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BUILDING BETTER MANAGEMENT STORAGE REPORTS FOR UNIFIEDSTORAGE SYSTEMS

Moshe KarabelnikGlobal Storage and Backup ManagerVerint Systems

2013 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 2

Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5

What differentiate management storage reports from other storage reports? .................. 5

SRM vs. Report suggested in this article ......................................................................... 6

Create a management storage report .............................................................................. 7

Step 1: Decide on a report format ................................................................................ 7

Step 2: Understand who the report potential readers are ............................................. 7

Step 3: Decide what to discuss in the storage report ................................................... 8

Step 4: Determine number of disks of each type in each storage system .................. 10

Step 5: Calculate RAW capacity ................................................................................ 11

Step 6: Write the Overview of the systems section .................................................... 11

Step 7: Write the Technologies and features implemented section ............................ 12

Step 8: Decide how to represent Basic capacity utilization ......................................... 14

Capacity model ...................................................................................................... 14

Capacity in VNX and VNXe implementations ......................................................... 16

Capacity model for environments utilizing deduplication and/or compression ......... 17

Step 9: Collect capacity information from the storage systems .................................. 19

Manual collection of capacity information from the storage systems ....................... 19

Collect Pool capacity in VNX system ...................................................................... 19

Collect LUN capacity in VNX system ...................................................................... 20

Collect SAN Used capacity in VNX system ............................................................ 20

Collect Storage Pool for File capacity in VNX system ............................................. 21

Collect File System capacity and File System Used capacity in VNX system ......... 21

Collect Pool capacity in VNXe system .................................................................... 22

Collect Shared Folders capacity and used capacity ............................................... 22

Collect Generic iSCSI storage resource capacity ................................................... 23

Automatically collect storage system capacity information ..................................... 23


VNX automatic collection ....................................................................................... 23

Collect Pool capacity in VNX system ...................................................................... 24

Collect LUN capacity in VNX system ...................................................................... 24

Collect Storage Pool for File capacity in VNX system ............................................. 24

Collect File System capacity and used capacity in VNX system ............................. 24

VNXe automatic collection ..................................................................................... 25

Collect Pool capacity in VNXe system .................................................................... 25

Collect storage resource capacity in VNXe system ................................................ 25

Shared Folders....................................................................................................... 25

iSCSI storage resource .......................................................................................... 26

VMware NFS Data Stores ...................................................................................... 26

VMware VMFS Data Stores ................................................................................... 26

Exchange 2007/2010 resource ............................................................................... 26

Hyper-V resource ................................................................................................... 26

Automating the process .......................................................................................... 26

Step 10: Collect performance utilization of the storage system .................................. 27

Collect SP utilization for VNX systems ................................................................... 27

Collecting performance for VNXe systems ............................................................. 28

Step 11: Place and arrange information collected above into a spreadsheet ............. 29

Step 12: Write the Basic capacity utilization section of the report ............................... 30

Step 13: Write the Basic performance utilization section of the report ........................ 30

Step 14: Write the Availability section of the report .................................................... 30

Step 15: Write the Backup and Replication section of the report ................................ 32

Step 16: Write the Activities related to the storage systems section of the report ....... 33

Step 17: Write the Open Issues section of the report ................................................. 33

Step 18: Add explanations where needed .................................................................. 33

Step 19: Recheck the report information before sending it ......................................... 33


Step 20: Send the report ............................................................................................ 33

Appendix 1: References ................................................................................................ 34

Appendix 2: Example of creating a report using the suggested procedure .................... 35

Systems discussed in this example ........................................................................... 35

Step 1 ........................................................................................................................ 35

Step 2 ........................................................................................................................ 35

Step 3 ........................................................................................................................ 35

Step 4 ........................................................................................................................ 35

Step 5 ........................................................................................................................ 36

Step 6 ........................................................................................................................ 36

Step 7 ........................................................................................................................ 36

Step 8 ........................................................................................................................ 36

Step 9 ........................................................................................................................ 36

Step 10 ...................................................................................................................... 37

Step 11 ...................................................................................................................... 37

Step 12 – Step 20 ...................................................................................................... 38

Appendix 3: Example of management storage report .................................................... 39

Disclaimer: The views, processes, or methodologies published in this article are those of

the author. They do not necessarily reflect EMC Corporation’s views, processes, or

methodologies.


