This IBM® Redpaper™ publication describes the concepts and functions of the IBM System Storage® DS8000® I/O Priority Manager. The DS8000 I/O Priority Manager enables more effective storage consolidation and performance management combined with the ability to align quality of service (QoS) levels to separate workloads in the system.

With DS8000 I/O Priority Manager, the system can prioritize access to system resources to achieve the volume's desired QoS based on defined performance goals (high, medium, or low) of any volume. I/O Priority Manager constantly monitors and balances system resources to help applications meet their performance targets automatically, without operator intervention. Starting with DS8000 Licensed Machine Code (LMC) level R6.2, the DS8000 I/O Priority Manager feature supports open systems and IBM System z®.

DS8000 I/O Priority Manager, together with IBM z/OS® Workload Manager (WLM), provides more effective storage consolidation and performance management for System z systems. Now tightly integrated with Workload Manager for z/OS, DS8000 I/O Priority Manager improves disk I/O performance for important workloads. It also drives I/O prioritization to the disk system by allowing WLM to give priority to the system's resources automatically when higher priority workloads are not meeting their performance goals. Integration with zWLM is exclusive to DS8000 and System z systems.

The paper is aimed at those who want to get an understanding of the DS8000 I/O Priority Manager concept and its underlying design. It provides guidance and practical illustrations for users who want to exploit the capabilities of the DS8000 I/O Priority Manager.

Chapter 1. I/O Priority Manager overview

Chapter 2. I/O Priority Manager concept, design, and implementation

Chapter 3. Using I/O Priority Manager

Chapter 4. I/O Priority Manager usage scenarios

Chapter 5. Monitoring and reporting