Host Internal Resources

Internal resources are the components that exist on a host. Components that you can view include virtual machines, HBAs, drives, datastore, and VMDKs.

Overview

Use the hosts details page to view information about the following internal resources for hosts that are monitored:

Virtual machines

To view information about the virtual machines that are associated with a host, click Virtual Machines. The number in parentheses shows the number of controllers that are monitored on the server. The following information is available for each controller.

The following information is available for each virtual machine that is added to IBM Storage Insights Pro.
Acknowledged
The issue was resolved or the user decided that the issue did not need to be investigated.
Cluster
The name of the cluster in which the host is a member. A cluster is a group of application hosts that collaborate for the purposes of workload balancing and failover.
Condition
The overall operational condition of a virtual machine. This condition represents the most critical status that was detected on the internal resources of a virtual machine. For example, if an error was detected on a datastore, an error icon Error condition icon is shown for the virtual machine's condition. If no errors, warnings, or unreachable statuses were detected on its internal resources, then a green symbol is shown for the virtual machine's condition. To view the individual statuses of internal resources, right-click the virtual machine and click View Details.
Custom tag 1, 2, and 3
Any user-defined text that is associated with a virtual machine. This text can be included as a report column when you generate reports for the virtual machine. To edit the custom tags for a virtual machine or add a custom tag, right-click it and select View Properties. On the properties notebook, click Edit.
Datastores
The name or a count of the data stores that the virtual machine is used. When one data store name is displayed, clicking the name opens the properties of the data store. When multiple data stores are detected, clicking the count opens a table listing the data stores.
Host
The name of the host that the virtual machine is hosted.
IP Address
The IP address of a host.
Location
The physical location of a virtual machine. The location is defined when a virtual machine is added. If a location was not defined, no value is displayed. To edit the location of a virtual machine or add a location, right-click the virtual machine in the list and select View Properties. On the properties notebook, click Edit.
Name
The IP address or fully qualified domain name of a virtual machine.
Icon Description
Virtual Machine Virtual Machine (VM).
OS Type
The operating system that is installed on a virtual machine.
SAN Capacity (GiB)
The SAN disk capacity that is assigned to a virtual machine from storage systems. The SAN capacity is displayed when the storage volume is directly mapped to virtual machine through NPIV. If the storage volume is not mapped to virtual machine, no value is displayed. For information about the storage systems, right-click the virtual machine and click View Details. Then, view Related Resources and click a storage system for more details.
System UUID
A unique identifier that assigns to the virtual machine when it is added to IBM Storage Insights Pro.
Used SAN Capacity (GiB)
The amount of SAN disk capacity that is being used by a virtual machine from storage systems. The used SAN capacity is displayed when the storage volume is directly mapped to virtual machine through NPIV. If the storage volume is not mapped to virtual machine, no value is displayed.
VMDKs
The name or a count of the VMDKs that the virtual machine is used. When one VMDK name is displayed, clicking the name opens the properties of the VMDK. When multiple VMDKs are detected, clicking the count opens a table listing the VMDKs.
Volumes
The count of the volumes that the virtual machine is used. When one volume is displayed, clicking the volume opens the properties of volume. When multiple volumes are detected, clicking the count opens a table listing the volumes.

HBAs

An HBA coordinates and controls the operation of one or more input and output devices. The HBA synchronizes the operation of such devices with the operation of a host. To view information about the HBAs that are associated with a host, click HBAs (1). The number in parentheses shows the number of controllers that are monitored on the host. The following information is available for each HBA.

Associated Drives
The number of drives that are controlled by an HBA. A drive might be assigned to more than one HBA. When one drive name is displayed, clicking the name will open the properties of the drive. When multiple drives are detected, clicking the count will open a table listing the drives.
Bus Address (applicable for ESXi host)
The SCSI bus address that is associated with an HBA is displayed.
Description (applicable for ESXi host)
A short description of an HBA that was provided by the manufacturer.
HBA WWN
The worldwide name (WWN) of an HBA. A WWN is a 64-bit string that uniquely identifies the HBA. The value is only available for host bus adapters (HBAs).
IQN
The iSCSI-qualified name of the HBA.
Name
The name of the HBA on a host.
Status (applicable for ESXi host)
The status of an HBA. Statuses include Normal, Warning, Error, and Unknown. Use the status to determine the condition of an HBA, and if any actions must be taken. For example, if an HBA has an Error status, take immediate action to correct the problem.
Type
The type of HBA, such as IDE, SCSI, Floppy, and RAID. Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) have a controller type of FCAL (Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop).

