IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center sensor

The IBM® Tivoli® Storage Productivity Center sensor discovers storage resources that are related to a storage area network (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS). The sensor extracts data from a Tivoli Storage Productivity Center database.

The following resources are examples of what the sensor discovers:
  • Storage arrays
  • Switches
  • Hosts
  • Fabrics
  • Zones
  • Storage volumes
  • Array and switch ports
  • File systems
  • Disk partitions
  • NAS-related data

Some of these resources can also be discovered by the host storage sensor (for example, data that is related to hosts) and the Fibre Channel switch sensor (for example, data that is related to switches).

Sensor name that is used in the GUI and logs

TPCStorageSensor

Fix Pack 5

Prerequisites

Mapping Information

To get mappings among the Storage resources (Storage disks, volumes, physical hosts, VM machines, SVController as STG virtualizer, FC switches and disks, etc..), the below schema details the prerequisites at TPC/Spectrum level and TADDM discovery level for each case:

Virtual Server (typically VMware virtual machines) and storage LUNs resources mapping

The relationship can be obtained after both these sensors- HostStorageSensor and TPCStorageServerSensor run successfully.

However, we need to keep into consideration the prerequisites and limitations of both the sensors.

For prerequisites of the Host Storage sensor, please refer to the link below: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSPLFC_7.3.0/com.ibm.taddm.doc_7.3/SensorGuideRef/r_cmdb_sensor_hoststorage.html

For prerequisites of the TPC Storage sensor, please refer to the link below: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSPLFC_7.3.0/com.ibm.taddm.doc_7.3/SensorGuideRef/r_cmdb_sensor_tpcstorage.html

Storage Subsystems and storage LUNs resources mapping

This is an implicit relationship which is shown if the Storage Subsystem is correctly discovered.

Physical Servers and Storage Subsystems resources mapping

This can be obtained from HostStorageSensor. However, we need to keep into consideration the prerequisites and limitations of HostStorageSensor.

Note: The above relationships can be obtained without installing TPC SRA agents on target hosts on TPC domain of management. Generally, there are some exceptions depending on the TPC Spectrum Control source tables. This is because they might not always contain enough minimum information to identify a related target host (hostname + IP Address data and/or MAC address, etc..) and to always allow TADDM to correlate the target hosts to storage subsystem data.

Storage Subsystems Volumes and Target Endpoint Mapping

To get the mapping from Storage Subsystems volume discovered by TADDM (through the TPC Storage sensor) to the endpoint target servers, TPC will need the TPC SRA agents installed on targets hosts accessing those volumes, since TADDM needs at least the MAC address with the hostname of the target host to display it as accessing specific volumes. Other alternative is using HostStorageSensor for each of the target hosts to store and display the mapping information.