About managing application I/O workloads with IOPS settings

Last published : Jun 19, 2026
When multiple applications use a common storage subsystem, it is important to balance application I/O requests so that the applications can co-exist. You can address this need by setting a maximum threshold on the I/O operations per second (IOPS) for the volumes of an application.
You can use application volume groups (App VGs) to set the thresholds. An application volume group comprises a volume or group of volumes that are associated with an application. Available volumes in an App VG service I/O requests from an application until the application volume group reaches the maximum IOPS threshold. Thereafter Arctera Volume Manager (VxVM) throttles and queues the I/O requests. VxVM services the requests in the next available time interval on priority.
The maximum IOPS threshold determines the maximum number of I/Os processed per second collectively by all the volumes in an application volume group.
In clustered environments, the IOPS threshold for an App VG is propagated to all nodes in the cluster. The threshold applies independently to each node.
From the Management Server console, you can set the maximum IO threshold for an application. VxVM internally sets up an App VG, comprising all volumes that are associated with the application.
See Managing IO Thresholds.
Alternately, Management Server console lets you select specific volumes to construct App VGs as required for an application. You can create multiple App VGs per application. You can specify a different IO threshold for each App VG. You can create App VGs based on the I/O requirements of the application. For example, the redo log volumes of a database application may need a different IOPS threshold, as compared to the archive volumes.
See Setting IO Thresholds.
You can also modify an App VG and its I/O threshold. You can perform add volume or remove volume operations, or you can modify or clear the IOPS threshold. If you do not specify an IO threshold, the App VG is automatically removed.
See Modifying an App VG.
For command line options to manage I/O workloads using maximum IOPS settings, see the Storage Foundation Administrator's Guide.