NetApp Performance Consitency Point Pacing cp_batch_override

During a consistency point, the data is written from memory to disk. This action requires calculating the RAID (XOR processing). The XOR processing is CPU intensive and is carefully calibrated by ONTAP. This is called CP pacing.


CP pacing controls the XOR batch processing size, which is the main CPU factor with regards to RAID processing for CP.

If the CP pacing  increases the batch size then XOR  threads consume more CPU and process data faster. Thus a tetris is handed off to storage layer quicker.

CP pacing also looks at the outstanding blocks required to be written for the current CP versus the resource fill for the next CP to adjust the batch size. For ex: When blocks written is less than the next CP fill , the batch size is increased.

The CP pacing batch size varies from 1 to 18.

Thus, cp_batch_override 18 means run XOR as fast as possible, which should decrease the P2_FLUSH time, assuming there is no actual storage issue.

VMware RDM Correlating VML ID with naa ID

Where:

A - represents the external ID name space.

B - represents uuid type for the device:

0x0 - For mpx.vmhbax:Cx:Tx:Lx format

0x1 - For serial number format

0x2 - For naa format

0x3 - For SYMM format

C - represents the device type:

0x00 - DISK

0x01 - TAPE

0x02 - PRINTER

0x03 - PROCESSOR /* HP scanners use this */

0x04 - WORM /* Treated as ROM by our system */

0x05 - ROM 0x05

0x06 - SCANNER

0x07 - MOD /* Magneto-optical disk - * - treated as TYPE_DISK */

0x08 - MEDIUM_CHANGER

0x09 - COMM /* Communications device */

0x0c - RAID

0x0d - ENCLOSURE 0x0d /* Enclosure Services Device */

0x0e - RBC 0x0e

0x7f - NO_LUN

D - represents LUN number (32 bits in normal device from SAN)

E - is reserved for future use

F - represents the LUN identifier (32 digit naa number in hexadecimal format)

G - A unique hash of other data about the LUN (In versions prior to 5.5 includes the LUN number)

SMB shares created by Default in NetApp

Here is the list of shares created by NetApp when SMB is enabled.

For 7 mode :
        C$  and it points to /.
        ETC$ and it points to /etc.
        HOME and it points to /vol/vol0/home

For ClusteredONTAP:
        C$ maps to /.
        ipc$ maps to /.
        admin$ maps to /.

NetApp terms that every NetApp storage engineer should know guarantee- space reservation fractional allocation reclaimation snapshot autogrow autodelete commit try ....

Volume Level : 

Volume guarantee : 

This is also called space guarantees. This is the amount of space reserved by the volume from the aggregate. The possible volume guarantee values are volume, none and file. File is deprecated in ONTAP v8.3. 

If the volume guarantee type is volume, then the space for the entire volume is reserved from the aggregate. 

Here is a screenshot from the NetApp TR 3483

If the volume guarantee is set to none, then no space is reserved from the aggregate when the volume is created and the space is consumed from the aggregate as and when data grows on the volume. 

Here is a screenshot from the NetApp TR 3483. note the volume is created with -s none flag

Snapshot reserve: 

The Snapshot reserve area of a volume is the space reserved exclusively for Snapshot copies. It is not available to the user data or metadata area of the volume. The size of the Snapshot reserve is a specified percentage of the current volume size, and does not depend on the number of Snapshot copies or how much space they consume. 

If all of the space allotted for the Snapshot reserve is used but the active file system (user data and metadata) is not full, Snapshot copies can use more space than the Snapshot reserve and spill into the active file system. This extra space is called Snapshot spill.

The following illustration shows a FlexVol volume with no Snapshot spill occurring. The two blocks on the left show the volume's used and available space for user data and metadata. The two blocks on the right show the used and unused portions of the Snapshot reserve. When you modify the size of the Snapshot reserve, it is the blocks on the right that change.  

The following illustration shows a FlexVol volume with Snapshot spill occurring. The Snapshot reserve area is full and Snapshot copies spilling over into a Spill area that is part of the user data and metadata area's available space. The size of the Snapshot reserve remains the same.

Autosize

The volume autosize feature in ONTAP allows for the volumes to be resized automatically when a threshold is reached. The default threshold is 98%. However, this is a configurable paramenter.  The command is volume autosize <volname> <vserver name>

https://docs.netapp.com/ontap-9/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.netapp.doc.dot-cm-cmpr-930%2Fvolume__autosize.html

AutoDelete

The volume setting allows Data ONTAP to delete Snapshot copies if a threshold is met. The threshold is called a trigger.
The possible triggers are Volume, snap_reserve and space_reserve.
     Volume:  When the volume is nearly full.
     snap_reserve: When the snap_reserve is full
     space_reservation: The overwrite reserve space (fraction reserve) is full.

The order in which snapshot copies are deleted are determined by the  delete_order flag. The delete_order can be newest_first or oldest_first. Certain snapshots can be (specified by the value -defer-delete)the last snapshot copied to be deleted.

The snapshots are deleted until the target volume capacity is reached.

One other aspect of autodelete is the flag called Commitment. This option specifies which Snapshot copies and LUN or file clones can be automatically deleted to reclaim back space.
if set to try, snaps that are not locked are deleted.
if set to disrupt, snap copies not locked by data backing functionalities are deleted.
if set to destroy, snap copies locked by data backing functionalities are deleted.

Fractional reserve 

To understand fractional reserve, let us understand what happens when fractional reserve is disabled.
Say you have a volume that 100GB in size and you create a 50GB volume. Now the active file system has 50GB data. Create a snapshot and the free space remains at 50GB.
Next change 40GB of data and the snapshot will consume 40GB of data and the free space will reduce to 10GB. Now, change 20GB of data and the writes will fail because the volume is out of space.

Now, let us introduce fraction reserve. The fractional reserve is the amount of space reserved for overwrites in a volume. This comes into picture when the volume has one or more LUNs and a snapshot is created. Let us repeat the above example but with 100% fractional reserve. 

Say you have a volume that 100GB in size and you create a 40GB volume. Now the active file system has 40GB data and free space is 60GB. Create a snapshot and the free space remains goes to 20GB as 100% of the LUN size (40GB) is used for reserves. Next change 10GB of data and create a snapshot, the snapshot will consume 10GB of data and the free space will reduce to 10GB. Now, change 20GB of data and the writes will work because the writes will directed to the reserve .

LUN level 

LUN reservation :

With reservations enabled (default) the space is subtracted from the volume total when the LUN is created. If reservations are disabled, space is first taken out of the volume as writes to the LUN are performed.

LUN space allocation:

When LUN space allocation is enabled, then the LUN complies with T10 SCSI standard for LUN. This means the LUN remain online when it fills up and that it actively monitors and manages free space.

LUN space reclaimation 

When data on a LUN (space allocation is off) is deleted  on the host, the free space seen on the host is updated but the storage capacity is not freed up. In order to reclaim the free space, a space reclamation process needs to be run. This can be performed from SnapDrive.