Creating performance monitors in IBM Spectrum Control

Performance monitors are data collection jobs that collect metrics for measuring the performance of storage systems and switches. You can create performance monitors in IBM Spectrum® Control when you add resources for monitoring or at a later time.

To create performance monitors, you must have Administrator privileges.
To create performance monitors for resources in your environment, you can use the list and detail pages for the resources. For example, to create performance monitors for switches, use the Switches page. You can create performance monitors for multiple resources at the same time.
Restrictions:
  • You can define only one performance monitor for a resource.
  • You can create performance monitors for the following resources only:
    • Storage systems
    • Switches that are managed by a CIM agent
  1. From the menu bar, go to a resource list page for a resource type.
    For example, to create performance monitors for storage systems, go to Storage and select the type of storage system you want to monitor.
  2. Locate the resources that you want to monitor.
  3. Select the resource rows and click Actions > Data Collection > Schedule.
  4. On the Data Collection Schedule window, set the performance monitors to Enabled.
    You can set a performance monitor to Enabled only if the probe is set to Enabled.
  5. Select the interval for the performance monitors, and click Save.
    The interval represents the number of minutes over which samples of performance data are averaged. If you are creating performance monitors for multiple resources, the interval list displays the performance monitor intervals that are common to all resources.
    For example, you select two storage systems. Storage_System_a specifies performance monitor intervals of 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes. Storage_System_b specifies intervals of 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes. The interval list displays intervals of 10 minutes and 15 minutes.
    Restrictions:

    Note the following restrictions when you create performance monitors:

    1. If you specify a 1-minute interval for performance monitors, data collection samples might be inconsistent lengths. The inconsistent lengths occur because it might take longer than 1 minute to collect the data on some systems. The inconsistent lengths can cause the data in the historical line chart to be misleading. This problem can also occur for the 5-minute summary chart when a 1-minute interval was specified for data collection.

      Check the messages in the job log to determine the length of time that data collection takes for a resource. If the data collection takes longer than 1 minute, consider changing the interval to 5 minutes. You can use a 1-minute interval when you want to troubleshoot a resource.

    2. If you specify a 1-minute interval, the amount of data that is stored in the database repository increases significantly. IBM Spectrum Control stores only 7 days of sample data that is collected at 1-minute intervals.
Performance monitors are created for the resources that are selected, and that meet the criteria. For example, you select three storage systems, Storage_System_a, Storage_System_b, and Storage_System_c. You enable the performance monitors and set the interval field. When you click Save, performance monitors are created for Storage_System_a and Storage_System_b. Storage_System_c is not affected by the action because you cannot configure performance monitors for that storage system.

If a successful probe run is completed for a resource, the performance monitor runs according to the defined interval.

To check the progress of a performance monitor, you can complete the following actions:
  • From the resource list page, right-click a resource row, and select Data Collection > Open Performance Monitor Logs. You can view detailed informational, warning, and error messages that are related to the performance monitor. Use this information to troubleshoot any errors that might occur when the performance monitor runs.
  • View the Performance Monitor Status column on the resource list page.