Triggering conditions for host alerts

You can set up IBM Storage Insights Pro so that it examines the attributes, capacity, and performance of a host and notifies you when changes or violations are detected.

Alerts can notify you of general changes, capacity, and performance issues on the following resources:
Important: Not all the attributes upon which you can alert are listed here. To view a complete list of attributes upon which you can alert, you can either edit alert definitions for a host with no alert policy assigned, or you can create a new custom alert policy and define new alerts in the policy. To create a custom alert policy, go to Configuration > Alert Policies and click Create Policy.

In the tables, default alerts are marked with an asterisk (*).

Hosts (general changes)

Table 1. Pre-defined alerts for Hosts
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Status*
One of the following statuses is detected on a host:
Not Normal
An error or warning status was detected on the host or its internal resources.
Warning
A warning status was detected on the host or its internal resources.
Error (default)
An error status was detected on the host or its internal resources.
Unreachable
One or more of the monitored resources for a host are not responding. This status might be caused by a problem in the network.
Probe Status*
Generate an alert when one of the following statuses is detected for a probe:
Not Successful
An error or warning occurred during data collection. This status indicates that a probe did not collect any data, or only collected a partial set of data about a resource.
Warning
A probe completed, but might not have collected a complete set of data. This status might occur if data cannot be collected about one or more of the internal resources of a resource.
Error
A probe did not complete when it attempted to collect asset data about the resource. This status might occur if the resource cannot be reached during data collection.
Performance Monitor Status*
One of the following statuses is detected for a performance monitor:
Not Successful
An error or warning occurred during data collection. This status indicates that a performance monitor did not collect any data, or only collected a partial set of data about a resource.
Warning
A performance monitor completed, but did not collect a complete set of performance data. This status might occur if the resource was rebooted during data collection, no valid performance data was provided by the resource, or a communication error occurred with the resource or its associated agent.
Error
A performance did not complete when it attempted to collect performance data about the resource. This status might occur if the resource cannot be reached during data collection, or if no configuration data is available for the resource.

Last Successful Probe

Last Successful Monitor

A specified amount of time has passed since a probe or performance monitor was able to collect data about a host. You can use this alert to be notified when up-to-date configuration, status, or performance data is not being collected about a host and its existing data might be stale. This situation might occur if the resource, network or server is unavailable.

Hosts (capacity changes)

Define alerts that notify you when the capacity of a host falls outside a specified threshold. In alerts, you can specify conditions based on metrics that measure the capacity of hosts, including Used Capacity, Available Capacity, and File System Capacity. By creating alerts with capacity conditions, you can be informed about potential bottlenecks in your network infrastructure.

For example, you can define an alert to be notified when the Used SAN Capacity is greater than or equal to a specified threshold. Used SAN Capacity represents the total amount of SAN storage that is used by volumes that are associated with the host. Use this alert to help identify how much SAN capacity that the host is consuming.

You can also be notified when a metric is less than a specified threshold, such as when you want to identify hosts that are using less SAN capacity.

For a complete list of host metrics that can be alerted upon, see the Table 2 table.
Table 2. Host capacity metrics
Metric Definition
SAN Capacity The SAN disk capacity from storage systems that is assigned to host.
Used SAN Capacity The total amount of SAN storage that is used by volumes that are associated with the host.
FlashCopy® Provisioned Capacity The total storage space capacity of all FlashCopy targets.
FlashCopy Used Capacity The storage space used by the FlashCopy targets.
Primary Provisioned Capacity The total storage space capacity of the volumes that are directly mapped to the host.
Primary Used Capacity The storage space used on the volumes that are directly mapped to the host.
Remote Mirror Provisioned Capacity The total storage space capacity on the volumes that are target of a copy services relationship, such as a metro mirror or global mirror.
Remote Mirror Used Capacity The storage space used on the volumes that are target of a copy services relationship, such as a metro mirror or global mirror.
VDisk Mirror Provisioned Capacity The total storage capacity of all the VDisk copies.
VDisk Mirror Used Capacity The storage capacity used by the VDisk copies.
Best practice: When you set thresholds for capacity conditions, try to determine the best value so you can derive the maximum benefit without generating too many false alerts. Because suitable thresholds are highly dependent on the type of workload that is being run, hardware configuration, the number of physical disks, exact model numbers, and other factors, there are no easy or standard default rules.