Drives

The number of unique drives that are attached to a host or volumes at the storage system. To view information about the drives that are available on a host, click Drives (1). The number in parentheses shows the number of drives that are monitored on the host. The following information is available for each drive.

Available Drive Capacity (GiB)
The capacity that is unused on a drive.
Capacity (GiB), Capacity (GB)
The storage space that is available on a disk, which is measured in gibibytes (GiB) or gigabytes (GB). A GiB is a base-2, binary unit of measurement equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes. A GB is a base-10, decimal unit of measurement equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes.
Name
The name of the drive that is controlled by an HBA on a host.
Paths
The number of access paths that are associated with a drive.
Serial Number
A number or alphanumeric identifier that is given by manufacturer to each drive.
Used Capacity (GiB)
The amount of storage space that is used on a drive.

The following information is available only for the drives that are attached to the ESXi hosts.

Acknowledged
Shows whether a user marked the status of drives as acknowledged. An acknowledged status indicates that the status was reviewed and is either resolved or can be ignored. An acknowledged status is not used when the status of related, higher-level resources is determined.
Datastore
The name of the data stores that the drive is used.
Firmware
The firmware version of the microcode on a drive.
Model
Manufacturer provides the model name of drive.
Multipathing
The multipathing policy that is in effect for a drive. For example, the policy can be Round Robin, Load Balancing, Failover Only, or other policies.
Speed
The number of revolutions per minute of a drive.
Status
The status of the paths for a host drive or hypervisor. The following statuses might be displayed for a drive:
Connected
All of the paths to the drive are online.
Disconnected
All of the paths to the drive are offline.
Partially connected
One or more of the paths to the drive are offline.
Unknown
The status of the paths for the drive cannot be determined.
Storage System
The name of the corresponding storage system hosting the volume. If the drive is a local drive, it will be blank.
Vendor
The name of the vendor or manufacturer of the drive.
Virtual Machines
The number of virtual machines that are using the drive. A drive might be assigned to more than one virtual machines. When one virtual machine name is displayed, clicking the name will open the properties of the virtual machine. When multiple virtual machines are detected, clicking the count will open a table listing the virtual machines.
Volume
The name of the corresponding storage volume. If the drive is a local drive, it will be blank.
Paths
You can view information about all the paths that are associated with the drives for a host, or just the paths that are associated with a specific drive.
  • To view all the paths for the associated drives, click the Paths tab.
  • To view the paths that are associated with a specific drive, right-click the name of the drive, select View Properties, and click the Paths tab.
Tip:

To help streamline the information in IBM Storage Insights, the following differences are shown for block storage systems and unmonitored hosts:

  • On the details page for the block storage system and unmonitored host, the Paths tab is not displayed on the Drives page.
  • The Storage System and Volume columns from the Paths tab are displayed on the Drives page.
  • The Paths column on the Drives page shows the number of paths associated with a drive.
The following information is available for each path on a drive:
Acknowledged
Shows whether a user marked the status of paths as acknowledged. An acknowledged status indicates that the status was reviewed and is either resolved or can be ignored. An acknowledged status is not used when the status of related, higher-level resources is determined.
Drive
The name of the drive that is controlled by an HBA on a host or hypervisor.
HBA
The name of the HBA that manages a drive.
Instance Number
The instance number of a drive.
LUN
The logical unit number (LUN) that is associated with a drive.
Name
The name of a path to a host drive. Typically, the multipath driver defines this name.
Status
The status of a path for a host drive or hypervisor drive. The status might be connected or disconnected.
Storage System
The name of the storage system where a volume is located.
Target Identifier
A hexadecimal value that uniquely identifies a drive.
Volume
The name of a volume on a drive.

