Specifications
DATA CENTER BEST PRACTICES
SAN Design and Best Practices 70 of 84
•MB/s writes
•Worst-case latency (ms)
•HBA queue depth
This is an example of a guideline for determining the queue depth for HBAs attached to an EMC array:
Queue depth value = 8*n/h
(where n= number of members in a metavolume group of disks, where within in the disk contiguous blocks are
allocated; h = number of HBAs that can see the metavolume).
If there is an embedded switch in the server, the following information should be gathered:
•Tx frames
•Rx frames
•Total throughput
If the server hosts virtual machines, similar metrics should be collected per VM. As in the storage data
collection, a week’s worth of data should be collected during normal and highest utilization periods.
Backup Traffic Patterns
To understand the utilization of existing backup infrastructure, collect one week’s worth of data, including when
full backups are conducted. A table in Appendix B provides a template for capturing the physical infrastructure
for backup.
Tape Library
If an existing SAN is used for backup, run CLI commands such as portPerfShow and portStatsShow for ports
connected to the tape library and use the library management utilities to collect trafc statistics to create a
prole of the current environment, to determine the following:
•Low and high utilization periods
•Drives used most often
•Tape cartridges used most often
•Tape drive volume in MB/h
Backup Media Server
On the backup media server, collect CPU, memory, FC port, and Ethernet network utilization. This helps validate
that the existing backup infrastructure is working as designed to meet the backup window. It can also help
determine if media server performance is impacted in a VM environment. If backup performance is impacted
by non-backup trafc in the fabric, use Trafc Isolation zones or increase the number of ISLs to improve
performance.
Brocade Network Advisor
Brocade Network Advisor greatly simplies daily operations while improving the performance and reliability of the
overall SAN. This software management tool offers customizable dashboards, visibility into historical data, and
alert notications to help you proactively monitor and manage your SAN network. As a result, you can optimize
storage resources, maximize performance, and enhance the security of storage network infrastructures.
Brocade Network Advisor provides comprehensive management of data center fabrics, including conguration,
monitoring, and management of the Brocade DCX Backbone family (including Gen 5 Fibre Channel platforms),
as well as Brocade routers, switches, HBAs, and Converged Network Adapters (CNAs). Brocade Network Advisor
also integrates with leading storage partner data center automation solutions to provide end-to-end network
visibility through frameworks such as the Storage Management Initiative-Specication (SMI-S).