5.4.2 Limitations and Known Issues for IBM Spectrum Control

General IBM Spectrum Control issues

APAR IT31680: Showing zero value for some IBM SAN Volume Controller and IBM Storwize storage capacities

IBM Spectrum Control and IBM Storage Insights are showing zero values for some storage capacities values such as Physical Capacity and Allocated Capacity for monitored SAN Volume Controller or Storwize storage systems that run firmware level below 8.2.

This issue happens due to an SAN Volume Controller CLI 8.1.x limitation surfacing which is visible in IBM Spectrum Control and IBM Storage Insights after upgrading to 5.3.5 or higher, where the capacity values for SAN Volume Controller family devices had changed to rely on the SAN Volume Controller physical capacity values.

The issue only affects SAN Volume Controller family devices, and does not impact FlashSystem 900 devices.

The issue is resolved in the newer versions of SAN Volume Controller firmware, starting with:

• 8.1.3.6
• 8.2.1.4

For details see SAN Volume Controller APAR HU01916: The GUI Dashboard and the CLI lssystem command report physical capacity incorrectly
https://public.dhe.ibm.com/storage/san/sanvc/release_notes/813_releasenotes.html#APARs

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APAR IT24763: Adding or modifying the connection information for an IBM FlashSystem V9000 or FlashSystem V840

When you add or modify the connection information for FlashSystem V9000 or FlashSystem V840, you must provide the credentials of a user that can connect to the control nodes of these storage systems.

If you provide the credentials of a user that can connect to the internal FlashSystem 900 or FlashSystem 840 module rather than the control nodes, the probe will fail.

The probe error that is generated is "CMMVC7205E The command failed because it is not supported".

IBM Spectrum Control can manage the control nodes of a FlashSystem V9000 or a FlashSystem V840 cluster, but it can't manage the back-end FlashSystem module.

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APAR IT23975: Port down/offline alerts generated for FlashSystem 900 when the port is simply unused/disconnected.

IBM Spectrum Control is generating "error" alerts for an IBM FlashSystem 900 storage device for ports that are not physically connected to a SAN.  IBM Spectrum Control is receiving port alerts for ports that are known to be disconnected, and no matter the suppression settings selected, the alerts continue to be generated. 

This differs from the way that all other IBM storage operates, including SAN Volume Controller, Storwize, and other IBM storage where unused ports do not trigger alerts and do not report errors about unused ports.  Typically, port alerts should only trigger if a port that was connected then becomes disconnected.  That is how the rest of IBM storage environment operates.  At this time, there is no way to make this behavior consistent with other IBM storage.

The alert for an inactive and configured FlashSystem port is working as designed because the condition is an "offline" status, which aligns with the FlashSystem GUI.  Inactive and unconfigured FlashSystem ports do not represent an error condition to generate alerts in IBM Spectrum Control.  The different port status inactive configured / inactive unconfigured reported by FlashSystem device are due to the installed small form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceivers onto the interface card in the system canister.  When SFP is installed and the port is not connected, the status reported by FlashSystem is inactive and configured port.

The workaround for changing the port status is to remove the unused SFP and reset the interface card in the canister.  More information how to add/remove SFPs to the FlashSystem storage enclosure can be found in the FlashSystem knowledge center at https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/STKMQB_1.6.1/com.ibm.storage.flashsystem900.1.6.1.doc/tms_add_sfps.html.

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APAR IT36044: DS8000 and invalid alerts for removed ports

For DS8000 storage systems that run microcode levels earlier than R8.5 SP5.2 - 88.55.9.2, after a probe you might receive alerts that FC ports were removed. In most cases, the alerts are invalid and the ports were not actually removed. This problem occurs because of a memory leak in the ESSNI network layer.

To fix this problem when it occurs, contact IBM Support to help recycle ESSNI before the next probe. For a permanent fix, update your DS8000 to the latest microcode level.

For information about recommended microcode levels for DS8000, see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ds8000-code-recommendation.

For more details about APAR IT36044, see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/apar/IT36044.

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Incorrect overhead capacity value for block storage systems

IBM Spectrum Control might report an incorrect overhead capacity for some block storage systems such as XIV, EMC Unity, FlashSystem 9100 and FlashSystem A9000.

Enabled ethernet port that is not connected to a switch can cause the GUI to hang  

On some IBM servers running Windows 2012, an enabled ethernet port can cause the IBM Spectrum Control GUI to stop responding if the port is not connected to a switch.  This condition causes a Db2 SQL -911 error and also causes the IBM Spectrum Control GUI to stop responding.

To prevent this, disable the ethernet port or configure the port by using the instructions at  https://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/bladectr/documentation/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.bladecenter.hs22.doc/dw1iu_t_lan_over_usb_install_windows_driver_install.html

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Spectrum Scale cluster with configured sudo-wrapper environment can not be managed with Spectrum Control or Storage Insights

This configuration is not supported since mmdsh commands are needed to collect various configuration information from the Scale Cluster.  

