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Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part6 - Create custom alerts

In this post, we will take a look at creating custom alerts for PowerFlex by adding symptom definitions and alert definitions. Refer to my previous blog post to understand more about the alerting aspects in vROps. Here we will take an example scenario and see how we can create custom symptom definitions and alert definitions.

Scenario

The user is running some latency-sensitive business-critical applications using PowerFlex storage. Below are the symptoms that he would like to define and alerts should be produced for the same and these should affect the "Health" badge of the PowerFlex volume object.

Step1: Add Symptom Definitions

Go to Alerts - Symptom Definitions - Click Add.

Select base object type: Expand PowerFlex Adapter - Select Volume.

Select the metric User Data SDC Read Latency (ms): double click on it twice so that you can define both warning and critical symptoms.
Select the metric User Data SDC Write Latency (ms): double click on it twice so that you can define both warning and critical symptoms.

Now, fill all the required fields as per the conditions we defined earlier.

Click Save. Now as you can see below the 4 symptom definitions are created.

Step2: Add Alert Definitions

Go to Alerts - Alert Definitions - Click Add.

Provide alert name, select the base object type and advanced settings and click Next.

Filter and search the symptoms that we created earlier. Drag and drop the two volume read latency related symptoms and select Any. Click Next.

If you want to provide any recommendations you can add it in this step and click Next.
Select vSphere Solution's Default Policy and click Next and click Create.

Similarly, you can create an alert definition for PowerFlex Volume Write Latency too.

Now, we are all done. Let's test the alerts! I am using FIO to generate IO load on one of the PowerFlex volume.

You can see the Read Latency for this volume is grater than 1 ms, and so a warning alert should be produced for this specific volume.

Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Part1: Install
Part2: Configure
Part3: Dashboards
Part4: Resource kinds and relationships
Part5: Collection interval

References

Product guide: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/section-assets/powerflexadapter-for-vrops-product-guide

PowerFlex website: https://www.delltechnologies.com/PowerFlex

PowerFlex white papers and blog: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/powerflex-14/

Friday, December 4, 2020

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part5 - Collection interval

In this post, we will take a look at modifying the collection interval of PowerFlex Adapter instances. The PowerFlex Management Pack for vROps supports 4 instance types.

PowerFlex Gateway
PowerFlex Networking
PowerFlex Manager
PowerFlex Nodes

The default collection interval for all these adapter instances is set to 5 minutes. In most cases, you don't need to modify this. But, say you want to get PowerFlex storage performance metrics more frequently, then you have to change the collection interval of the PowerFlex Gateway instance. You can set it to as low as 1 minute. As per the testing that I have done in the lab, a PowerFlex Gateway adapter instance is able to complete the collection process of a PowerFlex storage cluster in less than a minute.

Note: If you are modifying the collection interval from the default value, make sure to verify that the collection process is able to complete successfully within the new time interval.

Administration - Inventory - Adapter Instances - PowerFlex Adapter Instance

Note: In the product guide it is recommended to configure not more than 40 Cisco switches in one PowerFlex Networking instance. So, if you have 80 switches in your PowerFlex system, you will need to configure 2 PowerFlex Networking instances where each instance will connect/ query/ collect details from 40 switches. This is based on the default collection interval of 5 minutes.

This simply means, in 5 minutes one PowerFlex Networking adapter instance can complete the collection from a max of 40 switches only. So, in 1 minute, it can complete the collection of a maximum of 8 switches. This is a rough calculation and it depends on factors like REST API response, switch firmware/ OS version, etc. So if you change the default interval, always make sure to monitor it (the collection cycle) for some time and verify whether the collection process is able to complete successfully within the new time interval.

Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Part1 - Install
Part2 - Configure
Part3 - Dashboards
Part4 - Resource kinds and relationships

References

Product guide: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/section-assets/powerflexadapter-for-vrops-product-guide
PowerFlex website: https://www.delltechnologies.com/PowerFlex
PowerFlex white papers and blog: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/powerflex-14/

Sunday, November 8, 2020

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part4 - Resource kinds and relationships

In this post, we will take a look at the different resource kinds that are part of the Dell EMC PowerFlex Management Pack. Following is a very high-level logical representation of the PowerFlex Adapter resource kinds and their relationships:

Go to Environment - All objects - PowerFlex Adapter

You can also get a PowerFlex system level view in vROps using the PowerFlex rack/ appliance system resource kind. This system view is making use of the system name field that we provided while configuring each PowerFlex Adapter instance type. The system name is used to group all the logical components of one PowerFlex system.

This view provides end-to-end visibility of the PowerFlex infrastructure components that will be useful to understand the relationship between different layers of the stack. This will be also helpful to identify and troubleshoot in case of issues.

Hope it was useful. Cheers!

Part1 - Install
Part2 - Configure
Part3 - Dashboards

References

Product guide: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/section-assets/powerflexadapter-for-vrops-product-guide

PowerFlex website: https://www.delltechnologies.com/PowerFlex

PowerFlex white papers and blog: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/powerflex-14/

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part3 - Dashboards

We have covered the installation and configuration of the PowerFlex Management Pack in the previous posts. In this post, we will have a look at the different dashboards that are part of the MP. Following are the 13 dashboards you will get after installing the MP:

Overview

PowerFlex System Overview

PowerFlex Manager

PowerFlex Manager Details

Management Controller

PowerFlex Management Controller

Compute

PowerFlex ESXi Cluster Usage
PowerFlex ESXi Host Usage
PowerFlex SVM Utilization

Networking

PowerFlex Networking Environment
PowerFlex Networking Performance

Storage

PowerFlex Summary
PowerFlex Details
PowerFlex Replication Details

Server Hardware

PowerFlex Node Summary
PowerFlex Node Details

Now, let's have a quick look at some of these dashboards and their functionality.