Introduction Storage systems are a core component of a corporate data center, driving IT system

stability and availability. Many services rely heavily on storage functionality, including

financial and customer relationship applications, server virtualization, messaging

systems, and corporate file systems to name a few.

Due to this, it is important to keep management informed on the status of the storage

systems. One of the roles of the storage team in the IT organization is to create and

publish periodical storage reports for management.

There are tools that can create such reports automatically, for example, Storage

Resource Management (SRM) tools. However, for various reasons, not every

organization wants to adopt such tools. Additionally, there are always issues that no

automatic reporting mechanism could raise. For example, specific storage or

infrastructure requests from Line of Business (LOB) or a list of open issues regarding the

storage systems.

This Knowledge Sharing article suggests a step-by-step procedure for creating such

reports. Small to medium size storage environments can easily create reports manually

following the steps demonstrated. While this article concentrates on EMC Unified VNX®

and VNXe® platforms, experienced storage administrators can adopt the same

procedure for other storage systems as well.

What differentiate management storage reports from other storage reports? Management reports should be easy to read, informative, not too technical. Other report

types usually include mostly charts and numbers.

The report suggested in this article should balance technical details and a more general

view. It also contains specific explanations in addition to charts and numbers. The

purpose of this format is to enable the reader to quickly grasp the status of the storage

systems and also make the report interesting and appealing. This improves the chances

that readers will not quit reading the report after a page or two.


SRM vs. Report suggested in this article The main benefit of SRM tools is the ability to create a report in a few minutes even if

you have a large storage environment. However, on the downside, such reports tend to

be too technical. Chances are, the average manager may not be interested in such a

report; it could be good for some but not for all.

SRM reports cannot be aware of a specific business environment; For example, new

requirements due to mergers and acquisitions and LOB requirements. Building the

storage report using the procedure suggested here should address such issues.

Meanwhile, there is the option to build a report using a SRM tool and then incorporate

additional business aspects to it. This is also a great option for a management report.

The following is a 20-step procedure for creating a management storage report. This

suggested procedure will take some time to follow at first but subsequent creation of

periodical reports will be shorter and faster.


Create a management storage report Step 1: Decide on a report format There are two generic format types for a storage report:

1. Document format; such as Microsoft Word or PDF

2. Presentation format; such as Microsoft PowerPoint

Consider report format from two aspects:

1. Should this report be presented in a meeting? If so, then a presentation should

be the choice. Otherwise, any format is proper.

2. Organizational culture—what is the conventional way to send such a report in the

organization?

Step 2: Understand who the report potential readers are When deciding what to include in a storage report, first understand who will read this

report.

High level reports are good for people not interested in the technical details and who just

need to see that all is working as planned (or not). For such people, a report with too

much detail will cause them to stop reading the report after a page or two.

On the other hand, technical staff needs much more detail. They might feel that the

report does not give real data if details are not included.

Here is a suggestion to categorize three types of readers:

Top management: People interested only in high level reports. It may be that they are

not technical at all but need to know that everything works as expected and that return

on investment is being realized.

Mid-tier management: People interested in high level reports and some technical

details but not a deep-dive into all the technical details. Usually IT managers who have

some technical knowledge.

Technical staff: Usually IT infrastructure team members as well as other technically

oriented people.


Step 3: Decide what to discuss in the storage report The sections to show in a storage report may differ from organization to organization but

here is a basic list of report sections that might be suitable in many cases:

Overview of the systems: Basic facts regarding the systems discussed in this report,

what is the inventory of those systems.

Technologies and features implemented: This is a list of storage system features and

if they were implemented in the specific system.

Basic capacity utilization: This section discusses utilization of storage capacity.

Detailed capacity utilization: This section discusses current utilization of storage and

detailed trend of capacity utilization. This is out of scope of this article since it would be

of interest only to technical staff, not management.

Basic performance utilization: This section shows performance utilization of the

storage system.

Detailed performance utilization: This section shows utilization parameters such as

network card utilization, HBA (Host Bus Adapters) utilization, NAS (Network Attached

Storage) device utilization, and more. This is out of scope of this article since it would be

of interest only to technical staff, not management.

