The IBM® Redbooks® publication, IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000 Best Practices and Performance Guidelines, SG21-7521-03, covers many aspects of implementing compression. This IBM Redbooks Solution Guide complements that publication, provides a detailed review of various workloads and use cases, and serves as a best practices guide for IT professionals who have the tasks of sizing, planning, and implementing compression in IBM SAN Volume Controller and IBM Storwize® V7000. Its target audience also includes customers, IBM, and IBM Business Partners.

Use the following process when you plan or implement a project with IBM Real-time Compression™. Step-by-step implementation instructions are beyond the scope of this solution guide; those details are covered in other IBM Redbooks publications and product documentation. The intention of this solution guide is to provide high-level guidelines and considerations of an implementation that can lead to successful implementation of the solution itself.

The IBM® Redbooks® publication, IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000 Best Practices and Performance Guidelines, SG21-7521-03, covers many aspects of implementing compression. This IBM Redbooks Solution Guide complements that publication, provides a detailed review of various workloads and use cases, and serves as a best practices guide for IT professionals who have the tasks of sizing, planning, and implementing compression in IBM SAN Volume Controller and IBM Storwize® V7000. Its target audience also includes customers, IBM, and IBM Business Partners.

Use the following process when you plan or implement a project with IBM Real-time Compression™. Step-by-step implementation instructions are beyond the scope of this solution guide; those details are covered in other IBM Redbooks publications and product documentation. The intention of this solution guide is to provide high-level guidelines and considerations of an implementation that can lead to successful implementation of the solution itself.

Figure 1 shows the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller.


Figure 1. IBM SAN Volume Controller


Did you know?

IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller, a member of the IBM Storwize family, is a storage virtualization system with a single point of control for storage resources. SAN Volume Controller improves business application availability and greater resource utilization so you can get the most from your storage resources, and achieve a simpler, more scalable, and cost efficient IT infrastructure. The newly enhanced SAN Volume Controller with IBM Real-time Compression offers up to three times the throughput for applications.


Business value highlights and guarantee

One of the highlights is the ability to double the effective storage capacity of your active data - guaranteed. IBM guarantees storage savings of at least 50 percent with Real-time Compression and the Storwize V7000.

Today, thousands of customers enjoy the extraordinary storage efficiency features of IBM Storwize V7000. And now that efficiency comes with a guarantee. That is correct; IBM now guarantees you a savings rate of at least 50% when deploying IBM Real-time Compression. Just turn on Real-time Compression on your new Storwize V7000 and, in the unlikely event you do not get 50% or greater compression savings, IBM will provide, at no cost, the hardware and authorizations to match the shortfall. That is a deal you cannot refuse!

Unlike other compression implementations, Real-time Compression is specifically designed to compress active primary workloads such as Oracle RDBMS, IBM DB2®, Microsoft SQL Server, and VMware. IBM is so confident that it is willing to guarantee storage savings for Storwize V7000 customers.

For more information about the guarantee, go to the following address:
https://ibm.biz/BdDZE6


Solution implementation overview and determining suitability for data compression

Before implementing this solution, use the Comprestimator utility. This host-based utility offers fast and accurate estimates of an expected compression rate for block devices. Use Comprestimator to estimate the compression ratio, and implement compression on volumes that have a compression ratio above 25%, and evaluate workload on volumes with low compression ratio (<25%).

The latest version of Comprestimator can be downloaded from the following location:
http://www-304.ibm.com/support/customercare/sas/f/comprestimator/home.html

As a general guideline, compress workloads that show more than 25% compression savings. Use the threshold for volume compressibility in Table 1 to help you decide whether to compress a volume.

Table 1 recommendations are based on the data compression rate.

Table 1. Recommendations