SANs ( 8 of 15 Data, data everywhere and not a bit to use)

SANs are an area where I get a lot of queries.  

It appears for one reason or another that storage teams can be quite combative when approached looking for access to their world.  It therefore never fails to amaze me how few capacity managers know what storage space is available, and how quickly it’s being consumed.

Challenge

–     IOPS remains the biggest bottleneck

–     Surprising number of capacity managers are unaware of storage capacity available

 As I mentioned previously storage seems to be the weak point in the performance chain right now. So where can we get data?

SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative – Standard) - It’s a standard for storage devices that lets you see what they are up to (among other administrative uses)

PowerShell Plugins - Many of the storage vendors have powershell plugins that you can use to retrieve data.Learn PowerShell or learn to serve fries (some dude 2008)

Storage Vendor central control server - my favourite place is usually a central repository of data such as EMC ProSphere or NetApp Ops Manager.

Once you figure out how you can get the data, take control of it by putting it in your capacity tool.

Of course, if you're using a capacity management tool like athene® you can use Capture Packs to bring data in from storage yourself, in fact you can bring time/data stamped data in from just about anywhere in the business. 

http://www.metron-athene.com/products/athene/datacapture/capture-packs/index.html

Next week I'll have a look at what other types of data you may wish to bring in to your capacity management tool.

Phil Bell

Consultant