V7.5 Configuration Limits and Restrictions for IBM Storwize V5000

Content

The use of WAN optimization devices such as Riverbed is not supported in native Ethernet IP partnership configurations containing Storwize V5000.


Clustered Systems

A Storwize V5000 system at version 7.5 and higher requires native Fibre Channel SAN or alternatively 8Gbps/16Gbps Direct Attach Fibre Channel connectivity for communication between all nodes in the local cluster. Fibre Channel over Ethernet ( FCoE ) connectivity for communication between all nodes in the local cluster is also supported.

Partnerships between systems for Metro Mirror or Global Mirror replication can be used with both Fibre Channel, Native Ethernet connectivity and FCoE connectivity, however direct FCoE links are only supported to a maximum of 300 metres. Distances greater than 300 metres are only supported when using an FCIP link or Fibre Channel between source and target.

Direct Attachment

For information on support configurations using direct attachment please visit the following document

Direct Attachment of Storwize and SAN Volume Controller Systems

IP Partnership

Using an Ethernet Switch to convert a 10Gbps IP partnership link to 1Gbps link and vice versa is not supported. Therefore, the IP infrastructure on the two partnership sites should both be 1Gbps or 10Gbps. However, bandwidth limiting on 10Gbps and 1Gbps IP partnership between sites is supported.

Fabric Limitation

Only one FCF ( Fibre Channel Forwarder ) switch per fabric is supported.


HyperSwap

When using the HyperSwap function with software version 7.5 and higher, please configure your host multipath driver to use an ALUA-based path policy.

Due to the requirement for multiple access IO groups, iSCSI and SAS attached host types are not supported with HyperSwap volumes.

AIX Live Partition Mobility (LPM)

AIX LPM is not currently supported with the HyperSwap function.



VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (VVols)

The use of VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (VVols) on a system that is configured for HyperSwap is not currently supported with SVC/Storwize.


DS4000 Maintenance

Storwize V5000 supports concurrent ESM firmware upgrades for those DS4000 models listed as such on the Supported Hardware List when they are running either 06.23.05.00 or later controller firmware. However, controllers running firmware levels earlier than 06.23.05.00 will not be supported for concurrent ESM upgrades. Customers in this situation, who wish to gain support for concurrent ESM upgrades, will need to first upgrade the DS4000 controller firmware level to 06.23.05.00. This action is a controller firmware upgrade, not an ESM upgrade and concurrent controller firmware upgrades are already supported in conjunction with Storwize V5000. Once the controller firmware is at 06.23.05.00 or later the ESM firmware can be upgraded concurrently.

Note: The DS4000 ESM firmware upgrade must be done on one disk expansion enclosure at a time. A 10 minute delay from when one enclosure is upgraded to the start of the upgrade of another enclosure is required. Confirm via the Storage Manager applications "Recovery Guru" that the DS4000 status is in an optimal state before upgrading the next enclosure. If it is not, then do not continue ESM firmware upgrades until the problem is resolved.


Host Limitations


Microsoft Offload Data Transfer ( ODX ) and SDDDSM Requirements

Storwize V5000 version 7.5.0 introduced support for Microsft ODX. In order to utilise this function all windows hosts accessing Storwize V5000 are required to be at a minimum SDDDSM version of 2.4.5.0. Earlier versions of SDDDSM are not supported when the ODX function is activated.


Windows NTP server

The Linux NTP client used by Storwize V5000 may not always function correctly with Windows W32Time NTP Server


Windows SAN Boot Clusters (MSCS):

It is possible to SAN boot a Microsoft Cluster subject to the following restrictions imposed by Microsoft:

• On Windows 2003, clustered disks and boot disks can be presented on the same storage bus, but ONLY if the Storport driver is being used.

These restrictions and more are described in the Microsoft White Paper: "Microsoft Windows Clustering: Storage Area Networks".

IBM have not tested, and therefore do not support, modifying the registry key as suggested on page 28 (which would allow boot disks and clustered disks on the same storage bus on Windows 2003 without the Storport driver).


TPC Restrictions

TPC Supported Versions
The minimum supported TPC version for SVC/Storwize version 7.5 is TPC 5.2.6.

Vdisk Migration
When a vdisk is migrated between a child pool and its parent, or between child pools of the same parent, it is necessary to re-probe the cluster from TPC as no event is logged on the cluster for this type of migration

Migrations between non-child pools also currently require a re-probe

These issues will be addressed in future releases of TPC and SVC/Storwize Code.


