Technical white paper
Monitor storage devices
and hosts operating in a
SAN environment
Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Table of contents
Commonly used terms ................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Event enrichment from using Storage Essentials management pack .............................................................................. 3
Event Type Indicators (ETIs) ................................................................................................................................................... 4
Health Indicators (HIs) .............................................................................................................................................................. 4
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Sample integration use cases .................................................................................................................................................... 5
Use case 1: Grouping events based on device type .......................................................................................................... 5
Use case 2: Identify connected devices for FC port related events ............................................................................... 5
Use case 3: Monitor storage capacity utilization ................................................................................................................ 6
Use case 3.1: Monitor available space on storage device ................................................................................................ 6
Use case 3.2: Reclaim storage by monitoring unmapped storage ................................................................................ 6
Use case 3.3: Monitoring unused raw storage for storage device ................................................................................. 6
Use case 3.4: Monitor number of free ports of switch ..................................................................................................... 6
Use case 3.5: Monitor file system usage on host .............................................................................................................. 6
Use case 4: Monitor storage performance .......................................................................................................................... 6
Configuration item views in RTSM ............................................................................................................................................. 7
Storage array details ................................................................................................................................................................ 7
FC switch details ........................................................................................................................................................................ 8
FC switch virtualization ............................................................................................................................................................ 8
Storage pool details ................................................................................................................................................................. 9
Host storage details ................................................................................................................................................................. 9
SAN external storage ............................................................................................................................................................. 10
Storage topology .................................................................................................................................................................... 10
SAN topology ........................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Appendix........................................................................................................................................................................................ 12
Installation: ............................................................................................................................................................................... 12
BSM server ................................................................................................................................................................................ 12
Managed node ......................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Licensing ................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Configuring CIs to the RTSM—Data flow probe ............................................................................................................... 13
Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Commonly used terms
2
Acronym
Expansion
OMi
Operations Manager i
MP
Management Pack
SE
Storage Essentials
SAN
Storage Area Network
HI
Health Indicator
ETI
Event Type Indicator
KPI
Key Performance Indicator
TBEC
Topology Based Event Correlation
RO
Report Optimizer
CI
Configuration Item
RTSM
Run Time Service Module
UCMDB
Universal Configuration Management Database
BSM
Business Service Management
OM
Operations Manager
SE SPI
Storage Essentials Smart Plug-In
HBA
Host Bus Adapter
CIT
Configuration Item Type
UCMDB DDM
Universal Configuration Management Database Discovery and Dependency Mapping
Oracle RAC
Oracle Real Application Cluster
Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Introduction
The HP Operations Manager i (OMi) Management Pack (MP) for HP Storage
Essentials (SE) works with OMi and enables you to monitor the various hosts
and devices operating in a Storage Area Network (SAN) environment. It includes
indicators—Health Indicators (HIs), Event Type Indicators (ETIs), and correlation
rules that analyze and categorize the events occurring in the systems and
report the health status of the systems. The Storage Essentials events are
forwarded to HP OMi based on the event filter configured by the user.
Duplicate events are suppressed in HP OMi based on the message key. Any event cleared in HP OMi gets automatically
cleared on Storage Essentials and vice versa.
The views that are available with Storage Essentials MP could be modified to include the views that are available from
other application MPs to get an end-to-end topology view.
The OMi MP for HP Storage Essentials includes the following components for monitoring the health and status of the
various hosts and devices operating in a SAN environment.
• HP Storage Essentials aspects and Policy templates
• Health Indicators (HIs), Event Type Indicators (ETIs), and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Topology Based Event Correlation (TBEC) rules
Event enrichment from using Storage Essentials management pack
Data flow probe for Storage Essentials connects to the database instance consumed by Storage Essentials Report
Optimizer (RO) server and fetch the discovered elements and reconcile them as Configuration Items (CIs) to Run Time
Service Module (RTSM), which is the Universal Configuration Management Database (UCMDB) instance in HP Business
Service Management (BSM).
• This means all the elements in SE are now present at RTSM as CIs.
• In Operations Manager (OM) terminology, this relates to the nodes that we import to OM node bank.
Storage Essentials events that are forwarded to OMi, includes the following attributes:
• CI resolution hint
• Event type indicator hint
• Multiple custom message attributes
• Multiple message groups added to identify various events (policy events, internal events, device events)
• Event filtering based on event type: event subtype, severity, element type, element name
Note
• The user configures the policy manager events on SE and decides the threshold levels based on which the policy needs
to be triggered. Hence, the event type indicator hint is derived using a combination of threshold and event severity for
these events.
• When events are configured to be forwarded to the OMi, a process named seevtl listens to Storage Essentials Event
Listener and forwards events to OMi when it gets a notification. Hence, the events are handled instantly and in case
the event forwarding process is not active, any events generated during this period will not be forwarded to OMi.
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Event Type Indicators (ETIs)
There are three categories of events that would appear in SE event manager.
