Conclusion Achieving business effectiveness and efficiency in the use of information systems requires that the IT service delivery of storage be managed as part of the overall business. The concepts within ITIL support IT service providers in the planning of consistent, documented, and repeatable processes that improve service delivery to the business. CommandCentral, combined with ITIL, provides a comprehensive set of management procedures and tools with which an organization can better manage its IT storage operations. Why Veritas CommandCentral? Presenting business-level metrics for services throughout the organization, Veritas CommandCentral is the ideal solution for developing, executing, and managing an ITIL Storage Service Level Management process. Business and IT users can measure service levels, performance, and resource utilization by department, geography, application, or any other customized view they desire. Users can analyze month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, or year-over-year performance and correlate trends between cost and resource utilization metrics. Policy-based management ensures that service levels are met by alerting IT organizations to any issues arising before they become critical. For example, if a storage array has a device failure, IT will be notified proactively, so that the necessary adjustments in the environment may be employed. Veritas CommandCentral is a comprehensive software solution that seamlessly integrates storage resource management, performance and policy management,, and cost allocation and chargeback, to ensure that the storage infrastructure runs as efficiently as possible. The management of storage resources drives service-level agreements, ensuring optimal performance and availability of business-critical applications by managing the entire data path from application to array and everything in between. CommandCentral provides companies with a hardware-independent solution with capabilities that can be applied immediately to service requests for online storage management and high availability services. CommandCentral provides a complete solution set designed to support centers of competency and serves as a business portal for IT to define infrastructure services, implement consistent and efficient processes for delivering those services, present those services to IT consumers, measure and report on service levels and resource usage, and even charge back to departments or lines of business for services consumed. 26

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28 About Symantec Symantec is a global leader in infrastructure software, enabling businesses and consumers to have confidence in a connected world. The company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information, and interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to security, availability, compliance, and performance. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in 40 countries. More information is available at For specific country offices and contact numbers, please visit our Web site. For product information in the U.S., call toll-free 1 (800) Symantec Corporation World Headquarters Stevens Creek Boulevard Cupertino, CA USA +1 (408) (800) Copyright 2009 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec Logo, BindView, Enterprise Security Manager, Sygate, Veritas, Enterprise Vault, NetBackup and LiveState are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 01/