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Originally posted by: John Walsh (ID)

Need some help configuring performance monitoring for your storage systems and switches?

Find solutions to common problems that you might encounter when using IBM Spectrum Control to monitor the performance of your storage.

So, you've followed the instructions in Monitoring the performance of resources:

• added your storage for monitoring by IBM Spectrum Control
• scheduled a performance monitor
• defined performance alerts to notify you about potential bottlenecks in your storage

A performance monitor was defined for the resource, but is not running

Start the immediate collection of performance data from the monitored resource. A successful probe must be completed on the resource before a performance monitor can start.

Go to the resource list page. For example, for block storage, go to Storage > Block Storage Systems. Right-click your storage system and click Data Collection > Start Performance Monitor.

On the resource list page, you can also check the performance monitor status and the most recent date when the performance monitor successfully collected data. Depending on when the performance monitor last ran successfully, try adjusting the time range and data resolution on the performance view. You might need to change the data resolution to hourly or daily.

A performance monitor was defined and is running, but cannot collect any data

Try the following actions:

• Check the values of Status and Latest Error (message) for the performance monitor on the Home > Performance Monitors page.

Right-click the performance monitor row and click Open Logs. You can view detailed informational, warning, and error messages that are related to the performance monitor job. In the log, click on a message ID to view recommended actions to help you troubleshooting the error or warning.

• Verify that the resource is up and available.

• Verify that the local area network is available and that the firewall is not preventing network access to product services and agents. Contact your firewall administrator to ensure that the required ports are open. To see a full list of the ports that are used by IBM Spectrum Control, see Ports used by IBM Spectrum Control. 

• If IBM Spectrum Control communicates with the resource by using an SMI-S provider (also called CIM agent or CIMOM), ensure that the provider can be accessed, and is up and available. To test the connection between IBM Spectrum Control and the SMI-S provider, right-click the storage system or switch and click Connections > Test Connection. For more information about troubleshooting the connection to an SMI-S provider, see CIM agents.

A problem with the database or product servers is preventing the collection of performance data 

Try the following actions:

• Verify that the product servers and database repository are up and available on the Home > System Management page.

If the system management overview shows the component servers with an error status, click Component Servers to view detailed server information and to restart the Data, Device, or Alert server.

Similarly, if the overview shows that the database has an error status, click Database to view detailed information, such as the memory usage, capacity, and version of your Db2 instance.

For more help diagnosing problems with the product servers, check out Troubleshooting problems with the IBM Spectrum Control component and servers.

• Check the log files to view detailed information about IBM Spectrum Control™ processing and to troubleshoot problems.

For information about the location of the log files for IBM Spectrum Control, see Default locations of log files.

The performance chart is not showing values for the selected metrics

The selected metrics might not be available for the resource.

The metrics that are available for a resource are determined by a number of factors, such as the type of resource, release version of a resource, and level of SMI-S provider. For example, some SAN Volume Controller metrics are available only to storage systems whose firmware version is 7.3 or later.

For a list of performance metrics that are available for the different storage systems and switches, check out the Performance metrics section in the knowledge center.

Useful links

Watch this video and learn how to use IBM Spectrum Control to troubleshoot the performance of your applications.

Coming soon

Need some help configuring performance monitoring for your IBM FlashSystem 840/900? Don't miss the next edition of my blog series about performance monitoring with IBM Spectrum Control.

For news about the documentation for IBM Spectrum Control and its cloud services counterpart, IBM Storage Insights, follow me on Twitter @johnfmwalsh.

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