A recommended approach is to monitor the capacity of resources for a number of weeks and by using this historical data, determine reasonable threshold values for each capacity condition. After that is done, you can fine-tune the condition settings to minimize the number of false alerts.

Click Edit alert Definitions, and for each capacity alert definition click View History to see the history of host capacity and set the threshold that you want relative to that data.

Tip: For capacity attributes, you can generate alerts when the amount of storage is greater than, less than, or equal to a specified value. You can also determine the unit of measurement for the attribute, such as KiB, MiB, GiB, or TiB.

Hosts (performance changes)

Define alerts that notify you when the performance of a host falls outside a specified threshold. In alerts, you can specify conditions based on metrics that measure the performance of host, including Response Time, I/O rates, and Data rates. By creating alerts with performance conditions, you can be informed about potential bottlenecks in your network infrastructure.

For example, you can define an alert to be notified when the Total Response Time for a drive is greater than or equal to a specified threshold. Total Response Time represents the average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a read or a write operation. Use this alert to help identify disk conditions that might slow the performance of the host.

You can also be notified when a metric is less than a specified threshold, such as when you want to identify drives that are having low Response Time.

For a complete list of host metrics that can be alerted upon, see Performance metrics for hosts.
Tips for performance conditions:
  • Data Collection must run against a resource for a time before IBM Storage Insights Pro can determine whether a threshold is violated and an alert is generated for a performance condition.
Best practice: When you set thresholds for performance conditions, try to determine the best value so you can derive the maximum benefit without generating too many false alerts. Because suitable thresholds are highly dependent on the type of workload that is being run, hardware configuration, the number of physical disks, exact model numbers, and other factors, there are no easy or standard default rules.

A recommended approach is to monitor the performance of resources for a number of weeks and by using this historical data, determine reasonable threshold values for each performance condition. After that is done, you can fine-tune the condition settings to minimize the number of false alerts.

Click Edit alert Definitions, and for each performance alert definition click View History to see the history of host performance and set the threshold that you want relative to that data.

HBAs (general changes)

Table 3. Pre-defined alerts for HBAs
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Status
One of the following statuses is detected on an HBA:
Not Normal
An error or warning status was detected on the HBA.
Warning
A warning status was detected on the HBA.
Error (default)
An error status was detected on the HBA.
Removed HBA A previously monitored HBA can no longer be found. Historical data about the HBA is retained, but no current data is being collected. Use this alert to be notified if an HBA is removed or becomes unavailable.
New HBA An HBA is detected for the first time.

Drives (general changes)

Table 4. Pre-defined alerts for Drives
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Status
One of the following statuses is detected on a disk:
Not Normal
An error or warning status was detected on the disk.
Warning
A warning status was detected on the disk.
Error (default)
An error status was detected on the disk.
Removed Drive A previously monitored drive can no longer be found. Historical data about the drive is retained, but no current data is being collected. Use this alert to be notified if a drive is removed or becomes unavailable.
New Drive A drive is detected for the first time. Use this alert to be notified of hardware changes on hosts.
Paths The number of access paths that are associated with the drive falls outside a specified range, or is equal to or not equal to a specified value.

Drives (capacity changes)

Table 5. Pre-defined alerts for Drives
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Capacity The total amount of storage capacity that is assigned to a host drive.
Available Drive Capacity The unused capacity on a host drive.
Used Capacity The amount of used storage capacity on a host drive.

Drives (performance changes)

Table 6. Pre-defined alerts for Drives
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
I/O Rate (Read) The average number of read operations per second that are issued to the back-end storage resources.
I/O Rate (Write) The average number of write operations per second that are issued to the back-end storage resources.
I/O Rate (Total) The average number of I/O operations per second that are transmitted between the back-end storage resources and the component. This value includes both read and write operations.
Data Rate (Read) The average number of MiB per second that are read from the back-end storage resources.
Data Rate (Write) The average number of MiB per second that are written to the back-end storage resources.
Data Rate (Total) The average rate at which data is transmitted between the back-end storage resources and the component. The rate is measured in MiB per second and includes both read and write operations.
Response Time (Read) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a read operation.
Response Time (Write) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a write operation.
Response Time (Total) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a read or a write operation.

