Performance monitoring using ESS GUI

The ESS GUI provides a graphical representation of the status and historical trends of the key performance indicators. The manner in which information is displayed on the GUI, helps Users to make quick and effective decisions, easily.

The following table lists the performance monitoring options that are available in the ESS GUI.

Table 1. Performance monitoring options available in ESS GUI
Option	Function
Monitoring > Statistics	Displays performance of system resources and file and object storage in various performance charts. You can select the necessary charts and monitor the performance based on the filter criteria. The pre-defined performance widgets and metrics help in investigating every node or any particular node that is collecting the metrics.
Monitoring > Dashboards	Provides a more readable and real-time user interface that shows a graphical representation of the status and historical trends of key performance indicators. The dashboard view helps decision-making easier without wasting time.
Nodes	Provides an easy way to monitor the performance, health status, and configuration aspects of all available nodes in the ESS cluster.
Cluster > Network	Provides an easy way to monitor the performance and health status of various types of networks and network adapters.
Monitoring > Thresholds	Provides an option to configure and various thresholds based on the performance monitoring metrics. You can also monitor the threshold rules and the events that are associated with each rule.
Files > File Systems	Provides a detailed view of the performance, capacity, and health aspects of file systems.
Files > Filesets	Provides a detailed view of the fileset capacity.
Storage > Pools	Provides a detailed view of the performance, capacity, and health aspects of storage pools.
Storage > NSDs	Provides a detailed view of the performance, capacity, and health aspects of individual NSDs.
Protocols > NFS Exports	Provides an overview of the performance aspects of the NFS export.
Protocols > SMB Shares	Provides an overview of the performance aspects of the SMB shares.
Files > Transparent Cloud Tiering	Provides insight into health, performance, and configuration of the transparent cloud tiering service.
Files > Active File Management	Provides a detailed view of the configuration, performance, and health status of AFM cache relationship, AFM disaster recovery (AFMDR) relationship, and gateway nodes.

The Statistics page is used for selecting the attributes based on which the performance of the system needs to be monitored and comparing the performance based on the selected metrics. You can also mark charts as favorite charts and these charts become available for selection when you add widgets in the dashboard. You can display only two charts at a time in the Statistics page.

Favorite charts that are defined in the Statistics page and the predefined charts are available for selection in the Dashboard.

You can configure the system to monitor the performance of the following functional areas in the system:

Network
System resources
Native RAID
NSD server
IBM Storage Scale client
NFS
SMB
CTDB
Transparent cloud tiering. This option is available only when the cluster is configured to work with the transparent cloud tiering service.
Waiters
AFM

Note: The functional areas such as NFS, SMB, CTDB, and Transparent cloud tiering are available only if the feature is enabled in the system.

The performance and capacity data are collected with the help of the following two components:

Sensor: The sensors are placed on all the nodes and they share the data with the collector. The sensors run on any node that is needed to collect metrics. Sensors are started by default on the protocol nodes.
Collector: Collects data from the sensors. The metric collector runs on a single node and gathers metrics from all the nodes that are running the associated sensors. The metrics are stored in a database on the collector node. The collector ensures aggregation of data when the data gets older. The collector can run on any node in the system. By default, the collector runs on the management node. You can configure multiple collectors in the system. To configure performance monitoring through GUI, it is mandatory to configure a collector on each GUI node.

The following picture provides a graphical representation of the performance monitoring configuration for GUI.

You can use the Services > Performance Monitoring page to configure sensors. You can also use the mmperfmon command to configure the performance data collection through the CLI. The GUI displays a subset of the available metrics that are available in the performance monitoring tool.