## About Provisioning Storage

In the default storage configuration, all data hosts are in one domain and all available storage is in one storage pool. Any host (initiator) in the domain can get access to any storage in the pool. However, your organization's needs determine how you adjust the storage configuration. Instead of assigning hosts to specific physical storage, you provision the storage for your organization by creating domains of initiators and pools of virtual storage.

In addition to domains and pools, the system has physical and logical storage elements that you use to provision your storage:

- Physical storage elements: arrays, trays, and disks
- Logical storage elements: virtual disks, volumes, and pools

The relationships among the physical and logical storage elements is shown in the following diagram:

Before you can allocate storage appropriately, consider the following requirements for your site:

- Security - By creating additional domains, you segregate initiators. For example, the hosts that handle financial data store their data in a different domain from the domain used by hosts that handle research data.
- I/O -The Default storage profile specifies a general, balanced access to storage, but some parts of your organization might require one or more of the characteristics to be optimized at the expense of other attributes. The system provides a set of profiles to meet various needs. You can also create custom profiles.
- Performance - In general, the number of host ports is equal to the number of storage ports. You can add more hosts but performance declines if the number of ports remains the same. To maintain performance, you can expand the number of ports by adding storage resource card (SRC) sets. For information on how to add an SRC set, open the Sun Web Console page and click Storage Automated Diagnostic Environment > Service > Service Advisor > X-Options.

### Related Topics

- About the Default State of the System
- Managing Storage Domains
- Reference: Standard Storage Profiles
- About Physical Storage Elements
- About Logical Storage Elements