Clariion RAID Groups Test

Sufficient disk space should be available in a RAID group, as new LUNs cannot be created in a RAID group that suffers from a severe space contention. Also, with many critical applications attached to RAID groups, it is essential for administrators to track the capacity and usage of each RAID group on the storage system to figure out whether enough disk space is available in all RAIDs to support the storage requirements of these applications.

This test auto-discovers the RAID groups on the storage system, and reports the current state, capacity, space usage, and space availability of each RAID group so that, you can instantly identify the RAID groups that are running out of space.

Target of the test : An EMC CLARiiON storage device

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each RAID group supported by the storage device.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The IP address of the storage device for which this test is to be configured.

Port

The port number at which the storage device listens. The default is NULL.

CLARiiON IP

By default, the host IP will be displayed here. If the eG agent has also been configured to use the SMI-S provider for metrics collection, then the IP address of host on which the SMI-S provider has been installed, will be displayed here by default. In this case, you should change the value of this parameter to reflect the IP address of the EMC CLARiiON storage device. However, if the eG agent uses only the NaviSphere CLI for monitoring, then the default settings can remain. 

NaviseccliPath

The eG agent uses the command-line utility, NaviSecCli.exe, which is part of the NaviSphere Management Suite, to communicate with and monitor the storage device. To enable the eG agent to invoke the CLI, configure the full path to the CLI in the NaviseccliPath text box.

User Name and Password

Provide the credentials of a user who is authorized to access the storage device in the User Name and Password text boxes.

Confirm Password

Confirm the password by retyping it here.

Ignore Invalid Raid Groups

By default, this flag is set to No, indicating that the test monitors all RAID groups by default. Set this flag to Yes if you want the test to consider only the 'valid' RAID groups for monitoring.

Exclude Raid Groups

Provide a comma-separated list of RAID Group IDs that you want to exclude from the monitoring scope of this test. By default, this is set to none indicating that no RAID groups are excluded by default.

Timeout

Indicate the duration (in seconds) for which this test should wait for a response from the storage device. By default, this is set to 120 seconds. Note that the 'Timeout' value should always be set between 3 and 600 seconds only.

DD Frequency

Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD frequency. 

Detailed Diagnosis

To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
  • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Raid group state

Indicates the current state of this RAID group.

 

This measure reports any of the following values as the state of the RAID group:

  • Invalid
  • Valid
  • Defragmenting
  • Valid LUNs
  • Expanding
  • Busy
  • Explicit Remove

The numeric values that correspond to each of the states discussed above are as follows:

State Numeric Value
Invalid 0
Valid 1
Defragmenting 2
Valid LUNs 3
Expanding 4
Busy 5
Explicit Remove 6
Other 7

Note:

By default, this measure reports the States listed in the table above to indicate the state of a RAID group. The graph of this measure however, represents RAID group state using the numeric equivalents - 0 to 7.

Disk count

Indicates the number of disks assigned to this RAID group.

Number

To know which disks have been assigned to a RAID group, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

Lun count

Indicates the number of LUNs sharing this RAID group.

Number

To know which LUNs are sharing a particular RAID group, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

Raw capacity

Indicates the amount of raw capacity (in millions of blocks) of this RAID group that is available for binding LUNs.

TB

 

Logical capacity

Indicates the logical capacity of this RAID group.

MB

 

Free capacity

Indicates the amount of unused capacity in this RAID group.

GB

A high value is generally desired for this measure. A very low value or a consistent dip in this value could indicate a space crunch in the RAID group, which in turn can prevent the creation of new LUNs in the group.

Free

Indicates the percentage of free space in this RAID group.

Percent

A high value is generally desired for this measure. A very low value or a consistent dip in this value could indicate a space crunch in the RAID group, which in turn can prevent the creation of new LUNs in the group.

Defragmented

Indicates the progress (in percentage) of the defragmentation process on this RAID group.

Percent

As you unbind and rebind LUNs on a RAID Group, gaps may be created in the contiguous space across the Group's disks, fragmenting the RAID Group. Fragmentation makes less space available for creating new LUNs. Defragment a RAID Group to compress these gaps and provide more contiguous free space across the disks. Using this measure, you can easily track the progress of the defragmentation activity on each RAID group, and can receive a fair idea as to how long it would take for the defragmentation to complete.

Expanded

Indicates the progress (in percentage) of a RAID group expansion performed on this RAID group.

Percent

You can expand an existing RAID group by adding more disks to it. Expansion makes have more space available in the raid group to create new LUNs.

Using this measure, you can easily track the progress of the expansion of each RAID group, and can receive a fair idea as to how long it would take for the expansion to complete.

Maximum number of disks

Indicates the maximum number of disks that this RAID group can contain.

Number

 

Maximum number of LUNs

Indicates the maximum number of LUNs that can be created in this RAID group.

Number

 

Free contiguous group of unbound segments

Indicates the size of the largest contiguous span of free space in this RAID group.

GB

The larger this space, higher will be the number of LUNs that can be created on the corresponding RAID group.

Defrag/Expand priority

Indicates the current expansion / defragmentation priority of this RAID group.

 

This measure can report one of the following values:

  • High
  • Medium
  • Low

The higher the priority, the more system resources that are used, which can reduce system performance.

The numeric values that correspond to each of the priorities discussed above are as follows:

Priority Numeric Value
Low 0
Medium 1
High 2

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Priorities listed in the table above to indicate the defrag/expansion priority of a RAID group. The graph of this measure however, represents priorities using the numeric equivalents - 0 to 2.

Disk expanding

Indicates whether any disk in this RAID group is currently expanding or not.

 

If no disks in the RAID group are expanding currently, then this measure will report the value N/A. If one or more disks are currently expanding, then this measure will report the value Available.

The numeric values that correspond to each of the expansion states discussed above are as follows:

State Numeric Value
N/A 0
Available 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the States listed in the table above to indicate the expansion state of a RAID group. The graph of this measure however, represents expansion states using the numeric equivalents - 0 and 1.

Lun expansion

Indicates whether LUN expansion is enabled or disabled for this RAID group.

 

If LUN expansion is enabled for a RAID group, then this measure will report the value Enabled. If not, then the value would be Disabled.

The numeric values that correspond to each of the expansion states discussed above are as follows:

State Numeric Value
Disabled 0
Enabled 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the States listed in the table above to indicate the LUN expansion state of a RAID group. The graph of this measure however, represents expansion states using the numeric equivalents - 0 and 1.

The detailed diagnosis of the Disk count measure lists the disks that have been assigned to a particular RAID group.

ddclarrionraidgroupstestdiskcountmeas

Figure 1 : The detailed diagnosis of the Disk count measure

The detailed diagnosis of the LUN count measure lists the LUNs that are sharing a particular RAID group.

ddclariionraidgroupstestluncountmeas

Figure 2 : The detailed diagnosis of the LUN count measure