Datastores

A data store is a storage location for files that are related to a virtual machine. A storage location can be a VMFS volume, a directory on network-attached storage, or a local file system path. To view information about the data stores that are available on a host, click Datastores (1) in the left pane. The number in parentheses shows the number of datastores that are monitored on the host. The following information is available for each data store:

Available Datastore Capacity (GiB)
The capacity that is unused on a datastore.
Available File System Capacity (GiB)
The unused storage space on a file system.
Cluster
If the host is a member of a cluster, the cluster name is displayed. If the host is not a member of a cluster, no information is displayed.
Datastore Capacity (GiB or GB)
Amount of storage space that is assigned to a data store, which is measured in gibibytes (GiB) or gigabytes (GB). A GiB is a base-2, binary unit of measurement equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes. A GB is a base-10, decimal unit of measurement equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes.
Drives
The name of the drive on the host where the datastore is located. Click the name of the drive to view the properties notebook for the disk. If data was not collected for the storage system that the drive is on, this column is blank.
File System
The name of the file system or mount point on a host or hypervisor. If a file system is not mounted, no value is shown.
File System Capacity (GiB)
The storage space on a file system.
Name
The name of the data store that is mapped to the drive.
Pool
The name of the storage pool that contains the storage volume. Click the name of the pool to view the properties notebook for the pool. If there are multiple pools, the number of pools is shown.
Status
The status of a datastore.
Storage System
The name of the storage system that provides storage space for the datastore. Click the name of the storage system to view more information about it. If there are multiple storage systems, the number of storage systems is shown.
Swap Space
Shows whether a data store is a swap volume. A swap volume provides virtual memory that extends the real memory (RAM) on a host.
Type
The type of file system. You can use IBM Storage Insights Pro to monitor the following types of file systems:
  • VMFS
  • VMFS 3
  • VMFS 5
  • VMFS 6
  • NFS
  • vSAN
  • vVOL
Used Capacity (%)
The percentage of space that is used on a file system. The following formula is used to calculate this value:
File System Used Capacity ÷ File System Capacity × 100
Used Datastore Capacity (GiB)
The amount of storage space that is used on a datastore.
Used File System Capacity (GiB)
The storage capacity that is being used on a file system. On some UNIX file systems, this value does not include capacity that is reserved by the operating system, which is known as overhead. IBM Storage Insights Pro does not include the following file systems when it calculates this value:
  • File systems that are mounted remotely and are not identified to a network-attached storage server.
  • File systems that are not mounted.
Virtual Machines
The number of virtual machines that are using the datastore. A datastore might be assigned to more than one virtual machines. When one virtual machine name is displayed, clicking the name will open the properties of the virtual machine. When multiple virtual machines are detected, clicking the count will open a table listing the virtual machines.
VMDKs
The path to the VMDK on the data store. Click the path to view the VMDKs tab in the properties notebook for the data store. If there are multiple VMDKs on the data store, the number of VMDKs is shown.
Volumes
The name of the storage volume that provides storage space for the datastore. Click the name of the volume to view the properties notebook for the volume. If there are multiple volumes that provide storage space, the number of volumes is shown.

VMDKs

A virtual machine disk (VMDK) stores the contents of the hard disk drive for a virtual machine. To view information about the VMDKs that are available on a host, click VMDKs (1) in the left pane. The number in parentheses shows the number of VMDKs that are monitored on the host. The following information is available for each VMDK:

Datastore
The data store that contains the VMDK. Click the name of the data store to view the properties notebook for the data store.
Drive
The name of the drive on the host where the VMDK is located. Click the name of the disk to view the properties notebook for the disk. If data was not collected for the storage system that the drive is on, this column is blank.
Path
The location of the VMDK for the virtual machine. The path includes the name of the data store.
Pool
The name of the storage pool that contains the storage volume. Click the name of the pool to view the properties notebook for the pool. If there are multiple pools, the number of pools is shown.
Size (GiB)
The size of the VMDK on the data store.
Storage System
The name of the storage system or NAS server that provides storage space for the VMDK. Click the name of the storage system to view more information about it. If there are multiple storage systems, the number of storage systems is shown.
Used Capacity (GiB)
The amount of storage space that is used on a VMDK.
Virtual Machine
The name of the virtual machine that is associated with the VMDK. If the virtual machine is managed by a an agentless server, click the name of the virtual machine to view the server information. If the virtual machine was discovered, click the name of the virtual machine to view the properties notebook for the virtual machine.
Virtual Machine Drive
The name of the drive that is presented in the guest operating system (OS) on the virtual machine. The name is available if a Storage Resource agent is deployed. Click the name of the drive to view the properties notebook for the drive.