Availability: This section discusses protection available on the storage system, such as

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), no Single Point of Failure (SPOF) in the

system, and other mechanisms that help to achieve availability to the systems. This

section also discusses the availability per storage system during the period since last

report.

Backup and replication: This section addresses backup, replication, and restore

mechanisms in the storage system.

Activities related to the storage systems: This section addresses what has been

done regarding the storage system since last report and what is planned.

Open issues: This section discusses open issues that need to be addressed, such as

lack of capacity.


Following the categorization of report reader types assigned previously, let’s see what

might be relevant in the storage report for each category.

Top

man

agem

ent

Mid

-Tie

r

man

agem

ent

Tec

hnic

al st

aff

Overview of systems Technology and features implementation Basic capacity utilization

Detailed capacity utilization

(Not in scope of this article)

Basic performance utilization Detailed performance utilization

(Not in scope of this article)

Availability Backup and replication Activities related to the storage system Open issues

For example: Detailed performance utilization would be of interest to technical staff but

not to top and mid-tier management.

Another example: Technologies and features implemented should be interesting for any

reader.

It’s hard to generalize this and it might be a bit different for specific organizations and

organizational cultures.


Step 4: Determine number of disks of each type in each storage system This activity is useful for calculating RAW capacity that is needed in the Overview of the

systems section.

For periodical reports this has to be done only once. This information needs to be

updated when disks are added into the system.

Getting this information is easy from the Unisphere® GUI of each storage system.

In the VNX system, navigate to System > Hardware > Disks:


In the VNXe system, navigate to System > Storage Pools > Storage Pool Details >Disks

tab:

Step 5: Calculate RAW capacity Multiply the number of disks by their capacity.

Here is an example of four storage systems and their RAW capacity:

Type of disk New York Miami Berlin UK

EFD 100GB 50 20 0 0

SAS 600GB 50 10 30 20

NL-SAS 1TB 30 10 10 10

NL-SAS 2TB 20 10 10 5

RAW capacity 105TB 38TB 48TB 32TB

In this example, the capacity in New York is calculated as:

(50 * 100GB) + (50 * 600GB) + (30 * 1TB) + (20 * 2TB) = 105TB

Step 6: Write the Overview of the systems section This section will discuss the some or all of the following issues:

• Storage environment of the organization

• What systems are reviewed in this report (vendors and models)

• Where those storage systems are located

• What systems and applications those storage systems serve


• Staff handling the storage systems

• Inventory of those systems; number of disks and/or RAW capacity.

• Topology of the storage systems

• Overall status of the storage systems

Keep in mind that the purpose of this overview is to acquaint the report readers with the

systems discussed; not overload them with lots of information.

Usually, if there are no major changes to the environment, this section should be the

same for subsequent periodical reports so it needs to be written only once.

Step 7: Write the Technologies and features implemented section This section will simply show a list of technologies and if those were implemented in the

storage systems.

Occasionally, managers are interested in knowing if a specific technology was

implemented. For example, it could be interesting to know that deduplication technology

is implemented in a specific storage system in order to optimize disk space usage.


This list of technologies and their implementation could be summarized in a table such

as the following:

Technology

London

storage

system

New York

storage

system

Miami

storage

system

Hong

Kong

storage

system

Fast Cache Tiering

FAST VP

Deduplication Capacity

optimization

and ILM

(Information

Lifecycle

Management)

Archiving

Thin

provisioning

Snapshots

Protection

NDMP backups

Replication

SAN File/Block

NAS

FC

Connectivity

iSCSI

FCOE


Step 8: Decide how to represent Basic capacity utilization Capacity model There are usually three parameters in storage systems in order to show system capacity

utilization:

Data size

Allocated capacity

Container capacity

Not allocated capacity

Allocated but not used capacity

Data

Container capacity: Total amount of storage that can be used to store data. Sometimes

called, “Pool”.

Allocated capacity: The allocated capacity is the amount of storage given to a certain

system. In a “Thin Provisioned” system, the allocated capacity is at the size of the data.

In a “Thick Provisioned” system, the allocated capacity differs from the data size.

Data size: This is the amount of actual data stored in the system.