• Internal events that are generated by the SE operations
• Events generated by the devices supported by SE
• SE Policy Manager generated events
Internal events
ETI name for internal events is SE_internal_events
Events generated by the devices
ETI names for events arriving from devices are as below:
Hosts—Host_Status
Storage array—StorageSystem_Status
Switch—Switch_Status
These event type indicators are considered as health indicators.
Policy generated events
ETI names for the events generated by SE policy manager will correspond to respective event type.
Note
ETI values for the above depends on the severity of the SE event as per the below table.
Severity of event in SE
Corresponding ETI value
Info
Normal
Normal
Normal
Warning
Medium
Minor
Medium
Major
High
Critical
High
Health Indicators (HIs)
A health indicator should always reflect the current state of the CI. Storage Essentials does not generate a normal event
to clear any previous events that has arrived with a higher severity, we have included only the below mentioned health
indicators in the management pack.
• Host_Status—Actual device event for host
• StorageSystem_Status—Actual device event for storage system
• Switch_Status—Actual device event for switch
• switch_performance—Policy generated event for switch performance
• switch_port_performance—Policy generated event for switch port performance
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The health indicators are mapped to the KPIs as below:
ETI name
Indicator type
CI type
Event source in SE
KPI mapping with HIs
Host_Status
HI
Computer
Actual device event
KPI-Host performance
StorageSystem_Status
HI
Storage array
Actual device event
KPI-Storage array performance
switch_performance
HI
Switch
SE policy generated event
KPI-Switch performance
switch_port_performance
HI
Switch
SE policy generated event
KPI-Switch performance
Switch_Status
HI
Switch
Actual device event
KPI-Switch performance
Sample integration use cases
Use case 1: Grouping events based on device type
Storage events can be automatically assigned to the right administrator group based on the type of information received
(HP 3PAR, XP, etc.). Use provided attributes (device type, vendor, model etc.) to route events to appropriate administrators.
Configuration steps:
On Storage Essentials (SE):
1.
2.
3.
Refer to SE support matrix and check if events are supported for this device from SE.
Discover the device in SE.
Follow the instructions from SE user guide to configure if any additional steps are required to receive
events from the device.
On the Storage Essentials Smart Plug-In (SE SPI) side:
Use the custom message attributes added to the message rule to filter the events on HP OMi.
Use case 2: Identify connected devices for FC port related events
Take action on FC port events based on the connected device—for e.g., the priority for a port connected to storage
device going down is more than a port connected to a host going down.
Configuration steps
On Storage Essentials (SE):
1.
2.
3.
Refer to SE support matrix and check if events are supported for this device from SE.
Discover the device in SE.
Follow the instructions from SE user guide to configure if any additional steps are required to receive events
from the device.
On the SE SPI side:
Use custom message attribute “Connected Port” to identify connected device type.
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Use case 3: Monitor storage capacity utilization
Create utilization policies on storage devices in Storage Essentials and generate corresponding events on policy violation.
Use case 3.1: Monitor available space on storage device
Manage available and free storage on storage devices.
Configuration steps:
On Storage Essentials (SE):
1. Discover the device and collect data. Ensure capacity data is collected for the device.
2. Create “Utilization Policy” and set the desired level at which the policy should be triggered.
3.
Select the action as “Generate Event.”
Once the events are generated on policy violations, they can be routed to proper admin groups using event attributes
(device type, vendor, name etc.) and reclaim space.
Use case 3.2: Reclaim storage by monitoring unmapped storage
Track unmapped storage on a device and flag events on threshold violation. Unmapped storage are the volumes on a device
that are not assigned to any host.
Configuration is similar to Use case 3.1.
Use case 3.3: Monitoring unused raw storage for storage device
Monitor unused raw storage on a device. By tracking this number, you can predict when you will run out of storage
in a device.
Configuration is similar to Use case 3.1.
Use case 3.4: Monitor number of free ports of switch
Monitor number of free ports in a switch by creating a utilization policy.
Configuration is similar to Use case 3.1.
Use case 3.5: Monitor file system usage on host
Monitor file system usage on hosts and raise events. For e.g., on Windows®, filling up C: reduces system performance.
We can use this as a “cause” to identify system performance going down.
Configuration is similar to Use case 3.1.
Use case 4: Monitor storage performance
Monitor storage device performance and flag potential performance issues in storage paths. For e.g., monitor disk
or volume I/O throughput and flag an event if performance falls below a threshold. We can then identify this as “cause”
for reduced response time for applications on host using the storage.
Configuration steps:
On Storage Essentials (SE):
1.
2.
3.
4.
Discover the device and collect data.
Apply the relevant performance pack and configure performance data collection for the device.
Create “Performance Policy” and set the desired level at which the policy should be triggered.
Select the action as “Generate Event.”
Note
Similar use cases can be built by using the different performance policies.
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Configuration item views in RTSM
The data flow probe contains views that display common storage topologies. These are basic views that can be customized
to suit the integrated SE applications.
Storage array details
This view shows a storage array and its components including Logical Volumes, Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), Storage
Processors, and Fibre Channel (FC) Ports. The view shows each component under its container storage array and groups
Logical Volumes by CI type. Storage array does not require all components in this view to be functional. Composition links
stemming from the storage array have a cardinality of zero-to-many. The view may show storage arrays even when there
are no logical volumes or storage processors.
