Overview charts

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Monitor the activity and storage usage of your storage systems. Use the charts and key metrics to gauge the workload activity of your storage resources and to check whether you have sufficient capacity.

Review the charts and key information about the activity and availability of capacity:

Block storage systems

On the Overview page for a storage system, monitor storage usage, detect capacity shortages, and plan your capacity needs. The type of block storage system determine the information that is displayed.

Metrics for storage systems that have both block and file storage
The following information is shown for storage systems that have both block and file storage, such as Dell EMC Unity and NetApp ONTAP 9:
  • The Capacity section shows how much capacity is used and how much capacity is available for storing data.
  • The Provisioned Capacity section shows the written capacity values in relation to the total provisioned capacity values before data reduction techniques are applied:
    • % Written: The capacity of the data that is written to the volumes as a percentage of the total provisioned capacity of the volumes.
    • GiB Available: The amount of capacity that is still available for writing data to the thin-provisioned volumes. It is the difference between the provisioned capacity and the written capacity, which is the thin-provisioning savings.
  • The Capacity Savings section shows the amount of capacity that is saved by using deduplication, thin provisioning, and the data compression capabilities of the storage system.
Get more views of Capacity, Provisioned Capacity, and Capacity Savings:
  • To get a breakdown of the capacity usage by pool or volume, click the links in each section. For example, on the Block Storage Systems page, double-click a storage system, and then click View capacity by pool. You get a capacity breakdown of the storage system by pool, and you see the fill and growth rate for each pool.
  • To view the capacity savings of a storage system with data reduction metrics and savings summary that includes duplication, thin provisioning, drive compression, and pool compression, click View capacity savings. If a capacity limit was set, you can hover over the capacity chart and check how much available capacity you have left before you reach the capacity limit.
Figure 1. Capacity and activity charts
The types of overview charts are: capacity overview charts, capacity by storage resource charts, and workload activity charts.
Three types of charts are provided:
  • Capacity overview charts
  • Capacity by storage resource charts
  • Workload activity charts

The Capacity chart at the top of the Overview page shows how much capacity is used and how much capacity is available for storing data.

The Provisioned Capacity chart shows the written capacity values in relation to the total provisioned capacity values before data reduction techniques are applied. The following values are shown:
  • The capacity of the data that is written to the volumes as a percentage of the total provisioned capacity of the volumes.
  • The amount of capacity that is still available for writing data to the thin-provisioned volumes in relation to the total provisioned capacity of the volumes. Available capacity is the difference between the provisioned capacity and the written capacity, which is the thin-provisioning savings.

A breakdown of the total capacity savings that are achieved when the written capacity is stored on the thin-provisioned volumes is also provided.

In the capacity overview chart, a horizontal bar is shown when a capacity limit is set for the storage system. Just hover over the chart to find out what the capacity limit is and how much capacity is left before the capacity limit is reached.

To get a breakdown of the capacity usage by pool or volume, click the links.
Try it: Click View capacity by pool. You get a capacity breakdown of the storage system by pool, and you can see the recent fill and growth rates for each pool in the storage system.
Depending on the type of storage system, the following activity and capacity by storage resource charts are shown:
Table 1. Capacity by storage resource
Chart Name Purpose
Capacity Use this chart to monitor the available, used, and provisioned capacity in your storage system over the last 30 days.
Capacity by Host Use this chart to monitor the current capacity of the storage system that is mapped to hosts.
Capacity by Pool Use this chart to monitor the current available and used capacity of your largest pools.
Capacity by Volume Use this chart to monitor the current used and unused provisioned capacity of your largest volumes.
Capacity by Tier Use this chart to monitor the current used and available capacity of the pools that are assigned to tiers.
Exclusive to IBM Storage Insights Pro: In IBM Storage Insights Pro, users with Administrator privileges, can set capacity limits for storage systems and pools. When you hover over the capacity overview chart, you can see the value for the Capacity Limit and the Capacity-to-Limit. The Capacity-to-Limit is the amount of capacity that is left before the capacity limit is reached.
Table 2. Activity charts
Chart Name Purpose
Overall system activity Use this chart to monitor the overall activity of your storage system, which is broke down into total I/O rate, read I/O rate, and write I/O rate in operations per second over the last 24 hours.
Most Active Nodes Use this chart to monitor the nodes with the heaviest workloads, which is calculated in operations per second, over the last 24 hours.
Most Active Pools Use this chart to monitor the pools with the heaviest workloads, which is calculated in operations per second, over the last 24 hours.
Most Active Volumes Use this chart to monitor the volumes with the highest response times over the last 24 hours.
MDisk Activity Use this chart to monitor managed disks (M Disks) with the heaviest workloads, which is calculated in operations per second, over the last 24 hours.

File storage systems

The following capacity charts and Inode usage charts are shown for file storage systems:
Table 3. Capacity and Inode charts
Chart Name Purpose
Total File System Space Use this chart to monitor the capacity, the used capacity, and the available capacity of your file systems over the last 30 days.
Capacity by File System Use this chart to monitor the current capacity and the used and available capacity of your fullest file systems .
Inodes by File System Use this chart to monitor the availability of Inodes.

Object storage systems

The following capacity charts are shown for object storage systems:
Table 4. Charts for object storage systems
Chart Name Purpose
Capacity Use this chart to monitor the total capacity, used and available capacity of your object storage system.
Sites Use this chart to monitor the distribution of Accesser® and Slicestor® nodes across sites.
Capacity by IDA Use this chart to monitor the used capacity of the vaults that are configured with IDA (Information Dispersal Algorithm).
Failure Tolerance Monitor the availability and fault tolerance of vaults and Slicestors.