PowerFlex Node Summary

This dashboard shows the health of all PowerFlex nodes being monitored by the MP. You can see the classification of nodes as Compute Only, Storage Only, Hyperconverged, and Management Controller along with a relationship between a node and its corresponding hardware components.

PowerFlex Summary

This dashboard shows the health status of all the logical components of the PowerFlex storage system. It also has a parent-child relationship between different objects of the storage system. You can also see widgets for capacity usage trend forecasting, alerts, top storage pools by capacity usage, top volumes by size, etc.

PowerFlex Details

This dashboard shows all PowerFlex storage performance KPIs like IOPS, Bandwidth, Latency, etc.

PowerFlex Networking Environment

You can see the health status of Cisco networking components and the relationship between network interfaces, nodes, switch ports, VLANs, port-channels, etc.

PowerFlex Networking Performance

This dashboard shows the switch and switch port KPIs like Throughout, Errors, Packet discards, etc.

PowerFlex Manager

You can see the service deployment details like service health, RCM compliance status, deployment status, etc. in this dashboard.

Hope it was useful. Cheers!

References

Product guide: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/section-assets/powerflexadapter-for-vrops-product-guide

PowerFlex website: https://www.delltechnologies.com/PowerFlex

PowerFlex white papers and blog: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/powerflex-14/

Monday, November 2, 2020

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part2 - Configure

In this post, I will explain how to configure the PowerFlex Management Pack for vROps.

Before getting into the configuration, I would like to provide a high-level view of my lab setup. I have two separate PowerFlex rack systems that I will be monitoring using the management pack. The two systems are named RAMS and VIKINGS and have the following components.

The PowerFlex Management Pack supports the following 4 instance types:

PowerFlex Networking - queries and collects networking details from Cisco switches
PowerFlex Gateway - queries and collects storage details from PowerFlex Gateway
PowerFlex Nodes - queries and collects server hardware health details from iDRACs
PowerFlex Manager - queries and collects service deployment details from PowerFlex Manager

Note: The default collection interval for all PowerFlex Adapter instance types is set to 5 minutes.

I have already configured the controller VCSA and customer VCSA of both (RAMS and VIKINGS) clusters as shown below. This makes use of the native vSphere Adapter and vSAN Adapter present in vROps.

Note: The PowerFlex MP is already installed in vROps. Please see the previous post on how to install it.

Now we can start adding required accounts for the PowerFlex Adapter to connect to the different REST endpoints.

PowerFlex Networking

Click add account.

Select the PowerFlex Adapter.

Let's configure the account for monitoring Cisco TOR switches of the RAMS cluster.

Provide the following details:

Name
Management IP address of Cisco TOR switches

Select the instance type as "PowerFlex Networking" and provide a system name.
In this case, these TOR switches are part of RAMS. So I have given the system name as RAMS.

Add a new credential. Select the credential kind as "PowerFlex Networking Adapter Credentials".

Provide a credential name, username and password. Click OK.

Click VALIDATE CONNECTION.

If everything is fine, you will get a test connection successful message. Click OK.

Click ADD to save the account. You will see the account we just created under the other accounts page.
Initially, the status will be warning but it will turn to OK in few seconds.

PowerFlex Gateway

PowerFlex Nodes

Make sure to provide the PowerFlex Management Controller vCenter details in the advanced settings. If you have configured the native adapter with vCenter IP address, then you have to provide the IP address in the advanced settings. In this case, I have configured the native adapter with the vCenter hostname/ FQDN, so in the advanced settings, I have provided the same FQDN. This field will be used to identify and classify the PowerFlex Management Controller nodes.

Note: In the product guide it is recommended to configure 30 iDRACs or less in one PowerFlex Node instance. So, if you have 120 nodes in your PowerFlex system, you will need to configure 4 PowerFlex Node instances where each instance will connect/ query/ collect details from 30 iDRACs.

PowerFlex Manager

Note: While adding the credentials for the PowerFlex Manager, it is mandatory to provide the PowerFlex Manager Domain Name. VXFMLOCAL is the domain name for the default admin user.

Verify the status of all accounts.

Now we have finished creating all the required accounts to monitor the RAMS system. Similarly, you can add multiple PowerFlex systems and monitor them using the management pack. In my case, I have one more PowerFlex system named VIKINGS and I have added all the required accounts as given in the following screenshot. As you can see below, for the VIKINGS system I have configured seperate instances for CO, SO, and Controller nodes. This is because the iDRAC credentials for CO, SO, and Controller nodes are different.

In the dashboards section, you can see all the 13 dashboards. Depending on the number of components/ size of the PowerFlex system, it may take 15-20 minutes for the data to get populated in the respective dashboards.

In the next part, we will go through the different dashboards and other capabilities of the management pack. Hope it was useful. Cheers!

References

Product guide: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/section-assets/powerflexadapter-for-vrops-product-guide

PowerFlex website: https://www.delltechnologies.com/PowerFlex

PowerFlex white papers and blog: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/powerflex-14/

Friday, October 30, 2020

Dell EMC PowerFlex MP for vROps 8.x - Part1 - Install

Dell EMC has recently released a vROps management pack for PowerFlex. It is a monitoring and alerting solution that provides extensive visibility into PowerFlex systems using vROps. The management pack collects key metrics for PowerFlex storage, networking, compute, and server hardware and ingests into vROps. The solution is available to all PowerFlex rack and appliance customers free of cost. This brings additional value to the IT operations and life cycle management functionality delivered by PowerFlex Manager.

Now, let's start with installation of the management pack. The steps are same for vROps 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2.

Administration - Solutions - Repository - Add/ Upgrade