From the three parameters above, capacity utilization is calculated in the following way:

Capacity Allocated utilization = Allocated capacityContainer capacity

Another way to consider capacity utilization is by data size and not by allocated size:

Capacity Data Size utilization = Data sizeContainer capacity

There are positives and negatives for each of those calculations:


The Capacity Allocated utilization method is good in cases where you want to show how

much capacity you still have in the container. It’s less suitable when you need to show

how much actual data there is on the storage system.

The Capacity Data Size utilization method is good in cases where you want to show how

much actual data there is on the storage system. It’s less suitable if you need to know

how much capacity you have on the container for other systems.

Example:

You have storage pool (container) of 10TB. 8TB are allocated for Exchange system. The

actual data of the Exchange system is 1TB.

The first calculation will give:


= 810

= 0.8 = 80%

The second calculation will give:

Capacity Data Size utilization = Data sizeContainer capacity

= 110

= 0.1 = 10%

If you need to understand how much capacity the Exchange server takes out of the pool,

then 10% is the correct answer. If you need to understand if you have capacity in the

pool to host additional systems, then 10% utilization implies that the pool is almost

empty (which is not true); actually, it is 80% allocated so there is almost no room for

additional systems.


Capacity in VNX and VNXe implementations

General capacity model

VNX SAN VNX NAS VNXe

Container capacity Storage Pool

capacity

Storage Pool for

File capacity

Pool capacity

Allocated capacity LUN capacity File System

capacity

Storage allocated

for specific system

like Shared Folders,

Generic iSCSI,

VMware , Hyper-V,

MS Exchange

Data size Data size in LUN File size in File

System

Data inside the

specific system

It’s important to remember that, in a “Thin Provisioned” system, it’s easy to see the data

size since it is approximately equal to the allocated capacity and can be viewed from the

storage system.

On the other hand, in a “Thick provisioned” system, the data size can be viewed only

from the host side so it might be hard to collect that information for many hosts if not

using a monitoring or reporting system.

If you have a specific system on a specific pool, it’s easy to understand what information

to collect from the storage systems in order to show capacity utilization.

For example, if you have MS Exchange residing alone on a specific pool, it’s easy to

understand what values to collect and how to show it (choosing one of the two

calculations above).

Up to now it is straightforward. Now suppose you have two different systems on the

same pool. What to do these instances?

In such cases, since the pool is shared, you won’t be able to have the granularity of

capacity utilization per system. Rather, you will have to do it on both systems together.


Example:

You have a pool of 10TB.

There are Exchange and VMware systems residing in that pool.

Exchange has 3TB allocated and VMware has 4TB allocated.

While you cannot divide the capacity utilization of the pool into two systems, you can

have both systems match capacity utilization:


= 3+410

= 0.7 = 70%

The capacity utilization of both Exchange and VMware is 70%.

Usually you can calculate capacity utilization per application such as in the previous

example of MS Exchange or VMware. In organizations where Chargeback is

implemented, you might need to show capacity per LOB rather than per

application/system.

Example:

A company is implementing chargeback for its two divisions (LOB).

One LOB has 4TB allocated and the other LOB has 3TB allocated on the storage

system.

You can use those values for the chargeback process.

Capacity model for environments utilizing deduplication and/or compression In systems utilizing deduplication and/or compression technology, showing capacity

utilization should be almost similar.

Here is a drawing showing a capacity model in a deduplication (dedupe) and/or

compression environment:


Size consumed by data

Allocated capacity

Container capacity

Not allocated capacity

Allocated but not used capacity

Data

Size consumed by data

Data size (before de-dupe)

If you decide to show Capacity Allocated utilization, all remains the same as if there is no

deduplication and/or compression.

If you decide to show Capacity Data Size utilization, you will have to use the Size

consumed by data to show utilization.

Example:

You have storage pool (container) of 10TB. 8TB are allocated for Exchange system. The

actual data of the Exchange system is 5TB.

That data consumes 3TB on the container after compression and deduplication.

The first calculation will give you:


= 810

= 0.8 = 80%

As mentioned above, that calculation remains exactly the same because the allocation

of storage remains allocated regardless of deduplication and/or compression.

The second calculation will give you:

Capacity utilization = Data sizeContainer capacity

= 310

= 0.3 = 30%

You should use the 3TB and not the 5TB because it shows how much space this system

consumes from the container. Using the 5TB won’t give you anything except theoretical

ratio (since the 5TB is not actually consumed from the pool – only 3TB are consumed).


