FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS AX-HX Series Performance Monitoring Express User Guide

FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS AX-HX Series Performance Monitoring Express

Deciding whether to use the Performance Monitoring Express Guide

This guide describes how to quickly install and configure Active IQ Unified Manager, how to perform basic monitoring tasks, and how to identify performance issues. You should use this guide if you want to monitor cluster performance, and the following assumptions apply to your situation:

• You want to use best practices, not explore every available option.

• You do not want to read a lot of conceptual background.

• You want to install Unified Manager by using a virtual appliance, instead of a Linux or Windows-based installation.

• You’re willing to use a static configuration rather than DHCP to install the software.

• You are a cluster administrator with the “admin” role.
  If these assumptions are not correct for your situation, you should see the following resources:

• System Administration Reference

Performance monitoring workflow

Monitoring cluster performance involves installing Active IQ Unified Manager software, setting up basic monitoring tasks, and identifying performance issues.

Verifying that your VMware environment is supported
For successful installation of Active IQ Unified Manager, you must verify that your VMware environment meets the necessary requirements.

Procedure

1. Verify that your VMware infrastructure meets the sizing requirements for the installation of Unified Manager.

2. Contact Fujitsu support personnel to verify that you have a supported combination of the following components:

3. ONTAP version

4. ESXi operating system version

5. VMware vCenter Server version

6. VMware Tools version

7. Browser type and version
   Note : Contact Fujitsu support personnel for the supported configurations for Unified Manager.

8. Click the configuration name for the selected configuration. Details for that configuration are displayed in the Configuration Details window.

9. Review the information in the following tabs:

10. Notes
    Lists important alerts and information that are specific to your configuration.

11. Policies and Guidelines
    Provides general guidelines for all configurations.

Active IQ Unified Manager worksheet

Before you install, configure, and connect Active IQ Unified Manager, you should have specific information about your environment readily available. You can record the information in the worksheet.

Unified Manager installation information

Unified Manager configuration information

Cluster information
Capture the following information for each cluster on Unified Manager.

Related information
Administrator Authentication and RBAC Power Guide

Installing Active IQ Unified Manager

To install Active IQ Unified Manager to monitor cluster performance, follow these procedures.

Downloading and deploying Active IQ Unified Manager
To install the software, you must download the virtual appliance (VA) installation file and then use a VMware vSphere Client to deploy the file to a VMware ESXi server. The VA is available in an OVA file.

Procedure

1. Go to the the DVD included in the Product and locate Active IQ Unified Manager.
2. Select VMware vSphere in the Select Platform drop-down menu and click Go!
3. Save the OVA file to a local or network location that is accessible to your VMware vSphere Client.
4. In VMware vSphere Client, click File > Deploy OVF Template.
5. Locate the OVA file and use the wizard to deploy the virtual appliance on the ESXi server. You can use the Properties tab in the wizard to enter your static configuration information.
6. Power on the VM.
7. Click the Console tab to view the initial boot process.
8. Follow the prompt to install VMware Tools on the VM.
9. Configure the time zone.
10. Enter a maintenance user name and password.
11. Go to the URL displayed by the VM console.

Configuring initial Active IQ Unified Manager settings

The Active IQ Unified Manager Initial Setup dialog box appears when you first access the web UI, which enables you to configure some initial settings and to add clusters.

Procedure

1. Accept the default AutoSupport enabled setting.
2. Enter the NTP server details, the maintenance user email address, the SMTP server host name, and additional SMTP options, and then click Save.

What to do next
When the initial setup is complete, the Cluster Data Sources page is displayed where you can add the cluster details.

Specifying the clusters to be monitored

You must add a cluster to an Active IQ Unified Manager server to monitor the cluster, view the cluster discovery status, and monitor its performance.

Before you begin

• You must have the following information:
  • Host name or cluster-management IP address
  • The host name is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or short name that Unified Manager uses to connect to the cluster. This host name must resolve to the cluster-management IP address.
  • The cluster-management IP address must be the cluster-management LIF of the administrative storage virtual machine (SVM). If you use a node-management LIF, the operation fails.
• ONTAP administrator user name and password
• Type of protocol (HTTP or HTTPS) that can be configured on the cluster and the port number of the cluster
• You must have the Application Administrator or Storage Administrator role.
• The ONTAP administrator must have the ONTAPI and SSH administrator roles.
• The Unified Manager FQDN must be able to ping ONTAP.
• You can verify this by using the ONTAP command ping -node node_name -destination Unified_Manager_FQDN.

