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# Understanding mainframe management

Service level provisioning for mainframe simplifies storage system management by automating many of the tasks that are associated with provisioning storage.

The mainframe dashboard provides you with a single place to monitor and manage configured splits, CU images, and CKD volumes.

In 10.0, SE blocks the following operations that are triggered from a U4P server that is installed on a mainframe host - z/OS and z/Linux hosts:

- Map/unmap to/from CU
- Create/delete CU on all z/OS hosts
- Create/delete CU on all z/Linux hosts

One of the properties of the CKD volume is the physical name (also known as volume serial number (VOLSER)). VOLSER information is displayed if running a SMAS client/server to zOS as described in Appendix C - Configuring SMAS to work in z/OS of the Unisphere for PowerMax Installation Guide.

The mainframe dashboard is organized into the following panels:

- CKD Compliance - Displays how well CKD storage groups are complying with their respective service level policies, if applicable.
- CKD Storage Groups - Displays the mainframe storage groups on the storage system. Double-click a storage group to see more details and information about its compliance and volumes.
- Actions - Allow the user to provision storage and create CKD volumes.
- Summary - Displays the mainframe summary information in terms of splits, CU images, and CKD volumes.

With the release of HYPERMAX OS 5977 Q1 2016, Unisphere introduces support for service level provisioning for mainframe. Service level provisioning simplifies storage system management by automating many of the tasks that are associated with provisioning storage.

Service level provisioning eliminates the need for storage administrators to manually assign physical resources to their applications. Instead, storage administrators specify the service level and capacity that is required for the application and the system provisions the storage group appropriately.

You can provision CKD storage to a mainframe host using the Provision Storage wizard.

The storage system must be running HYPERMAX OS 5977 Q1 2016, or higher, and have at least one FICON director configured.

You can map CKD devices to front-end EA/EF directors. Addressing on EA and EF directors is divided into Logical Control Unit images, also known as CU images. Each CU image has its own unique SSID and contains a maximum of 256 devices (numbered 0x00 through 0xFF). When mapped to an EA or EF port, a group of devices becomes part of a CU image.

With the release of HYPERMAX OS 5977 Q2 2017, Unisphere introduces support for All Flash Mixed FBA/CKD storage systems.

| NOTE: This feature is only available for All Flash 450F/850F/950F storage systems that are:

- Purchased as a mixed All Flash system
- Installed at HYPERMAX OS 5977 Q2 2017 or later
- Configured with two Storage Resource Pools - one FBA Storage Resource Pool and one CKD Storage Resource Pool

You can provision FBA/CKD storage to a mainframe host using the Provision Storage wizard.

| NOTE: A CKD SG can only provision from a CKD SRP. A FBA SG can only provision from a FBA SRP. FBA volumes cannot reside in a CKD SRP. CKD volumes cannot reside in a FBA SRP. Compression is only for FBA volumes.

You can map FBA devices to front-end EA/EF directors. Addressing on EA and EF directors is divided into Logical Control Unit images (CU images). Each CU image has its own unique SSID and contains a maximum of 256 devices (numbered 0x000 through 0xFF). When mapped to an EA or EF port, a group of devices becomes part of a CU image.