Oracle

Oracle Version and OS	Restrictions that apply:
Oracle RAC 10g on Linux Host:	1

Restriction 1: For RHEL4 set Oracle Clusterware 'misscount' parameter to a bigger one to allow SDD to do path failover first. The default miscount setting 60s is too short for SDD. We recommend to set it 90s or 120s. Command to use: crsctl set css misscount 90


Priority Flow Control for iSCSI

Priority Flow Control for iSCSI is supported on Brocade VDX 10-gigabit Ethernet switches only.


SCSI LUN ID 0
SAS Hosts running Linux or Vmware operating systems.

Removal of LUN's mapped to SCSI ID 0 is not supported and may result in a loss of access to the remaining LUNs


Maximum Configurations

Configuration limits for Storwize V5000:

Maximum WWPNs per host Object and iSCSI Names

The maximum number of FC/SAS/FCoE hosts ports supported per host object is now 32 (previously 512).
The maximum number of iSCSI names supported per host object is now 8 (previously 256).

Please see the following document

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1005261

Property	Maximum Number	Comments
System (Cluster) Properties
Control enclosures per system (cluster)	2	Each control enclosure contains two node canisters
Nodes per system	4	Arranged as two I/O groups
Nodes per fabric	64	Maximum number of SVC and V5000 nodes that can be present on the same Fibre Channel fabric, with visibility of each other
Fabrics per system	6	The number of counterpart Fibre Channel SANs which are supported - Up to 4 fabrics using native Fibre Channel ports - Up to 2 fabrics using FCoE ports
Inter-cluster partnerships per system	3	A system may be partnered with up to three remote systems. No more than four systems may be in the same connected set. A maximum of 1 IP partnership is supported per system.
USB ports	2 to 16
Node Properties
Logins per node Fibre Channel port	512	Includes logins from server HBAs, disk controller ports, node ports within the same system and node ports from remote systems
iSCSI sessions per node	256	512 in IP failover mode (when partner node is unavailable)
Managed Disk Properties
Managed disks (MDisks) per system	4096	The maximum number of logical units which can be managed by a system, including internal arrays. This number also includes external MDisks which have not been configured into storage pools (managed disk groups)
Managed disks per storage pool (managed disk group)	128
Storage pools per system	1024
Parent pools per system	128
Child pools per system	1023
Managed disk extent size	8192 MB
Capacity for an individual internal managed disk (array)	1 PB	No limit is imposed beyond the maximum number of drives per array limits. Maximum size is dependent on the extent size of the Storage Pool. Comparison Table: Maximum Volume, MDisk and System capacity for each extent size.
Capacity for an individual external managed disk	1 PB	Note: External managed disks larger than 2 TB are only supported for certain types of storage systems. Refer to the supported hardware matrix for further details. Maximum size is dependent on the extent size of the Storage Pool. Comparison Table: Maximum Volume, MDisk and System capacity for each extent size.
Total storage capacity manageable per system	32 PB	Maximum requires an extent size of 8192 MB to be used This limit represents the per system maximum of 2^22 extents. Comparison Table: Maximum Volume, MDisk and System capacity for each extent size.
Volume (Virtual Disk) Properties
Volumes (VDisks) per system	4096	Maximum requires a system containing two control enclosures; refer to the volumes per I/O group limit below
Volumes per I/O group (volumes per caching I/O group)	2048
Volumes accessible per I/O group	4096
Thin-provisioned (space-efficient) volume copies per system	8192	No limit is imposed here beyond the volume copies per system limit.
Volumes per storage pool	-	No limit is imposed beyond the volumes per system limit
Fully-allocated volume capacity	256 TB	Maximum size for an individual fully-allocated volume. Maximum size is dependent on the extent size of the Storage Pool. Comparison Table: Maximum Volume, MDisk and System capacity for each extent size.
Thin-provisioned (space-efficient) volume capacity	256 TB	Maximum size for an individual thin-provisioned volume. Maximum size is dependent on the extent size of the Storage Pool. Comparison Table: Maximum Volume, MDisk and System capacity for each extent size.
Host mappings per system	20,000	See also - volume mappings per host object below
Mirrored Volume (Virtual Disk) Properties
Copies per volume	2
Volume copies per system	8192
Total mirrored volume capacity per I/O group	1024 TB
Generic Host Properties
Host objects (IDs) per system	512	A host object may contain both Fibre Channel ports and iSCSI names
