Adding storage systems

Add the storage systems that you want to monitor in IBM Storage Insights.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have the Administrator role in IBM Storage Insights. For more information about roles, see Adding and removing users.
Restriction:
  • You must enter a user name and password that is used to connect to that storage system. These credentials must not include any blank spaces. In rare cases, special characters might also not be allowed by IBM Storage Insights. If you can't add a storage system for monitoring because of restricted characters, it's recommended that you change the credentials for the storage system and try adding it again. Then, open a ticket for the character limitation so that we can address it in a future update.
  • If you add non-IBM® storage systems, and the data collector is installed on a Windows system, any directory names must not start with any of the Windows reserved words such as these: 
    CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9,
LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, LPT9
    As your email address or IBMid is used by internally by the data collector when you add storage systems, you must ensure that they do not start with any of the Windows reserved words.

About this task

You can add multiple storage systems at the same time, or add them one by one. To add multiple storage systems, the storage systems must be of the same type and share authentication credentials.

When you add block storage systems for monitoring, their status, capacity, configuration, and performance metadata is automatically collected and analyzed. When you add storage systems that manage both block and file storage, their status, capacity, and configuration metadata for file storage is also automatically collected and analyzed.

Multiple ways to add and monitor IBM Storage Virtualize storage systems: You can add an IBM Storage Virtualize storage system for monitoring by using its management GUI or the IBM Storage Insights GUI.
  • Using the management GUI: If you add a storage system by using its management GUI, you must enable Call Home with cloud services. A data collector is not required when you use Call Home with cloud services to monitor an IBM Storage Virtualize storage system. For more information, see Enabling Call Home with cloud services.
  • Using the IBM Storage Insights GUI: If you add a storage system by using the IBM Storage Insights GUI, you must deploy or assign a data collector. For steps on how to add the storage system, see Procedure.
Metadata collection schedule and required roles:
  • Status, configuration, and capacity metadata are collected by probes and aggregated once every 24 hours.
    • For DS8000 storage systems and their pools, the value for used capacity is collected once every hour. To customize that interval, contact IBM Support.
    • For some devices, additional probes are automatically run when specific events occur on those devices, or when many events are detected in a short time period. To avoid performance bottlenecks in those cases, probes are not run more than once every 20 minutes.
  • Performance metadata is collected by performance monitors at the following intervals:
    • Every 5 minutes for IBM block storage systems
    • Every 5 minutes for Dell EMC Unity storage systems.
    • Every 5 minutes for Hitachi VSP storage systems.
    • Every 5 minutes for NetApp storage systems that are running ONTAP 9.
    • Every 5 minutes for Pure storage systems.
    • Every 15 minutes for other Dell EMC block storage systems.
  • The user name that IBM Storage Insights Pro uses to connect to a storage system must have the required privileges (or role) on that storage system to collect different types of metadata. For more information about the requirements for each type of storage system, see User roles for collecting metadata.
  • When storage systems are added that manage only file storage or object storage, you schedule the collection of asset, capacity, and configuration metadata.
Time zone determination: The time zone of the browser that you use to access IBM Storage Insights determines when the data is collected and the date and time that is shown in the chart and table views.
Table 1. Types of IBM storage systems that can be monitored
Type IBM Storage Insights Pro IBM Storage Insights Block File Object Start of changeUnifiedEnd of change
Click a storage system to view its supported versions.            
DS8000 Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark      
Start of changeIBM Storage Ceph®End of change Start of changeCheckmarkEnd of change         Start of changeCheckmarkEnd of change
IBM Storage FlashSystem family (includes IBM Storage FlashSystem 5000, IBM Storage FlashSystem 5100, IBM Storage FlashSystem 7200, IBM Storage FlashSystem 9100, IBM Storage FlashSystem 9200) Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark      
IBM Cloud Object Storage Checkmark       Checkmark  
IBM Storage Accelerate Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark      
IBM Storage Scale (ESS and GSS) Checkmark     Checkmark Checkmark  
SAN Volume Controller Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark      
IBM Storage Virtualize Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark      
IBM Storage Virtualize for Public Cloud Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark      
Storwize block storage systems Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark      
Storwize V7000 Unified Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark    
XIV Checkmark Checkmark Checkmark     Start of changeEnd of change
Subscribers to IBM Storage Insights Pro can also monitor the following types of non-IBM storage systems:
Table 2. Types of non-IBM storage systems that can be monitored
Type IBM Storage Insights Pro IBM Storage Insights Block File
Dell EMC Unity Checkmark   Checkmark Checkmark
Dell EMC VMAX family Checkmark   Checkmark  
Dell EMC VNX Checkmark   Checkmark Checkmark
Dell EMC VNXe Checkmark   Checkmark Checkmark
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) Checkmark   Checkmark  
Lenovo Storage V3700 V2
Lenovo Storage V3700 V2 XP
Lenovo Storage V5030
 Checkmark   Checkmark  
NetApp storage systems running ONTAP 9 Checkmark   Checkmark Checkmark
Pure FlashArray//M and FlashArray//X Checkmark   Checkmark  
Storwize V3500 for
Lenovo
Storwize V3700 for
Lenovo
Storwize V5000 for
Lenovo
Storwize V7000 for
Lenovo
 Checkmark   Checkmark  
Restriction: IBM Storage Insights doesn't support monitoring non-IBM software-defined storage devices. However, it can monitor IBM software-defined storage devices, such as IBM SAN Volume Controller. For a list of storage devices that can be monitored, check out https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6249369.

Procedure

  1. Choose one of the following options:
    1. Click Resources > Block Storage Systems / File Storage Systems / ObjectStorage Systems / Unified Storage Systems > Add Storage Systems
    2. Click Dashboards > NOC > Add Storage Systems.
  2. Add the required information to connect to the storage system and click Connect.

Results

  • After you specify the information for adding storage systems, a task is added to the list of running tasks on the page banner. If a task fails for adding a storage system, it's added to the list of failed tasks on the page banner. You can retry the tasks that failed or clear them from the list. When you retry a task, the task is added to the list of running tasks.

  • After a storage system is successfully connected to IBM Storage Insights, a probe is automatically run to collect status and asset information. Additionally, the storage system is added to the default alert policy for the storage system type. For example, if you add a DS8000 storage system, it's automatically added to the alert policy called Default DS8000 policy. At any time, you can change which alert policy manages a storage system, or set a storage system to not be managed by any policy.