About this task
For a MetroCluster configuration, you must add both the local and remote clusters, and the clusters must be configured correctly.

Procedure

1. Click Configuration > Cluster Data Sources.

2. From the Clusters page, click Add.

3. In the Add Cluster dialog box, specify the required values, such as the host name or IP address (IPv4 or IPv6) of the cluster, user name, password, protocol for communication, and port number.
   By default, the HTTPS protocol is selected. You can change the cluster- management IP address from IPv6 to IPv4 or from IPv4 to IPv6. The new IP address is reflected in the cluster grid and the cluster configuration page after the next monitoring cycle finishes.

4. Click Add.

5. If HTTPS is selected, perform the following steps:

6. In the Authorize Host dialog box, click View Certificate to view the certificate information about the cluster.

7. Click Yes. Unified Manager checks the certificate only when the cluster is initially added, but does not check it for each API call to ONTAP. If the certificate has expired, you cannot add the cluster. You must renew the SSL certificate and then add the cluster.

8. Optional : View the cluster discovery status:
   Review the cluster discovery status from the Cluster Setup page.  The cluster is added to the Unified Manager database after the default monitoring interval of approximately 15 minutes.

Setting up basic monitoring tasks
You can monitor your systems for performance issues by checking the systems daily, by establishing weekly and monthly performance trends, and by specifying thresholds for receipt of notifications about potential performance issues.

Performing daily monitoring
You can perform daily monitoring to ensure that you do not have any immediate performance issues that require attention.

Procedure

1. From the Active IQ Unified Manager UI, go to the Event Inventory page to view all current and obsolete events.
2. From the View option, select Active Performance Events and determine what action is required.

Using weekly and monthly performance trends to identify performance issues
Identifying performance trends can assist you in identifying whether the cluster is being overused or underused by analyzing volume latency. You can use similar steps to identify CPU, network, or other system bottlenecks.

Procedure

1. Locate the volume that you suspect is being underused or overused.
2. On the Volume Details tab, click 30 d to display the historical data.
3. In the “Break down data by” drop-down menu, select Latency, and then click Submit.
4. Deselect Aggregate in the cluster components comparison chart, and then compare the cluster latency with the volume latency chart.
5. Select Aggregate and deselect all other components in the cluster components comparison chart, and then compare the aggregate latency with the volume latency chart.
6. Compare the reads/writes latency chart to the volume latency chart.
7. Determine whether client application loads have caused a workload contention and rebalance workloads as needed.
8. Determine whether the aggregate is overused and causing contention and rebalance workloads as needed.

Using performance thresholds to generate event notifications

Events are notifications that the Active IQ Unified Manager generates automatically when a predefined condition occurs, or when a performance counter value crosses a threshold. Events help you identify performance issues in the clusters you are monitoring. You can configure alerts to send email notification automatically when events of certain severity types occur.

Setting performance thresholds
You can set performance thresholds to monitor critical performance issues. User-defined thresholds trigger a warning or a critical event notification when the system approaches or exceeds the defined threshold.

Procedure

1. Create the Warning and Critical event thresholds:
2. Select Configuration > Performance Thresholds.
3. Click Create.
4. Select the object type and specify a name and description of the policy.
5. Select the object counter condition and specify the limit values that define Warning and Critical events.
6. Select the duration of time that the limit values must be breached for an event to be sent, and then click Save.
7. Assign the threshold policy to the storage object.
8. Go to the Inventory page for the same cluster object type that you previously selected and choose the Performance from the View option.
9. Select the object to which you want to assign the threshold policy, and then click Assign Threshold Policy.
10. Select the policy you previously created, and then click Assign Policy.

Example
You can set user-defined thresholds to learn about critical performance issues. For example, if you have a Microsoft Exchange Server and you know that it crashes if volume latency exceeds 20 milliseconds, you can set a warning threshold at 12 milliseconds and a critical threshold at 15 milliseconds. With this threshold setting, you can receive notifications when the volume latency exceeds the limit.

Configuring alert settings
You can specify which events from Active IQ Unified Manager trigger alerts, the email recipients for those alerts, and the frequency for the alerts.

