NetApp E-Series Storage Disk Workload Test

This test monitors the disks in the target NetApp E-Series Storage system and reports the I/O processing ability of each disk in terms of reads/writes, cache hits, etc. In addition, this test helps the administrators to identify the disk that is taking too long to respond to read/write requests.

Target of the test : NetApp E-Series Storage

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each disk in the NetApp E-Series Storage that is currently launched.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The nick name of the NetApp E-Series Storage component for which this test is to be configured.

Port

Refers to the port at which the specified host listens to. By default, this is Null.

Rest API Port

This is the port at which REST API connectivity is provided. By default, port 4443 is used.

Username and Password

To collect performance metrics from the target storage device, the eG agent should be configured with the credentials of a user who is vested with "read-only" privileges to access REST API of the target storage device. Specify the credentials of such a user in the Username and Password text boxes.

Confirm Password

Confirm the password by retyping it here.

SSL

Set the SSL flag to Yes, if SSL (Secured Socket Layer) is to be used to connect to the target Storage System, and No if it is not.

Timeout Seconds

Specify the time duration for which this test should wait for a response from the storage system in the Timeout text box. By default, this is 120 seconds.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement

Description

Measurement Unit

Interpretation

Read IOPS

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

Reads/sec

 

Compare the values of these measures across the disks to know what is contributing to the abnormal I/O activity levels - read operations? or write operations?

Write IOPS

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

Writes/sec

Other IOPS

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

Operations/sec

 

Read throughput

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

MB/sec

 

Write throughput

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

MB/sec

 

Read response time

Indicates the time taken for this disk to respond to a read request.

Milliseconds

 

Write response time

Indicates the time taken for this disk to respond to a write request.

Milliseconds

 

Average read operation size

Indicates the total size of data read from this controller.

MB

 

Average write operation size

Indicates the total size of data written on this disk.

MB

 

Average queue depth

Indicates the average number of outstanding I/O requests to this disk for which a response has not been received from the disk.

Number

A low value is desired for this measure. A high value is indicative of a large number of pending requests for the disk and hints at a potential processing bottleneck on the disk.

Random I/O percentage

Indicates the percentage of random IO operations performed by this disk.

Percent

A high Random I/O percentage indicates workloads that are more likely to stress the system, particularly in terms of IOPS . This is because random access patterns are harder for the storage system to handle compared to sequential ones.

Random data percentage

Indicates the percentage of the data that is accessed by this disk.

Percent

Compare the value of this measure across the disks to identify the disk that had accessed too much data.