XIO Volume folders Test

In an EMC XtremIO cluster, you can define various quantities of disk space as volumes. In large environments, multiple EMC XtremIO clusters may be deployed with too many volumes. If too many volumes are available in the cluster, then, monitoring the I/O processing and the I/O load on each individual volume is difficult for the administrators. Therefore, it is necessary to group the volumes and place those volumes in a volume folder. By analyzing the I/O processing and I/O load of each volume folder, administrators can figure out the processing ability of the volumes within the volume folder. If a volume folder is experiencing minimum activity, then administrators can resize a volume and allocate the available disk space to a volume that is currently experiencing space crunch or a volume that is constantly handling high I/O rate, thereby evenly distributing the load across the volume folders. To achieve the above, administrators can use the XIO Volume folders test.

This test auto discovers the volume folders of the target storage array and helps administrators to figure out the volume folder that is busy processing I/O requests, detect irregularities in the distribution of I/O load across the volume folders and thus enables administrators to identify the volume folder whose I/O processing rate is the maximum and the minimum. Using this test, administrators can easily load balance the volumes and utilize the volumes more efficiently.

Target of the test : An EMC XtremIO Storage array

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each volume folder of the target EMC XtremIO being monitored.

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 array listens. The default is NULL.
XtremIO User and XtremIO Password	Provide the credentials of a user who has read only privileges to access the XtremIO storage array in the XtremIO User and XtremIO Password text boxes.
Confirm Password	Confirm the password by retyping it here.
XMS IP	This parameter is applicable only for EMC XtremIO 4.x. By default, None will be chosen from this list. If the target EMC XtremIO storage array is within a XMS Management Server that is auto-discovered, then the IP or host name of that XMS Management Server will be displayed in this list. Select that particular XMS IP to configure this test. If you wish to monitor an EMC XtremIO Storage Array that is either not an integral part of the auto-discovered XMS Management Server or a brand new EMC XtremIO Storage Array, choose the Other option. This will enable you to add a new XMS Managament Server. To know how to add a new XMS Management Server, refer to Adding a new XMS.
SSL	The eG agent collects performance metrics by invoking Restful APIs on the target Storage array. Typically, the Restful APIs can be invoked through the HTTP or the HTTPS mode. By default, the eG agent invokes the Restful APIs using the HTTPS mode. This is why, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. If the target storage array is not SSL-enabled, then the Restful APIs can be accessed through the HTTP mode only. In this case, set the SSL flag to No.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Bandwidth	Indicates the amount of data utilized for I/O operations per second on this volume folder.	MB/Sec
Read bandwidth	Indicates the amount of data utilized for read I/O operations per second on this volume folder.	MB/Sec
Write bandwidth	Indicates the amount of data utilized for write I/O operations per second on this volume folder.	MB/Sec
IOPS	Indicates the rate at which I/O operations were performed on this volume folder during the last measurement period.	IOPS	Compare the value of this measure across the volumes to know which volume handles the maximum number of I/O operations
Read IOPS	Indicates the rate at which read operations were performed on this volume folder.	IOPS
Write IOPS	Indicates the rate at which write operations were performed on this volume folder.	IOPS
Reads	Indicates the number of reads performed on this volume folder per second during the last measurement period.	Reads/sec	Compare the values of this measure across the volumes to know which volume folder handles the maximum number of read requests.
Writes	Indicates the number of writes performed on this volume folder per second during the last measurement period.	Writes/sec
Data reads	Indicates the rate at which data was read from this volume folder during the last measurement period.	MB/Sec
Data written	Indicates the rate at which data was written to this volume folder during the last measurement period.	MB/Sec
Average read size	Indicates the amount of data read from this volume folder per I/O operation during the last measurement period.	MB/Op	Compare the values of these measures across the volume folders to identify the volume folder that is the slowest in terms of servicing read and write requests (respectively).
Average write size	Indicates the amount of data written to this volume folder per I/O operation during the last measurement period.	MB/Op