With that methodology in mind, you need to make a few decisions:

• Capacity utilization calculation per Allocated Capacity or per Data Size?

• What specific Applications and/or LOB capacity and utilization to show in report?

• Whether to demonstrate capacity trend over time (especially if those are

periodical reports and you need to show how capacity changed over time).

Step 9: Collect capacity information from the storage systems After deciding which parameters to collect from the storage systems, you need to

actually collect that information.

Manual collection of capacity information from the storage systems The management GUI is the most trivial way to collect information from a storage

system.

This is a reasonable way to collect information for a small number of storage systems.

Although Unisphere is the management GUI for VNX and VNXe systems, the specific

parameters for each of those systems are located differently in the GUI.

Collect Pool capacity in VNX system Navigate to Storage > Storage Configuration > Raid Pools


Collect LUN capacity in VNX system Navigate to Storage > LUNs

Collect SAN Used capacity in VNX system In the case of a “Thin LUN” this information is available in the LUN properties page in

Unisphere.

In the case of a “Thick LUN” this information is available from host. The host see all the

LUN capacity and use some (or all) of it.

For example, in Microsoft Windows 2003 system Disk Management:


Collect Storage Pool for File capacity in VNX system Storage > Storage Configurations > Storage Pools for File

Collect File System capacity and File System Used capacity in VNX system Navigate to Storage > Storage Configurations > File Systems


Collect Pool capacity in VNXe system Navigate to System > Storage Pools > Storage Pools Details

Collect Shared Folders capacity and used capacity Navigate to Storage > Shared Folders > Share Folder Details


Collect Generic iSCSI storage resource capacity Storage > Generic iSCSI storage > Generic storage details

Collecting Hyper-V, VMware, and Exchange storage resource capacity should be similar

to that shown above.

Automatically collect storage system capacity information Command Line Interface (CLI) tools can be used to automatically collect capacity

information.

First, I will show the specific commands and then how to automate the process.

VNX automatic collection VNX system can use SSH commands.

To run such commands as CLI you will need a utility, for example, plink which can be

downloaded from the web.

After downloading the utility, it’s easy to run commands to obtain capacity information.

While other methods are available that do the same (for example: using an EMC utility

called naviseccli), for simplicity, those methods are not shown here.


Collect Pool capacity in VNX system plink -pw <Password> <Username>@<IP Address> "/nas/sbin/navicli -h SPA

storagepool -list -availableCap -consumedCap"

Collect LUN capacity in VNX system plink -pw <Password> <Username>@<IP Address> "/nas/sbin/navicli -h SPA getlun -

name -capacity"

Collect Storage Pool for File capacity in VNX system plink -pw <Password> <Username>@<IP Address> “export

NAS_DB=/nas";"/nas/bin/nas_pool -size -all"

Collect File System capacity and used capacity in VNX system plink -pw <Password> <Username>@<IP Address> “export

NAS_DB=/nas";"/nas/bin/server_df ALL"


VNXe automatic collection VNXe has a proprietary command line utility called UEMCLI. Download this utility from

the EMC support site and install it on a Linux or Windows workstation. After installing the

utility, it’s easy to run commands to get information.

Collect Pool capacity in VNXe system uemcli.exe -d <IP Address> -u <Username> -p <Password> /stor/config/pool show –

output nvp

Collect storage resource capacity in VNXe system Shared Folders uemcli.exe -d <IP Address> -u <Username> -p <Password> /stor/prov/sf/res show


iSCSI storage resource uemcli.exe -d <IP Address> -u <Username> -p <Password> /stor/prov/iscsi/res show

VMware NFS Data Stores uemcli.exe -d <IP Address> -u <Username> -p <Password> /stor/prov/vmware/nfs show

VMware VMFS Data Stores uemcli.exe -d <IP Address> -u <Username> -p <Password> /stor/prov/vmware/vmfs

show

Exchange 2007/2010 resource uemcli.exe -d <IP Address> -u <Username> -p <Password>

/stor/prov/exchange/2007/res show

Hyper-V resource uemcli.exe -d <IP Address> -u <Username> -p <Password> /stor/prov/hyperv/res show

Automating the process After understanding what command lines are needed for each data collection, a script

can be run to collect all the information into a single file (or multiple files).

