IBM Storage Insights Block Systems Entities

It lists all the block storage system entities.

Click Storage Insights Block Systems Entities on IBM Storage Insights Tenant overview dashboard page to navigate to the Block Storage System entities page.

Now, click on any storage system to view its details or enter the storage system name in the Filter by search box. It displays the Overview of the Block Storage System page.

The Overview of the Block Storage System page is divided into following sections:

Related Block System Volumes

It displays the list of all block system volume instances. Click on any block system volume instance or enter the block system volume name in the Filter by search box. It navigates to the overview page where you can click Properties and tags tab to view the details of the selected block system volume instance.

For more information, see Properties and tags.

Table 1. Related Block System Volumes
Menu item Description
Name The name or label of the volume, if available. This value uniquely identifies the volume within the storage system.
volume ID The identifier for the volume as defined on the storage system. The volume ID might be a serial number or internal ID.
status The status of a volume. Statuses include Normal, Warning, Error, Unknown, Online, Offline, Syncing, Degraded, Excluded, Unreachable. The (Threat Detected) label is appended to existing statuses in the Status column.

For instance, if a volume's status is Warning and ransomware threat is detected on it, the status displays as Warning (Threat Detected). If you acknowledge the alert, then the status becomes Warning (Threat Detected) Acknowledged. Use the status to determine the condition of the volume, and if any actions must be taken.
pool name The name of the pool that contains the volume from the storage system that is mapped to the disk.
hosts The name of the host, as defined on the storage system host connection.
compressed It indicates whether the volume is compressed or not.
thin provisioned The type of thin-provisioning on a volume, if any. The following types might be displayed for a volume:
  • ESE: The volume is an Extent Space-Efficient (ESE) thin-provisioned volume on a DS8000 storage system.
  • No: The volume is not a thin-provisioned volume. TSE The volume is a Track Space-Efficient.
  • TSE: The volume is a Track Space-Efficient (TSE) thin-provisioned volume on a DS8000 storage system.
  • Yes: The volume is a thin-provisioned volume.
capacity bytes The total amount of storage space that is committed to a volume. For thin-provisioned volumes, this value represents the provisioned capacity of the volume.

Related Block System Pools

It displays the list of all block system pool instances. Click on any block system pool instance or enter the block system pool name in the Filter by search box. It navigates to the overview page where you can click Properties and tags tab to view the details of the selected block system pool instance.

For more information, see Properties and tags.

Table 2. Related Block System Pools
Menu item Description
Name The name or label of the pool, if available. This value uniquely identifies the pool.
status The status of a pool. Statuses include Normal, Warning, Error, Unknown, Online, Offline, Syncing, Degraded, Excluded, Unreachable.
encryption It indicates whether the drive is encrypted or not.
mdisks The number of MDisks that are allocated from a pool.
drives The number of drives that are allocated from a pool.
volumes The number of volumes that are allocated from a pool.
used capacity bytes The amount of usable capacity that is consumed by the data in the pool after data reduction techniques are applied.
available capacity bytes The amount of usable capacity that is not yet used in the pool.

Related Block System Drives

It displays the list of all block system drive instances. Click on any block system drive instance or enter the block system drive name in the Filter by search box. It navigates to the overview page where you can click Properties and tags tab to view the details of the selected block system drive instance.

For more information, see Properties and tags.

Table 3. Related Block System Drives
Menu item Description
Name The name or label of the drive.
drive natural key The drive natural key value.
status The status of a disk or drive. Use the status to determine the condition of the disk or drive, and if any actions must be taken.

For example, if a disk has an Error status, take immediate action to correct the problem. If the disk has an Operational status, then it is operating normally and no further action is required.
raid array Name of the RAID Array to which the drive belongs.
class The technology type of the disk or drive, such as Solid-State Drive, NVMe SSD, Storage Class Memory, Flash, Fibre Channel (FC), SATA, and other types.
speed rpm The number of revolutions per minute of a disk.
capacity bytes For uncompressed disks or drives, the capacity is the same as the physical capacity and represents the total amount of unformatted storage space.

For compressed disks or drives, the capacity is the estimated amount of data that can be written to the disk or drive. This value is larger than the physical capacity because drive compression is used to reduce the size of the data.
encryption It indicates whether the drive is encrypted or not.

The block system volumes, pools, and drives gets refreshed in every 2 hours time interval.

Top 5 Volumes Utilization

You can select any of the following option from the Charts drop down to generate the top five volume utilization graph:
  • Volumes overall total IO rate
  • Volumes total response time

The top 5 volumes utilization graph gets refreshed in every 30 minutes time interval.

Properties and tags

Click Add Tag to add the tags to the block system. It requires to add the following fields:
Table 4. Tags
Menu item Description
Key (Required) The property key name.
Value The property key value.
The Properties section displays the following details of the block system:
Table 5. Properties
Menu item Description
Name The name of the storage system.
System ID The unique system ID.
Status The status of the block system. Use the status to determine the condition of the block system, and if any actions must be taken.

For example, if a system has an Error status, take immediate action to correct the problem. If the system has an Operational status, then it is operating normally and no further action is required.
Mdisks The number of MDisks allocated.
Drives The number of drives allocated.
Volumes The number of volumes allocated.
Solid State It indicates whether a pool contains solid-state disk drives. If a pool contains solid-state disks and other disks, the value Mixed is displayed.
Used Capacity Bytes The amount of usable capacity that is consumed by the data after data reduction techniques are applied.
Available Capacity Bytes The amount of usable capacity that is not yet used.
Compression Ratio Displays whether the storage system uses inline data compression to automatically compress the data that is written.
Encryption It indicates whether the storage system is encrypted or not.
Pool nk The natural key value of the pool.