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Foglight for Storage Management Shared 4.6.5 - User and Reference Guide

Getting Started Monitoring Storage Performance Investigating Storage Devices Investigating Storage Components Investigating VPLEX Storage Troubleshooting Storage Performance Managing Data Collection, Rules, and Alarms Understanding Metrics Online-Only Topics

Introducing the Storage Environment Dashboard

The starting point for monitoring storage performance is the Storage Environment dashboard. The Storage Environment dashboard contains the following tabs:

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Monitoring Tab — Monitor your overall storage environment by device type. For more information, see Summary and Resource Information for each Collected Target:.
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Insights Tab — Break down to three views, Analytics, Live Troubleshooter, and Reports, to:
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Retrieve important data about your monitored storage environment. For more information, see Asking Questions About the Monitored Storage Environment.
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Investigate a potential storage performance issue. For more information, see Starting a Troubleshooting Investigation.
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Use templates to create reports on your storage environment. For more information, see Creating Storage Reports.
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Storage Capacity tab — Monitor your storage capacity by device type. For more information, see Monitoring Storage Capacity.

If your Foglight for Storage Management user account includes the Storage Administrator role, the Storage Environment dashboard also displays these tabs:

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Administration Tab — Manage configured agents, credentials, and modify data collection settings.
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Getting Started Tab — Purchase a product license.
To open the Storage Environment dashboard:
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On the navigation panel, under Dashboards, click Storage & SAN > Storage Environment.
The first time you open this dashboard, the Monitoring tab is displayed, showing the overall status of your monitored storage environment.

 
Table 3. The Monitoring tab contains the following screen elements:
Screen Element
Description
Time Range

Controls the period of time represented in the dashboard. The default is the last four hours. For more information, see “Time Range” in the online help.

Tiles

Summarizes how many of each type of device—Fabrics, Storage Arrays, and Filers—are being monitored, and breaks down the total number by alarm severity (from left to right: Fatal, Critical, Warning, and Normal). Tiles control the Quick View area as follows:

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Click the top half of a tile to open the device type’s quick view with the Summary view displayed.
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Click a status icon in one of the tiles to open the device type’s quick view containing only devices with that status.
Quick View

Contains four areas: Device List, Device Summary, FAQts, and Alarm Summary.

Device List

Displays the list of storage devices that match the selected tile.

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Click Summary to display the top storage devices in terms of key performance or capacity metrics.
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Click a device name to display metrics for that device only.
Device Summary

Displays performance and capacity metrics for the device selected in the Device List.

FAQts

Offers common searches in the form of questions. Scroll through questions, and click Show Me to see the answer to the currently displayed question. For more information, see Asking Questions About the Monitored Storage Environment.

Alarm Summary

Displays a list of alarms for the device selected in the Device List. For more information, see Understanding Status, Alarms, and Rules in Foglight for Storage Management.

Summary and Resource Information for each Collected Target:
1
Open the navigation panel, under Dashboards, select a target type. Then, select a target and click Explore.
2
In this view, you will see the following items:
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Product Name: Shows the target type name
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Vendor: Shows vendor name
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Model: Shows the model of the target
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DeviceID: Shows the name of the target
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IP Address: Shows the IP addresses of the target
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Total Disk Capacity: Shows the total disk capacity of the target
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Missing or Removed Disks: Shows the missing or Removed Disks, if any
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Disks with no Information: Shows the disks reported as No Information, if any

Monitoring Your Storage Environment

When you begin monitoring your storage environment, a good way to start is by identifying poorly-performing devices and resolving the issues that are contributing to the problems. In Foglight for Storage Management, all storage devices and their child components are assigned a status, which enables you to see at glance which elements in your storage infrastructure need attention. Any device that enters a non-Normal status triggers an alarm. For more information, see Understanding Status, Alarms, and Rules in Foglight for Storage Management.

The procedures in this section show you how to use the Monitoring tab in the Storage Environment dashboard to assess alarms and drill down to the components used by storage devices, such as the LUNs and NASVolumes that supply the physical storage for datastores.

This section describes the following topics:

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Understanding Status, Alarms, and Rules in Foglight for Storage Management
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Reviewing the Status of All Devices
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Assessing Storage Alarms
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Monitoring Fabrics
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Monitoring Storage Arrays
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Monitoring Filers

Understanding Status, Alarms, and Rules in Foglight for Storage Management

In Foglight for Storage Management, all storage devices and their child components are assigned a status, which enables you to see at a glance which entities in your storage infrastructure need attention. Status and alarms are controlled by rules that can be based on data, time, schedules, or events. The rule conditions define which values reflect acceptable behavior (Normal status) and which values warrant an alarm (Warning, Critical, or Fatal status). As the value associated with a monitored entity passes a condition threshold, Foglight for Storage Management generates an alarm and changes the entity’s status accordingly.

 
* 
NOTE: When a component is selected, its detail views display the component’s Status followed by its State. Status is determined by Foglight for Storage Management as describe above. State refers to the physical state of a component as reported by the vendor; if the vendor does not provide the physical state, the state is unknown. A component’s physical state may affect its status only when an enabled rule triggers alarms based on state. Consult with your Foglight Administrator if you want to enable or create rules that perform this check.

A storage device often has large numbers (thousands) of child components. With a few exceptions, alarms on child components do not change the status of the parent device. For example, a failed disk may have a Fatal status, but because arrays are designed to cope with a failed disk, the parent device continues to display a Normal status. The parent device status may be changed by child components in the following circumstances:

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Controller problems typically affect the performance of the storage array or filer, so the parent device inherits the alarm status of the controller. Pool alarms reflect capacity issues and performance problems that can affect many users of the storage array or filer, so the parent device inherits the alarm status of the pool or aggregate.
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When a significant percentage of child components have problems (for example, many disks are failing), the problems may be indicative of a systemic problem. In this case, the parent device status changes when the number of affected child components reaches a threshold defined in rules.

For information about changing default rules and alarm settings, see Managing Foglight for Storage Management Rules.

Reviewing the Status of All Devices

Use the Monitoring tab in the Storage Environment dashboard to gain a high-level understanding of the status of the devices in your environment, organized by device type. For a general description of the dashboard, see Introducing the Storage Environment Dashboard.

To monitor the storage environment:
1
On the navigation panel, under Dashboards, click Storage & SAN > Storage Environment.
2
Click the Monitoring tab.
The time range and selected tile are the same as the last time the dashboard was opened.
Optional—Change the Time Range. For an initial review, use the default time range.
3
Scan the lower part of the tiles.
4
If any of the tiles show that there are devices with the Fatal, Critical, or Warning status, do one of the following:
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To view all levels of alarms, click the top part of a tile that has the highest number of devices with the most severe errors. Go to the next section, Assessing Storage Alarms.
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To view alarms at one severity level only, such as all Critical alarms, click the Critical status count. Go to the next section, Assessing Storage Alarms.
5
If all tiles report that devices are in the Normal status, it means that the devices are operating within acceptable parameters. The next step is to review the devices to see if any of their child components show an alarm status. See one of the following topics:
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Monitoring Fabrics
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Monitoring Storage Arrays
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Monitoring Filers
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