Panzura Cloud Storage Test

Object storage, the typical storage system used in the cloud, breaks up data and stores it as flexibly-sized containers or chunks. Each chunk can be individually addressed, manipulated and stored in many locations—not tied to any particular disk—with some associated metadata. Object storage can scale to billions of objects and exabytes of capacity while protecting data with greater effectiveness than RAID. In addition, due to the discrete scale-out architecture of object sorage, drive failures have little impact on data and self-healing replication functions recover very rapidly (think weeks for large capacity legacy RAID systems). This combination of scale and robustness make object storage an ideal target for warehousing data. CloudFS interfaces directly with all major cloud object storage APIs and related storage tiers, and leverages object-based cloud storage as a data warehouse to provide scale and availability with a compelling cost structure.

Panzura Cloud file system offers high speed data transfer rates to and from the cloud. But the lack of adequate cloud storage space for storing data uploaded to the cloud by the cloud controller can adversely affect the performance of the file system. This can lead to reduced availability of the file system, poor responsiveness towards user requests, increased risk of data loss, and poor backup and recovery. Hence, it is very essential to monitor the cloud storage space available to store data from the file system.

This test tracks the allocated cloud storage space and reports the amount of used space and free space available for storage on the cloud. In addition, this test also reports the percentage of space utilization, which helps administrators to promptly detect and proactively resolve any storage space crunch before it affects the performance and user experience.

Target of the test : A Panzura Cloud file system

Agent deploying the test : An external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the target appliance being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed

Host

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

SNMPPort

The port at which the monitored target exposes its SNMP MIB; the default is 161.

SNMPVersion

By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPversion list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list.

SNMPCommunity

The SNMP community name that the test uses to communicate with the firewall. This parameter is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVersion chosen is v3, then this parameter will not appear.

Username

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges – in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against this parameter. 

Context

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the Username provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the Username in the Context text box.  By default, this parameter is set to none.

AuthPass

Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned Username. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPversion selected is v3.

Confirm Password

Confirm the AuthPass by retyping it here.

AuthType

This parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. From the AuthType list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified username and password into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:

  • MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm
  • SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm
  • SHA224 - Secure Hash Algorithm 224 bit
  • SHA256 - Secure Hash Algorithm 256 bit
  • SHA384 - Secure Hash Algorithm 384 bit
  • SHA512 - Secure Hash Algorithm 512 bit

EncryptFlag

This flag appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the this flag is set to No by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the Yes option. 

EncryptType

If the EncryptFlag is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the EncryptType list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:

  • DES - Data Encryption Standard
  • 3DES - Triple Data Encryption Standard
  • AES - Advanced Encryption Standard
  • AES128 - Advanced Encryption Standard 128 bit
  • AES192 - Advanced Encryption Standard 192 bit
  • AES256 - Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit

EncryptPassword

Specify the encryption password here.

Confirm Password

Confirm the encryption password by retyping it here.

Timeout

Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds.

Data Over TCP

By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic – for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components – to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set this flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.

EngineID

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. By default, the EngineID parameter is set to No. Administrators need to set this flag to Yes, only if they choose AES192 or AES256 as the Encryption type.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Total space

Indicates the total cloud storage apace allocated to the Panzura file system.

GB

 

Used space

Indicates the amount of cloud storage space that is used by the Panzura file system.

GB

 

Free space

Indicates the amount of cloud storage space that is currently available for use.

GB

 

Space utilization

Indicates the percentage of cloud space usage by thePanzura file system.

Percent

Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. A high value is indicative of excessive cloud space usage. If the value is dangerously close to 100%, it indicates that cloud storage is full.