HP 3PAR Disks Test

A disk that is currently offline or a disk that has failed will not be able to cater to the user requests thus causing prolonged delays in data access for users. Administrators hence have to continuously track the status and health of the disk so that abnormal health and status of the disk can be detected proactively and pre-emptively treated. The HP 3PAR Disks test helps administrators with this. This test monitors the health and status of each disk available on the HP 3PAR Storage system as well as the capacity of each disk, using which any abnormalities can be detected before users start complaining of slowdowns.

Target of the test : A HP 3PAR Storage system

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each disk 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 system.
Port	The port number at which the Storage system listens. The default is NULL.
User and Password	Specify the credentials of a user who has the right to execute API commands on the storage device and pull out metrics. To monitor the HP 3PAR Storage system, you will have to provide the credential of a user who has been assigned the Browse role. To know how to create a user with Browser role, refer to How to Create a New User with Browser Role?
Confirm Password	Confirm the password by retyping it here.
SSL	Set this flag to True, if the storage system being monitored is SSL-enabled. By default this flag is set to False.
Using REST API	By default, this flag is set to False indicating that the eG agent by default, executes CIM API commands on the target storage server to collect the required metrics. However, to collect the required metrics from an SSL-enabled HP 3PAR Storage server, the eG agent is required to execute REST API commands on the target storage server. To enable the eG agent to execute REST API commands, set this flag to True.
IsEmbedded	This flag is not applicable when you set the Using REST API flag to True. By default, the target HP 3PAR Storage system is embedded within the storage platform. Therefore, this flag is set to True, by default.
Serial Number	If the SMI-S provider has been implemented as a proxy, then such a provider can be configured to manage multiple storage devices. This is why, if the IsEmbedded flag is set to False, you will have to explicitly specify which storage system you want the eG agent to monitor. Since each storage system is uniquely identified by a Serial Number, specify the same in this text box. The format of this number and where you can find it will differ from one storage system to another. You are hence advised to contact the storage administrator to know what to enter against this parameter. For example, the serial number for a HP 3PAR Storage system can be:16990.
CIM Server Port	This parameter is not applicable when you set the Using REST API flag to True. The SMI–S provider of the HP 3PAR Storage system provides access for monitoring and management via the HTTP and HTTPS protocols for CIM API request/response semantics. To enable the eG agent to access the SMI-S Provider, invoke the CIM API commands, and collect the required metrics, you need to specify the service port on the SMI- S provider in the CIM Server Port text box that listens for HTTP/HTTPS requests for CIM API semantics. By default, this is port 5988. If the service port on the SMI-S Provider listens only to HTTPS requests, then specify the port as 5989.
Jar	This flag is not applicable when you set the Using REST API flag to True. By default, this test uses the wbem.jar for metrics collection. This is why, the wbem option is selected by default. If you want the test to use the sblimCIMClient.jar for collecting metrics, choose the sblim option here.
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

Operational status

Indicates the current operating status of this disk.

The values that this measure can report and the states they indicate are tabulated below:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
OK	0
In Service	1
Power Mode	2
Completed	3
Starting	4
Dormant	5
Other	6
Unknown	7
Stopping	8
Stressed	9
Stopped	10
Supporting Entity In Error	11
Degraded or Predicted Failure	12
Predictive Failure	13
Lost Communication	14
No Contact	15
Aborted	16
Error	17
Non-Recoverable Error	18

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned States while indicating the current operating state of this disk. However, the graph of this measure will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents of the States as mentioned in the table above.

Detailed operational status

Describes the current operational state of this disk.

This measure will be reported only if the API provides a detailed operational state.

Typically, the detailed state will describe why the disk is in a particular operational state. For instance, if the Operational status measure reports the value Stopping for a disk, then this measure will explain why that disk is being stopped.

The values that this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are discussed in the table below:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
Online	0
Success	1
Power Saving Mode	2
Write Protected	3
Write Disabled	4
Not Ready	5
Removed	6
Rebooting	7
Offline	8
Failure	9

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned Measure Values only. However, in the graph of this measure, the detailed operational status of this disk. However, the graph of this measure will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Health state

Indicates the current health of this disk.

The values that this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are tabulated below:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
OK	0
Unknown	1
Degraded/Warning	2
Minor failure	3
Major failure	4
Critical failure	5
Non-recoverable error	6

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned Measure Values only. However, in the graph of this measure, the current health of this disk will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Data transmitted

Indicates the rate at which data was transmitted by this disk.

MB/Sec

IOPS

Indicates the rate at which I/O operations were performed on this disk.

IOPS

Compare the value of this measure across disks to know which disk handled the maximum number of I/O requests and which handled the least. If the gap between the two is very high, then it indicates serious irregularities in load-balancing across disks.

You may then want to take a look at the Reads and Writes measure to understand what to fine-tune – the load-balancing algorithm for read requests or that of the write requests.

Reads

Indicates the rate at which read operations were performed on this disk.

Reads/Sec

Compare the value of this measure across disks to know which disk handled the maximum number of read requests and which handled the least. If the gap between the two is very high, then it indicates serious irregularities in load-balancing across disks.

Writes

Indicates the rate at which write operations were performed on this disk.

Writes/Sec

Compare the value of this measure across disks to know which disk handled the maximum number of write requests and which handled the least. If the gap between the two is very high, then it indicates serious irregularities in load-balancing across disks.

Data reads

Indicates the rate at which data is read from this disk.

MB/Sec

Compare the value of these measures across disks to identify the slowest disk in terms of servicing read and write requests (respectively).

Data writes

Indicates the rate at which data is written to this disk.

MB/Sec

Disk busy

Indicates the percentage of time this disk was busy processing requests.

Percent

Compare the value of this measure across disks to know which disk was the busiest and which disk was not. If the gap between the two is very high, then it indicates serious irregularities in load-balancing across disks.

Average read size

Indicates the amount of data read from this disk per I/O operation

MB/Op

Compare the value of these measures across disks to identify the slowest disk in terms of servicing read and write requests (respectively).

Average write size

Indicates the amount of data written to this disk per I/O operation.

MB/Op

Read hits

Indicates the percentage of read requests that were serviced by the cache of this disk.

Percent

A high value is desired for this measure. A very low value is a cause for concern, as it indicates that cache usage is very poor; this in turn implies that direct disk accesses, which are expensive operations, are high.

Write hits

Indicates the percentage of write requests that were serviced by the cache of this disk.

Percent

Average response time

Indicates the time taken by this disk to respond to I/O requests.

Microsecs

Ideally, this value should be low. If not, it implies that the disk is slow.

Queue length

Indicates the number of requests that are in queue for this disk.

Number

A consistent increase in this value indicates a potential processing bottleneck with the disk.