Host objects (IDs) per I/O group	256	Refer to the additional Fibre Channel and iSCSI host limits below
Volume mappings per host object	512
Total Fibre Channel ports and iSCSI names per system	4096
Total Fibre Channel ports and iSCSI names per I/O group	2048
Total Fibre Channel ports and iSCSI names per host object	32
iSCSI names per host object (ID)	8
Fibre Channel Host Properties (including hosts attached using FCoE)
Fibre Channel hosts per system	512
Fibre Channel host ports per system	4096
Fibre Channel hosts per I/O group	256
Fibre Channel host ports per I/O group	2048
Fibre Channel hosts ports per host object (ID)	32
iSCSI Host Properties
iSCSI hosts per system	1024
iSCSI hosts per I/O group	256
iSCSI names per host object (ID)	8
iSCSI names per I/O group	256
Copy Services Properties
Remote Copy (Metro Mirror and Global Mirror) relationships per system	4096	This can be any mix of Metro Mirror and Global Mirror relationships.
Active-Active Relationships	1024
Remote Copy relationships per consistency group	-	No limit is imposed beyond the Remote Copy relationships per system limit
Remote Copy consistency groups per system	256
Total Metro Mirror and Global Mirror volume capacity per I/O group	1024 TB	This limit is the total capacity for all master and auxiliary volumes in the I/O group.
Total number of Global Mirror with Change Volumes relationships per system	256	Change volumes used for active-active relationships do not count towards this limit.
FlashCopy mappings per system	4096
FlashCopy targets per source	256
FlashCopy mappings per consistency group	512
FlashCopy consistency groups per system	255
Total FlashCopy volume capacity per I/O group	4096 TB
IP Partnership Properties
Inter-cluster IP partnerships per system	1	A system may be partnered with up to three remote systems. A maximum of one of those can be IP and the other two FC.
I/O groups per system	2	The nodes from a maximum of two I/O groups per system can be used for IP partnership.
Inter site links per IP partnership	2	A maximum of two inter site links can be used between two IP partnership sites.
Ports per node	1	A maximum of one port per node can be used for IP partnership.
Internal Storage Properties
SAS chains per control enclosure	2
Enclosures per SAS chain	10 see notes	Up to 10 expansion enclosures on SAS port 1 and up to 9 expansion enclosures on SAS port 2
Expansion enclosures per control enclosure	19
Drives per I/O group	480
Drives per system	960	Maximum requires a system containing two control enclosures, each with the maximum number of expansion enclosures
Min-Max drives per enclosure	0-12 or 0-24	Limit depends on the enclosure model
Simultaneous autosparing	Drives per system
RAID Properties
RAID arrays per system	128
Min-Max member drives per RAID-0 array	1-8
Min-Max member drives per RAID-1 array	2-2
Min-Max member drives per RAID-5 array	3-16
Min-Max member drives per RAID-6 array	5-16
Min-Max member drives per RAID-10 array	2-16
Hot spare drives	-	No limit is imposed
External Storage System Properties
Storage system WWNNs per system (cluster)	1024
Storage system WWPNs per system (cluster)	1024
WWNNs per storage system	16
WWPNs per WWNN	16
LUNs (managed disks) per storage system	-	No limit is imposed beyond the managed disks per system limit
System and User Management Properties
User accounts per system	400	Includes the default user accounts
User groups per system	256	Includes the default user groups
Authentication servers per system	1
NTP servers per system	1
iSNS servers per system	1
Concurrent open SSH sessions per system	32
Event Notification Properties
SNMP servers per system	6
Syslog servers per system	6
Email (SMTP) servers per system	6	Email servers are used in turn until the email is successfully sent
Email users (recipients) per system	12
LDAP servers per system	6

Extents

The following table compares the maximum volume, mdisk and system capacity for each extent size.

Extent size (MB)	Maximum non thin-provisioned volume capacity in GB	Maximum thin-provisioned volume capacity in GB	Maximum MDisk capacity in GB	Total storage capacity manageable per system*
16	2048 (2 TB)	2000	2048 (2 TB)	64 TB
32	4096 (4 TB)	4000	4096 (4 TB)	128 TB
64	8192 (8 TB)	8000	8192 (8 TB)	256 TB
128	16,384 (16 TB)	16,000	16,384 (16 TB)	512 TB
256	32,768 (32 TB)	32,000	32,768 (32 TB)	1 PB
512	65,536 (64 TB)	65,000	65,536 (64 TB)	2 PB
1024	131,072 (128 TB)	130,000	131,072 (128 TB)	4 PB
2048	262,144 (256 TB)	260,000	262,144 (256 TB)	8 PB
4096	262,144 (256 TB)	262,144	524,288 (512 TB)	16 PB
8192	262,144 (256 TB)	262,144	1,048,576 (1024 TB)	32 PB

* The total capacity values assumes that all of the storage pools in the system use the same extent size.