For this, simply use the above commands and redirect output to a file.

An example of such a script (in this example Windows batch file) that will collect

information about pools from 3 VNXe storage systems:

uemcli.exe -d <IP Address of system1> -u <Username> -p <Password> /stor/config/pool

show –output csv >C:\Pools.csv


show –output csv >>C:\Pools.csv



show –output csv >>C:\Pools.csv

The script above will create a CSV file that can be opened directly from Microsoft Excel,

for example.

Step 10: Collect performance utilization of the storage system There are many parameters that might imply performance utilization for a storage

system. For a management report, you need to collect only the most basic parameters,

i.e. Storage Processor (SP) utilization.

Collect SP utilization for VNX systems To obtain current SP utilization from VNX Unisphere:

Navigate to System > Monitoring and Alerts > Statistics for block > Performance

Summary > SP tab

Tick SP A and SP B:

Keeping this window open for a period of time will give you average performance during

that time.


To view past performance collections you need to open an archive file (nar). See

reference at the end of this article on how to do it. It should give the following type of

chart:

Collecting performance for VNXe systems To obtain current SP utilization from VNXe Unisphere:

Navigate to System > System Performance


Step 11: Place and arrange information collected above into a spreadsheet

You need to know if each system is implemented as SAN or NAS and the type of RAID.

This is useful for creating appropriate charts later and for the spreadsheet, which might

look like this:

Formulas view:

Values view:


Step 12: Write the Basic capacity utilization section of the report Use the previously collected information that is stored on a spreadsheet and create

charts according to what you want to show.

Example of interesting charts:

• File system capacity per site bar chart

• File system capacity per LOB (use case: for chargeback) bar chart

• File system capacity utilization per storage system bar chart

• VMware capacity utilization per storage system bar chart

• SAN vs. NAS capacity per storage system bar chart

• SAN vs. NAS total capacity in organization pie chart

• RAID 5 vs. RAID 10 per storage system bar chart

Those are only examples. You may be surprised how many charts you can create out of

the spreadsheet you created.

See sample charts in the example report at the end of this article.

Creating the charts is a one-time process. New data added to same spreadsheet will

automatically refresh in subsequent charts.

Step 13: Write the Basic performance utilization section of the report Place a chart of performance utilization according to the data collected.

See chart in the example report at the end of this article.

Step 14: Write the Availability section of the report Availability is one of the most important aspects of storage systems that hold valuable

data.

First, it’s good to make a list of mechanisms that keeps the availability as close to 100%

as possible:


Mechanism Explanation

Dual SP (Storage Processors) Both SPs can process same requests in

case of a problem with one of them

Hot Spare In case of a failing disk, there is automatic

mechanism that replace it with another

spare disk without any human intervention

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks)

Data is protected by parity or mirroring of

disks (depends on RAID type). Up to x

disks failure won’t affect data availability

FC (Fiber Channel) connections are redundant

There are no single connections between

storage and FC switches – all connections

have redundancy

IP networking connections are redundant

There are no single connections between

storage and IP network – all connections

have redundancy

Dual power supply for SP and disk enclosures

All storage components have dual power

supply to protect from Power Supply

malfunction and from power outage

Standby Power Supply (SPS) Standby Power Supply protects against

loss of data in case of power outage

Next, show the Scheduled Availability percentage per system.

The Scheduled Availability of a system is defined as:

Scheduled Availability = Scheduled Uptime – Unscheduled DowntimeScheduled Uptime

• Scheduled Uptime - The time that the system should be up and running minus

Scheduled Downtime (time planned for maintenance or any other activity

requiring downtime)

• Unscheduled Downtime – Unplanned downtime (for example, failures)


Example:

Storage system should work 24 X 7 (24 hours a day 7 days a week).

During the last quarter, the system was down for 10 hours due to a failure.

