Monitoring the NetApp Unified Storage

eG Enterprise provides out-of-the-box monitoring for the NetApp storage system. The comprehensive NetApp Unified Storage monitoring model offered by the eG Enterprise Suite monitors various aspects of the performance of the NetApp storage system and promptly alerts storage administrators to potential I/O processing bottlenecks or space crunches.

layer model

Figure 1 : The layer model of the NetApp Unified Storage

Every layer of the layer model is mapped to a variety of tests which connect to the SNMP MIB, SNMP traps and NetApp Manageability SDK of the NetApp Unified Storage to collect critical statistics pertaining to its performance. The metrics so collected report on the following:

  • The performance of the USD hardware
  • The health of the network components that interface with (and depend on) the hardware
  • The current status and space usage of physical storage entities (disks, raid groups etc)
  • The status of Data ONTAP, the NetApp OS which runs on these physical entities
  • The efficiency of the access framework and protocols that are used to access the USD - eg., FCP and iSCSI
  • The NAS aspect of the USD; this includes the file access protocols such as CIFS and NFS
  • Abnormalities related to the usage of logical storage entities (such as volumes, LUNs, Qtrees etc.,) which are accessed using their framework by the end users;
  • The overall USD status and performance which depends on all its underlying components