Figure 1. Storage array composition
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
FC switch details
This view shows a Fibre Channel Switch and all connected Fibre Channel Ports.
Figure 2. Switch composition
FC switch virtualization
FC switch virtualization consists of a physical switch or chassis, partitioned into multiple logical switches. Unlike Ethernet
virtualization, physical ports are not shared among multiple virtual switches. Rather, each virtual switch is assigned one or
more dedicated physical ports that are managed independently by the logical switches.
Figure 3. Switch virtualization
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Storage pool details
This view shows storage pools with associated Storage Arrays and Logical Volumes.
Figure 4. Storage pool composition
Host storage details
This view shows only hosts that contain a Fibre Channel HBA or a Logical Volume. This keeps the view storage-specific and
prevents hosts discovered by other data flow management (DFM) jobs from being included in the view.
Figure 5. Host storage composition
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
SAN external storage
External storage configuration consists of a storage array presenting a logical volume that, in reality, belongs to another
storage array. This is typically used in configurations where high-end, more expensive, front-end arrays present volumes
from back-end, cheaper, storage to servers. The goal of this type of virtualization is to virtualize multiple disk arrays from
different vendors, scattered over the network, into a single monolithic storage device that can be managed uniformly.
Figure 6. SAN external storage composition
Storage topology
This view maps logical dependencies between Logical Volumes on Hosts and Logical Volumes on Storage Arrays. There is no
folding in this view.
Figure 7. Host-storage volume topology
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
SAN topology
This view maps physical connections between Storage Arrays, Fibre Channel Switches, and Hosts. The view shows
Fibre Channel Ports below their containers. The view groups the Fibre Channel Connect relationship Configuration
Item Type (CIT) to prevent multiple relationships between the same nodes from appearing in the top layer.
Figure 8. SAN topology
When the data flow probe is run, the elements that are in missing state do not get added to RTSM as a CI. But the next time
when the element comes up, the events would get associated to it.
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Appendix
Installation:
Software prerequisite
Storage Essentials Management Pack can be downloaded from HP Live Network using the link
hpln.hp.com/group/omi-management-pack-hp-storage-essentials.
BSM server
Component
Version
BSM
9.23 or higher *
HP OMi
9.23 or higher *
HP Monitoring Automation
9.23 or higher *
Data flow probe for HP BSM
Same version as that of BSM
* Please refer to BSM Support Matrix for latest versions supported.
Note
For large environments, it is recommended to use BSM 9.24.
The data flow probe for BSM is based on UCMDB 9.05.
Hence, please download the latest “Content Pack 11 Updates for UCMDB 9.05 and BSM” from
hpln.hp.com/node/31/contentfiles/?dir=20135.
Managed node
Component
Version
Operations Agent
11.12 or higher *
Storage Essentials
9.7 or higher
* Please refer to the respective support matrix for latest versions supported.
Licensing
No separate license is required for OMi MP for HP Storage Essentials.
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Technical white paper | Integration guide for HP Storage Essentials and HP Operations Manager i
Configuring CIs to the RTSM—Data flow probe
Storage Essentials using PostgreSQL database:
The data flow probe should be configured on the BSM server to contact the server that holds the DB instance named
appiq. This instance is used by the RO and the connection details are as below:
Username
: report_user
Password
: (“appiq” is the default password)
Default port
: 5432
Single box setup
Storage Essentials and RO are installed on the same server along with PostgreSQL database.
Here we have only one DB instance named appiq and there would be no separate instance for RO.
For UCMDB integration, we provide the IP address of the Storage Essentials server and connect to “appiq” instance.
Dual box setup
Storage Essentials and RO are installed on separate servers and both the servers has its own copy of PostgreSQL
database installed.
Storage Essentials server has the postgres instance called appiq and RO server has another postgres instance called
“appiq.” These instances are identical initially, till the RO sites get added to the “appiq” instance residing in RO server.
For UCMDB integration, we provide the IP address of the RO server and connect to the “appiq” instance residing in the
RO server.
Storage Essentials using external Oracle database:
The data flow probe should be configured on the BSM server to contact the Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) nodes.
The instance name to be configured is the Oracle RAC instance name and user credentials should be that of the report_user.
Single box setup
• Storage Essentials and RO are installed on the same server connecting to the remote Oracle RAC instance.
• Here we have only one DB RAC instance for both Storage Essentials and RO.
• For UCMDB integration, we provide the RAC node names and SID of RAC instance, using report_user credentials.
Dual box setup
• Storage Essentials and RO are installed on separate servers and both the servers have separate Oracle RAC instances.
Ideally, both Storage Essentials and RO can connect to the same RAC setup.
• Storage Essentials and RO connect to the respective RAC <SID>.
• For UCMDB integration, we provide the RAC node names and connect to the RAC instance, using report_user credentials
as configured in RO.
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4AA5-5371ENW, October 2014