Before you begin
You must have the Application Administrator role.

About this task
You can configure unique alert settings for the following types of performance events:

• Critical events triggered by breaches of user-defined thresholds
• Warning events triggered by breaches of user-defined thresholds, system-defined thresholds, or dynamic thresholds

By default, email alerts are sent to Unified Manager admin users for all new events. You can have email alerts sent to other users by adding those users’ email addresses.

Note : To disable alerts from being sent for certain types of events, you must clear all of the check boxes in an event category. This action does not stop events from appearing in the user interface.

Procedure

1. In the left navigation pane, select Storage Management > Alert Setup. The Alert Setup page is displayed.
2. Click Add and configure the appropriate settings for each of the event types. To have email alerts sent to multiple users, enter a comma between each email address.
3. Click Save.

Identifying performance issues in Active IQ Unified Manager
If a performance event occurs, you can locate the source of the issue within Active IQ Unified Manager and use other tools to fix it. You might receive an email notification of an event or notice the event during daily monitoring.

Procedure

1. Click the link in the email notification, which takes you directly to the storage object having a performance event.
2. If the event has crossed a system-defined threshold, follow the suggested actions in the UI to troubleshoot the issue.
3. If the event has crossed a user-defined threshold, analyze the event to determine if you need to take action.
4. If the issue persists, check the following settings:
5. Protocol settings on the storage system
6. Network settings on any Ethernet or fabric switches
7. Network settings on the storage system
8. Disk layout and aggregate metrics on the storage system
9. If the issue persists, contact Fujitsu Support for assistance.

Using Active IQ Digital Advisor to view system performance

For any ONTAP system that sends AutoSupport telemetry to Fujitsu, you can view extensive performance and capacity data.Active IQ shows system performance over a longer period than you can see in ONTAP System Manager.
You can view graphs of CPU utilization, latency, IOPS, IOPS by protocol, and network throughput. You can also download this data in .csv format for analysis in other tools. In addition to this performance data, Active IQ can show you storage efficiency by workload and compare that efficiency to the expected efficiency for that type of workload. You can view capacity trends and see an estimate of how much additional storage you might need to add in a given timeframe

Note:

• Storage Efficiency is available at the customer, cluster, and node level on the left-hand-side of the main dashboard.
• Performance is available at the cluster and node level on the left-hand-side of the main dashboard.

Where to find additional information
After you have successfully installed and configured Active IQ Unified Manager and set up monitoring tasks, you can perform more advanced tasks. System Administration Reference Describes general system administration for storage systems running ONTAP.

Copyright and trademark

Copyright
Copyright 2021 FUJITSU LIMITED. All rights reserved. No part of this document covered by copyright may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or storage in an electronic retrieval system – without prior written permission of the copyright owner. Software derived from copyrighted Fujitsu material is subject to the following license and disclaimer: THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY FUJITSU “AS IS” AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WHICH ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL FUJITSU BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. Fujitsu reserves the right to change any products described herein at any time, and without notice. Fujitsu assumes no responsibility or liability arising from the use of products described herein, except as expressly agreed to in writing by Fujitsu. The use or purchase of this product does not convey a license under any patent rights, trademark rights, or any other intellectual property rights of Fujitsu.

Trademark
FUJITSU, FUJITSU logo, and ETERNUS are trademarks of Fujitsu. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/storage/eternus/trademarks.html

How to send comments about documentation and receive update notifications
The latest version of this document and the latest information related to this device are available at the following site. https://www.fujitsu.com/global/support/products/computing/storage/manuals- list.html If necessary, refer to the manuals for your model.

FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS AX/HX Series Performance Monitoring Express Guide A3CA08733-A248-03 Date of issuance: June 2021 Issuance responsibility: FUJITSU LIMITED

• The content of this manual is subject to change without notice.
• This manual was prepared with the utmost attention to detail.
• However, Fujitsu shall assume no responsibility for any operational problems as the result of errors, omissions, or the use of information in this manual.
• Fujitsu assumes no liability for damages to third party copyrights or other rights arising from the use of any information in this manual.
• The content of this manual may not be reproduced or distributed in part or in its entirety without prior permission from Fujitsu.

References

• Trademarks : Fujitsu Global

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