Object storage systems

Use the Object Storage Systems page to administer and monitor the configuration and capacity information about the object storage systems in your environment.

Information about object storage systems

In an object storage system, data is stored in a flat namespace that scales to trillions of objects and is optimized to store unstructured data, such as documents, images, audio, and video files. Object storage simplifies how users access data, supporting new types of applications and allowing users to access data by various methods, including mobile devices and web applications.

OpenStack Swift is an open source object storage system that is widely used for cloud storage. IBM Storage Scale storage systems that are configured for object storage combine OpenStack Swift with the file storage capabilities of the GPFS file system. All object data is stored as files on the GPFS file system.

Use the Object Storage Systems page to view the following information for each object storage system that is monitored:
Accounts
The number of accounts in the object storage system. This information is collected only for IBM Storage Scale.

An account is the top-level element in the storage hierarchy for OpenStack Swift-compliant object storage systems. An account can contain a set of containers.

The accounts and the containers that you can monitor in the GUI are determined by the role that is associated with your login account for the storage system.

To monitor all of the accounts and the containers in IBM Storage Scale, you must be assigned the role that is defined in the reseller_admin_role configuration option in the Swift proxy server. The default value for the reseller_admin_role option is ResellerAdmin.
Tip: To change the credentials for monitoring the storage system, go to Resources > Object Storage Systems, right-click the storage system, and then click Connections > Modify Connection.
Acknowledged
Shows whether a user marked the status of a storage system as acknowledged. An acknowledged status indicates that the status was reviewed and is either resolved or can be ignored.
Available Capacity (GiB)
The storage capacity that is available for object data.

For IBM Storage Scale, this value is the amount of file system capacity that is available.

For IBM Cloud Object Storage, this value is the amount of raw storage capacity in all the storage pools that is available and includes capacity that is reserved for overheads, such as formatting, disk overhead, and dispersal overhead.

Capacity (%)
The percentage of the total object capacity that is used.

For IBM Cloud Object Storage, this value is the percentage of the total raw capacity of all the storage pools that is used and includes space that is reserved for overheads, such as formatting, disk overhead, and dispersal overhead.

Capacity (GiB)
(Previously known as Total Capacity) The capacity that can be used by the object storage system.

For IBM Storage Scale, this value is the amount of file system capacity that can be used. The total capacity includes the capacity that is used for object storage and the capacity that is available on the file system.

For example, the capacity of a GPFS file system is 500 GiB. If 100 GiB is used for file storage and 200 GiB is used for object storage, then the total capacity value is 400 GiB.

For IBM Cloud Object Storage, this value is the total amount of raw storage capacity in all the storage pools and includes capacity that is reserved for overheads, such as formatting, disk overhead, and dispersal overhead.

Condition
The overall operational condition of a storage system. This condition represents the most critical status that was detected on the internal resources of a storage system. For example, if an error was detected on a storage system pool, an error icon Error condition icon is shown for the storage system's condition. If no errors, warnings, or unreachable statuses were detected on its internal resources, then a green symbol is shown for the storage system's condition. To view the individual statuses of internal resources, right-click the storage system and select View Details.

If the condition is Not Monitored, you can use the Connections > Modify Connection action on the Object Storage Systems page to add the object storage system for monitoring.

Containers
The total number of containers in all the accounts in the object storage system. A container can contain a set of objects. This information is collected only for IBM Storage Scale.

A container is the second-level element, under accounts, in the storage hierarchy for OpenStack Swift-compliant object storage systems, such as IBM Storage Scale. A container is equivalent to a directory or folder in a file system and is used to store and manage objects.

Custom Tag 1, 2, and 3
Any user-defined text that is associated with a storage system. This text can be included as a report column when you generate reports for the storage system. To edit the custom tags for a storage system, right-click the storage system in the list and select View Properties. On the properties notebook, click Edit.
Data Collection
(Same as Probe Status) The status of the most recent metadata collection for a device. Use this value to quickly identify a probe that failed or generated warning messages during processing. If a probe is run while a device is unreachable, its status is not shown in the column. Instead, the status of the previous probe is shown.
Help with statuses: For more information about the different statuses that can be displayed and how you can troubleshoot them, see Monitoring the status of data collection.
Last Successful Probe
The most recent date and time when the probe successfully completed the collection of asset and status data.
Name
A user-defined name of the storage system. If a name was not defined, IBM Storage Insights Pro shows the name that was defined when the storage system was added for monitoring.
Probe Status
The status of the most recent run of a probe. Use this value to quickly identify a probe that failed or generated warning messages during processing. If a probe is run while a device is unreachable, its status is not shown in the column. Instead, the status of the previous probe is shown.
Help with statuses: For more information about the different statuses that can be displayed and how you can troubleshoot them, see Monitoring the status of data collection.
Objects
The total number of objects that are stored in the object storage system. This information is collected only for IBM Storage Scale.

An object stores data, such as files, videos, images, virtual machine snapshots, and other unstructured data. In IBM Storage Scale, objects are stored as files on the GPFS file system.

Used Capacity (GiB)
For IBM Storage Scale, this value is the amount of file system capacity that is used by the objects in the storage system.
If a probe is run immediately after objects or containers are added to an IBM Storage Scale account, the used capacity value might not reflect the updates until after the next scheduled probe run. If you want to view the updated used capacity value sooner, wait at least 10 minutes and then use the Start Probe action to start a probe immediately for the storage system.
Tip: The used capacity value applies only to the accounts that the user that is used to monitor the object storage system has admin access to.

For IBM Cloud Object Storage, this value is the amount of raw storage capacity in all the storage pools that is used and includes capacity that is reserved for overheads, such as formatting, disk overhead, and dispersal overhead.

Vaults
The total number of COS Vaults in all the storage pools in the object storage system. This information is collected only for IBM Cloud Object Storage.