This IBM® Redbooks® publication is a detailed technical guide to the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller (SVC), powered by IBM Spectrum Virtualize™ Version 7.6. IBM SAN Volume Controller is a virtualization appliance solution, which maps virtualized volumes that are visible to hosts and applications to physical volumes on storage devices. Each server within the storage area network (SAN) has its own set of virtual storage addresses that are mapped to physical addresses. If the physical addresses change, the server continues running by using the same virtual addresses that it had before. Therefore, volumes or storage can be added or moved while the server is still running. The IBM virtualization technology improves the management of information at the "block" level in a network, which enables applications and servers to share storage devices on a network.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication captures several of the best practices based on field experience and describes the performance gains that can be achieved by implementing the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller V6.2. This book begins with a look at the latest developments with SAN Volume Controller V6.2 and reviews the changes in the previous versions of the product. It highlights configuration guidelines and best practices for the storage area network (SAN) topology, clustered system, back-end storage, storage pools and managed disks, volumes, remote copy services, and hosts. Then, this book provides performance guidelines for SAN Volume Controller, back-end storage, and applications. It explains how you can optimize disk performance with the IBM System Storage Easy Tier® function. Next, it provides best practices for monitoring, maintaining, and troubleshooting SAN Volume Controller. Finally, this book highlights several scenarios that demonstrate the best practices and performance guidelines. This book is intended for experienced storage, SAN, and SAN Volume Controller administrators and technicians. Before reading this book, you must have advanced knowledge of the SAN Volume Controller and SAN environment. For background information, read the following Redbooks publications: Implementing the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller V5.1, SG24-6423 Introduction to Storage Area Networks, SG24-5470