What's new in 5.2.15?
The what's new topic provides a quick overview of all the new features that were added in 5.2.15. Screenshots are included to illustrate the features, and links to more detailed information are provided in case you want to learn more.
Pro tip: You can also learn about what's new directly in the product GUI by hovering your mouse pointer over the help icon in the upper-right corner of the main window and selecting the "What's New" option:
To view a list of the features that were added in previous release, check out Summary of changes for IBM Spectrum Control.
What was added in 5.2.15.2?
Spectrum Control 5.2.15.2 was released in November, hot on the heels of 5.2.15. Officially referred to as "Version 5.2.15 Fix Pack 2" (which includes Fix Pack 1), it contains numerous APAR and defect fixes to help improve the stability and operation of Spectrum Control. For a list of these fixes, check out the APAR Fix List for 5.2.x.
In addition to fixes, 5.2.15.2 includes the ability to view compression metrics for volumes on IBM Spectrum Virtualize. You can view I/O rate, data rate, and response time metrics for compressed volumes and for uncompressed volumes. You can use use these metrics to monitor the compression workload of the volumes on your storage systems.
To view descriptions of the new compression metrics, open the Spectrum Control GUI, click the help icon ("?"") in the upper right corner of the page, click the first option in the menu, and navigate to Monitoring > Performance > Performance metrics > Performance metrics for resources that run IBM Spectrum Virtualize.
Modifying the properties of resources...in bulk!
Have you ever wanted to be able to edit the properties of more than one resource at a time? In 5.2.1.5, you can. In large environments where many resources are being monitored, being able to add or change properties, such as the location or custom tags, for multiple servers, storage systems, hypervisors, switches, or fabrics, can be a great time saver.
After you set properties, you can use them to filter or sort the resources in the GUI or in an external application if the data is shared or exported.
Learn more about modifying the properties of resources. If you want to know which properties you can modify for resources, check out this Knowledge Center topic for a complete list.
TCP/IP ports used by Spectrum Control
Are you responsible for installing, configuring, and maintaining Spectrum Control for your company? Is it important for you to know which ports must be opened through your firewall for Spectrum Control? If so, check out the revised version of the TCP/IP ports used by IBM Spectrum Control topic for 5.2.15. All the ports that you need to know about are listed there, and if they aren't, let us know.
Understanding the units of measurement in Spectrum Control
Spectrum Control uses decimal and binary units of measurement to express the size of storage data. Decimal units such as kilobyte (KB), megabyte (MB), and gigabyte (GB) are commonly used to express the size of data. Binary units of measurement include kibibyte (KiB), mebibyte (MiB), and gibibyte (GiB).
For more information about how these units of measurement compare, check out Units of measurement.
Getting storage information through the REST APl
The REST API provides with you with programmatic access to the extensive information that Spectrum Controls collects about your resources. You can access that information easily through the API by using a command line utility or plugging a URL into a web browser. What you do with that information is up to you. A common practice is to extract the specific information that you care about and include it in custom configuration, capacity, and performance reports that are tailored for your organization.
Learn more about the IBM Spectrum Control REST API in the Knowledge Center.
A virtual library
When using Spectrum Control to monitor your storage environment, you can potentially interact with many other software applications and hardware devices. Sometimes, you might want to read detailed information about those applications and hardware devices, whether it's to help determine how to best monitor them or to learn how to troubleshoot any problems that you encounter.
To help get you the information that you need, the Accessing publications online topic in the IBM Knowledge Center provides a comprehensive set of links to documentation for those products, including, but not limited to, links for:
- IBM FlashSystems
- IBM Spectrum Accelerate
- IBM Storwize family
- IBM Spectrum Virtualize
- IBM Cognos Business Intelligence
- IBM System Storage DS8000
- IBM Db2 Database for Linux UNIX and Windows
Documentation spotlight: IBM Spectrum Scale
Spectrum Control's support for IBM Spectrum Scale has been around for some time, and numerous topics and videos about how to configure and monitor it are available in the Spectrum Control Knowledge Center and online help.
Let's start with the Knowledge Center. The following links points you to topics in the Spectrum Control Knowledge Center that can help you get a handle on the monitoring features related to IBM Spectrum Scale and its components:
Now let's move inside the Spectrum Control GUI to look at what the online help has to offer.
The online help provides detailed information about the attributes of IBM Spectrum Scale, including status, capacity and space usage, and statistics about its components. You can use this information to help answer questions a cluster, such as:
Question: What's the condition of all my monitored IBM Spectrum Scale clusters and the status of their data collection?
Get the answer here: File Storage Systems page
Question: Which clusters have the most available capacity?
Get the answer here: File Storage Systems page
Question: How do I compare the performance (I/O rate and overall response time) of different clusters?
Get the answer here: File Storage Systems page > Performance tab
Questions: What is the performance of specific file systems within a cluster?
Get the answer here: File Storage Systems page > View details for a cluster > Click File Systems > Performance tab
Question: How do I view information about the back-end storage systems that provide storage to a cluster?
Get the answer here: File Storage Systems page > View details for a cluster > Click Back-end Storage Systems
Question: What is the performance of the volumes that are backing the NSDs in a cluster?
Get the answer here: Storage Systems page > View details for a cluster > Click Back-end Storage Systems > Volume Mappings tab > Right-click volumes and select View Performance
Questions: What alerts were generated for a cluster?
Get the answer here: File Storage Systems page > View details for a cluster > Click Alerts
To access online help in Spectrum Control, just hover the mouse pointer over the icon in the upper-right corner of the window and select the name of the page that you're on. For example, if you're on the details page for an IBM Spectrum Scale cluster, hover over the help icon and select Storage System Details.
IBM Spectrum Scale Videos
If you want to view Spectrum Control and IBM Spectrum Scale in action to supplement your reading of the knowledge center and help, check out the following videos:
Previous blogs in the "pearls" series
Joining the IBM Spectrum Control or IBM Spectrum Control Storage Insights BETA program
IBM Spectrum Control and the cloud offering, IBM Spectrum Control Storage Insights, is looking for new #BETA testers to use, and explore new #storage functionality while having a voice in future updates. Get onboard today and become part of the #BETA program! Contact Mary Anne Filosa at mfilosa@us.ibm.com for more details and to register.
You can try IBM Spectrum Control Storage Insights for a free 30-day trial and see what it can do for your business.
Joining the conversation
Be social! Join the conversation at #IBMStorage, #ibmsystems, and #softwaredefinedstorage.
We are always striving to improve the information that we deliver, and how we deliver it. At the bottom of every page in IBM Knowledge Center is a place where you can provide us with direct feedback about your information experience.
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