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IntelliMagic Balance; First optimization solution for z/OS data migration that improves storage hardware efficiency
02-02-2010 12:09
IntelliMagic announces IntelliMagic Balance as the first volume migration optimization solution for z/OS environments. IntelliMagic Balance is used during the implementation planning phase of a storage migration. It calculates the optimal layout of volumes across the new storage resources.
In its proprietary optimization algorithm, IntelliMagic Balance uses derived back-end disk performance metrics for an entire week of measurement data, so that the proposed placement plan forms a balanced situation for all points in time. This kind of global balance cannot be achieved by other means, since the amount of data is simply too large for a manual calculation.
Moving data to new storage hardware using IntelliMagic Balance will significantly impact the Return on Investment (ROI) of storage hardware. Dr. Gilbert Houtekamer, CEO of IntelliMagic, says: “If you distribute the volumes intelligently over the RAID array groups such that all array groups are used more or less equally, this can easily translate to a 30% higher throughput potential compared to manual, non-optimized placement.”
Improved balance will also result in better service levels as the risk of creating I/O performance hotspots is minimized. If data placement is optimized this can mean less expensive hardware can be purchased, or the lease period for the new hardware can be four to five years instead of three to four years.
IntelliMagic Balance can also be used to implement multiple tiers of storage, automatically segmenting workloads by the tier of storage that will provide the performance characteristics required. This supports the design of a tiered storage environment with different sizes of SATA drives, Fibre drives, and/or Solid State Drives (SSDs). Implementing SSDs for the most active workloads not only provides better performance for the workloads on SSD, but will also decrease the hardware requirements for the other tiers by lowering the average back-end activity on those tiers.
Migrating from smaller to larger logical volumes, such as 3390-54 or EAVs, is another scenario that IntelliMagic Balance supports. Combining smaller volumes into larger logical volumes will introduce performance problems if volumes that are very busy at a peak time period are put together. IntelliMagic Balance automatically distributes the volumes according to their workload intensity for each point in time, such that these problems are avoided.
The output of IntelliMagic Balance can be used to customize the control statements of any data migration tool. IntelliMagic Balance works for all enterprise disk storage systems such as those from EMC, HDS, IBM, and HP.
IntelliMagic Balance ties into IntelliMagic’s RMF Magic which provides early warning of I/O performance issues with a daily dashboard that shows the performance inside the storage system. It also complements the detailed storage system modeling capabilities of IntelliMagic’s Disk Magic solution.
IntelliMagic Balance is generally available as of today and will be announced in two webinars on February 9, 2009 for the European and American time zones. You can participate in one of these webinars if you register at our webinar page.
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