Scheduled Uptime for a quarter (90 days in that example) is 90 * 24 = 2160 hours

Unscheduled Downtime is 10 hours

Scheduled Availability = 2160−102160

= 0.9953 = 99.5%

In order to show that Scheduled Availability value for each storage system in the

organization, you need to know the following:

• Time that the storage system should be up (for example 24 X 7)

• Scheduled Downtime – time planned for maintenance activities

• Unscheduled Downtime – unplanned downtime due to failures

Knowing those three parameters for each storage system will enable you to easily

calculate the Scheduled Availability and present it in a bar graph, for example (the

Scheduled Availability per storage system).

Step 15: Write the Backup and Replication section of the report This section needs to describe:

• Where and when snapshots are used

• What data is being backed up in the storage system

• Backup media type (to disk or to tape, for example)

• Retention of backups

• Where backups are kept (onsite, offsite)

• Replication (if exists)

• Restore process


Step 16: Write the Activities related to the storage systems section of the report In this section you need to describe what major activities related to the storage systems

have been done since the last report (if publishing this report periodically) or in the last

month / quarter / year.

You also need to describe the major activities planned for the near future.

Example of such activities:

• Upgrade of specific storage system components

• Update the firmware or the storage operating system

• Adding capacity

• Replacing FC switches

• Improving backup process

Step 17: Write the Open Issues section of the report This section needs to describe open issues related to the storage system.

Example of such issues:

• Need to add capacity due to a certain pool – high capacity utilization

• Need to update storage operating system due to issues with current version

• Need to address specific LOB request for storage

Step 18: Add explanations where needed Adding explanations and key points to charts rather than leaving them as-is will

contribute to the clarity of what those charts are showing.

Step 19: Recheck the report information before sending it

Step 20: Send the report


Appendix 1: References VNXe Unisphere CLI User Guide – EMC

VNXe Service Commands Technical Notes – EMC

VNX Command Line Interface Reference for File – EMC

VNX Command Line Interface Reference for Block – EMC

EMC 161922 – How to gather the necessary information for a CLARiiON or VNX

performance analysis – EMC


Appendix 2: Example of creating a report using the suggested procedure Systems discussed in this example There are 4 storage systems:

• VNX 5700 in New York

• VNX 5500 in Miami

• VNXe 3300 in Berlin

• VNXe 3100 in UK

Step 1 I recommend choosing Microsoft Power Point format for presenting to management.

Step 2 Top and mid-tier management will read the report. Not intended for technical staff.

Step 3 According to readers, the following sections will be included in the report:

• Overview of systems • Technology and features implementation • Basic capacity utilization • Basic performance utilization • Availability • Backup and replication • Activities related to the storage systems • Open issues

Step 4 Number of disks in each storage system and RAW capacity:

Type of disk New York Miami Berlin UK

EFD 100GB 50 20 0 0

SAS 600GB 50 10 30 20

NL-SAS 1TB 30 10 10 10

NL-SAS 2TB 20 10 10 5

RAW capacity 105TB 38TB 48TB 32TB


Step 5 See previous table.

Step 6 See in actual report example below.

Step 7 See in actual report example below.

Step 8 Decision about parameters to show capacity utilization

For file systems, will show used capacity (capacity occupied by files and folders) and not

capacity allocated to the file systems.

For file systems, will show Storage Pool for File capacity as the maximum allocated

storage for file systems (100%).

For MS Exchange, will use LUN capacity.

For MS Exchange, will use Pool capacity as the maximum allocated space for MS

Exchange (100%).

For VMware, will use LUN capacity

For VMware, will use Pool capacity as the maximum allocated space for VMware

(100%).

Step 9 Data was collected manually since there are only 4 storage systems. Results are:

Parameter New York Miami Berlin UK

File system usage

25TB 4TB 5TB 3TB

File system pool size

35TB 5TB 6TB 6TB

MS Exchange allocated

7TB 2TB 1TB -


MS Exchange pool size

10TB 5TB 3TB -

VMware allocated

8TB 5TB 2TB 4TB

VMware pool size

10TB 10TB 7TB 8TB

Step 10 Results from the data collected:

Parameter New York Miami Berlin UK

SPA utilization 40% 30% 20% 20%

SPB utilization 45% 30% 25% 30%

Step 11 The following Excel spreadsheet was created from the data collected above. It will help

in creating the charts for the report:


Step 12 – Step 20 See in actual report example below.


Appendix 3: Example of management storage report


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The information is subject to change without notice.

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