Paths (general changes)

Table 7. Pre-defined alerts for Paths
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Status
One of the following statuses is detected on a path:
Not Normal
An error or warning status was detected on the path.
Warning
A warning status was detected on the path.
Error (default)
An error status was detected on the path.
Deleted Path A previously monitored access path for a host drive can no longer be found. This change might or might not affect the availability of the drive because there might be more than one path available.
New Path An access path for a drive is detected for the first time.

Datastores (general changes)

Table 8. Pre-defined alerts for Datastores
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Status
One of the following statuses is detected on a datastore:
Not Normal
An error or warning status was detected on the datastore.
Warning
A warning status was detected on the datastore.
Error (default)
An error status was detected on the datastore.
Removed Datastore A previously monitored datastore can no longer be found. Historical data about the datastore is retained, but no current data is being collected. Use this alert to be notified if a datastore is removed or becomes unavailable.
New Datastore A datastore is detected for the first time.

Datastores (capacity changes)

Table 9. Pre-defined alerts for Datastores
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Used Capacity (%) The percentage of storage capacity that is used on the host data store.
Capacity The SAN disk capacity from storage systems that is assigned to host.
Used Capacity The total amount of SAN storage that is used by datastores that are associated with the host.
Available Capacity The amount of unused storage capacity on the host data store.
File System Capacity The amount of storage space on the file system of the resource.
Used File System Capacity The used capacity on the host file system.
Available File System Capacity The total amount of unused storage capacity on a file system.

Datastores (performance changes)

Table 10. Pre-defined alerts for Datastores
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
I/O Rate (Read) The average number of read operations per second that are issued to the back-end storage resources.
I/O Rate (Write) The average number of write operations per second that are issued to the back-end storage resources.
I/O Rate (Total) The average number of I/O operations per second that are transmitted between the back-end storage resources and the component. This value includes both read and write operations.
Data Rate (Read) The average number of MiB per second that are read from the back-end storage resources.
Data Rate (Write) The average number of MiB per second that are written to the back-end storage resources.
Data Rate (Total) The average rate at which data is transmitted between the back-end storage resources and the component. The rate is measured in MiB per second and includes both read and write operations.
Response Time (Read) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a read operation.
Response Time (Write) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a write operation.
Response Time (Total) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a read or a write operation.

VMDKs (general changes)

Table 11. Pre-defined alerts for VMDKs
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Removed VMDK A previously monitored VMDK can no longer be found. Historical data about the VMDK is retained, but no current data is being collected. Use this alert to be notified if a VMDK is removed or becomes unavailable.
New VMDK A VMDK is detected for the first time.

VMDKs (capacity changes)

Table 12. Pre-defined alerts for VMDKs
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
Used Capacity The percentage of storage capacity that is used on the VMDK on the host data store.
Size The size of the VMDK on the host data store.

VMDKs (performance changes)

Table 13. Pre-defined alerts for VMDKs
General Attributes Defining Conditions for Attributes
I/O Rate (Read) The average number of read operations per second that are issued to the back-end storage resources.
I/O Rate (Write) The average number of write operations per second that are issued to the back-end storage resources.
I/O Rate (Total) The average number of I/O operations per second that are transmitted between the back-end storage resources and the component. This value includes both read and write operations.
Data Rate (Read) The average number of MiB per second that are read from the back-end storage resources.
Data Rate (Write) The average number of MiB per second that are written to the back-end storage resources.
Data Rate (Total) The average rate at which data is transmitted between the back-end storage resources and the component. The rate is measured in MiB per second and includes both read and write operations.
Response Time (Read) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a read operation.
Response Time (Write) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a write operation.
Response Time (Total) The average number of milliseconds for the back-end storage resources to respond to a read or a write operation.