Tutorial: Identifying the locations of devices

Identify the locations of devices that are monitored by IBM Spectrum Control. You can also apply custom tags to more easily identify, sort, or group devices based on location or another attribute that you specify.

About this task

In large or distributed environments, it can be a challenge to manually keep track of all the physical locations where your devices reside. This challenge might be especially true in organizations with data centers that span multiple time zones and countries. In IBM Spectrum Control, when you add a device for monitoring, it automatically tracks the locations and time zones of devices for you.

Use the following steps to identify the location and time zone of devices that are being monitored. You can also apply custom tags to better filter or sort the devices in the GUI or in an external application if the data is shared or exported.

Procedure

In the menu bar, select the device type.
For example, if you want to identify the locations of block storage systems, go to Storage > Block Storage Systems.
Right-click a device and select View Properties.
On the General tab, scroll down until you see the Time Zone and Location values. Use these values to identify where a device resides.
To further refine location information, such as differentiating devices in the same geographic location but separate data centers, you can apply up to three custom tags.
Optional: To apply a custom tag to a device, click Edit.
Optional: Enter a value in a Custom Tag field and click Save.
Use custom tags to help you more easily identify, sort, or group devices. For example, you might enter values like Data Center X or Data Center Y, depending on the location of a device.

Tip: You can bulk apply custom tags to multiple devices at the same time. For example, on the Block Storage Systems page, click Ctrl + click or Shift + click to select multiple storage systems. Then, right-click the selected storage systems, click Edit Properties, and enter values in the Custom Tag fields.

Example

After custom tags are applied to devices, you can sort, filter, group, and export the devices based on those tags.

For example, on the Block Storage Systems page, you can sort the list so that storage systems with a specific custom tag, such as Data Center X, are shown at the top of the list. To sort the list, right-click any of the column headings and select the check box next to Custom Tag 1. Then, click the Custom Tag 1 column to sort the list.

You can also filter the list to only show storage systems with a specific custom tag. To filter the list, enter that custom tag value in the Filter text box and press Enter. Only the storage systems with custom tags that match or partially match the filter text are shown on the page. You can also complete the following actions:

To group the filtered storage systems, click Ctrl + click or Shift + click to select them. Then, right-click the selected storage systems, click Add to General Group, and follow the prompts.
To export the filtered storage systems to a file, select Actions > Export and select the file format that you want to use.