Analyzing your business environment

Your processing environment reflects the unique goals, procedures, and structure of your business; therefore, you need to analyze your business environment so that you can implement OAM for objects successfully. The technical installation can then evolve logically from the functions and requirements you have defined.

The first task in the analysis process is to characterize the objects that are processed. Among the most useful classification categories are:

Size. Are objects small, medium, or large? What are the criteria for these categories in your installation?
Activity. How often are objects retrieved? How often are new objects stored? Is one object accessed many times or are many objects accessed one time each? What is the required response time for accessing an object?
Volume. How many objects of each size will be created? How many objects must be processed every hour or every day?
Life cycle. Is the activity level stable or does it change in response to a business cycle (such as monthly billing)? Are such changes random or periodic? How frequently do these changes occur? Are objects backed up? How long do you plan to retain objects? How do you plan to handle expired objects? Do you plan to delete objects automatically?
OAMplex. If you are planning to run an OAMplex, how many systems (OAMs) will be in your OAMplex? Which systems will have the hardware physically attached to assist in determining where OSMC should be run? How will the storage group and library disbursement be handled between systems?

As a result of this analysis, you can:

Determine criteria for grouping objects.
Establish performance objectives.
- Determine the best system for OSMC processing per storage group.
- Determine hardware distribution based on demand and location.
Identify storage management cycles.

This analysis, in turn, leads you to create storage groups, collections, storage classes, data classes, and management classes through which OAM and SMS can implement your storage management policy. The ultimate goal is to develop a set of Storage Management Subsystem (SMS) constructs that you can use to accurately describe and respond to the complex reality of your business environment.