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IBM Spectrum Control cannot detect the mount status of file systems on Storwize V7000 Unified storage systems   

If a file system is manually unmounted from a Storwize® V7000 Unified storage system, IBM Spectrum Control cannot detect that the file system was unmounted. Because of this limitation, information that is displayed in the IBM Spectrum Control GUIs is not accurate and some storage-related actions on the file system might fail.

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IBM SAN Volume Controller and IBM Storwize devices might not accurately report used space of data reduction pools and deduplicated volumes

When an SAN Volume Controller or Storwize device is configured with data reduction pools, it (on certain firmware levels, including 8.1.3.3) no longer reports the used space for a specific volume, and the tier distribution is no longer reported.  This is a limitation from the firmware with data reduction pools/deduplicated volumes.

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Calculation discrepancies for capacity savings in SAN Volume Controller

IBM Spectrum Control shows different volume capacity and capacity savings than the element manager for SAN Volume Controller due to a limitation in the calculation method in the element manager. The correct capacity values are shown in the IBM Spectrum Control Overview panel.

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RHEL known issues with fprintd-pam module (fingerprint authentication module)

• https://access.redhat.com/solutions/44386
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1010844

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Application Groups and Aggregated Metrics 

For application groups, the performance data is aggregated from the volumes added to the group, either directly or using a filter.  The values displayed for the aggregated Read Response Time, Write Response Time, and Overall Response Time are incorrect.  All other metrics currently supported for application aggregation are rendered correctly.

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IBM Spectrum Control might report incorrect vmdk size and incorrect capacity of VM

IBM Spectrum Control persists the relation between a vmdk and vmdisk, restricting the relation to vmdisk <-> current vmdk file. The current vmdk file has an aggregate size which includes the sizes of snapshots up to the current vmdk file. IBM Spectrum Control associates the latest running delta file with vmdisk, hence IBM Spectrum Control might report the size smaller than actual size of the vmdisk if there are newer snapshots (which are not included in the current vmdk size).

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Export Performance Data Tool  

The output format from the exportPerformanceData Script was changed, starting in IBM Spectrum Control 5.4.2.  To minimize the impact of this and all future output format changes,  users of the CSV files are encouraged to parse the column headers they are interested in.

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iSCSI ports

IBM Spectrum Control doesn’t monitor the performance of iSCSI ports.

Non-IBM Storage Support Issues

Non-IBM storage devices will only show node relationships in the Volumes table if the relationship is 1:1.  Therefore if a volume resides on more than 1 node, the node column will be empty for that volume.

EMC Support Issues

In 5.3.0 and later, you can view more information about the capacity, space usage, and performance of EMC™ storage systems. However, keep in mind the following issues for EMC support:

On the details page for an EMC storage system, duplicate NAS nodes might be displayed if the EMC's NAS Servers support both NFS and CIFS protocols. This issue occurs because each protocol represents a node. For example, on the same NAS server, if NAS1451 supports NFS and NAS1451 supports CIFS protocols, two node entries are displayed on the details page for the storage system.

Information about both FC and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) ports are returned when FC ports are probed.

VNXe:
Thin-provisioned volumes: The value for allocated space is incorrect.
Total or available capacity values of each storage tier in a storage pool are incorrect.

VNX:
Thin pools: The value for physical allocated space is incorrect.
File system pools are not displayed.
Total or available capacity values of each storage tier in a storage pool are incorrect.
The VNX regular thin pool's "pool capacity" value, returned by EMC SMI-S provider, is slightly lower than reported by the element manager.  This applies only to VNX thin pool, referred to as "Pools" in Unisphere.
Disk and volume response times and utilization percentages: The displayed values for these metrics are higher than their actual value.
 
VMAX3:
Available pool space or any allocated capacity values are always 0.
All aggregated volume capacity values are 0 because of the missing relationship between pools and volumes.
Mappings of volume to pool and volume to disk are not displayed.

Reporting: In Cognos Analytics, pre-defined reports might not be available for EMC storage systems.

Unity:
In 5.3.5 and later, you can monitor Unity devices. Due to the mismatch of old FS UID format from 5.3.5 probe and new FS UID format from 5.3.6 and later PM data collection, no file system metrics will be displayed until a manual or next schedule probe  / data collection is run on Unity.
 

NetApp Support Issues

For NetApp systems Copy Data can not correlate data, so no links are shown.
 

HDS Support Issues

Viewing managed disks 

Hitachi VSP systems are supported as virtualizers and show the backend storage system and external disks.  It is not possible to show managed disks mapped directly to a host.

Problems monitoring performance on Hitachi VSP storage systems  

Pure Support Issues

If IBM Spectrum Control is monitoring a Pure system that is in asynchronous relationship with another storage system, details of the target system are not available.  IBM Spectrum Control will list the target system however the remote volumes can not be correlated hence a link will not be displayed in the user interface. 

If IBM Spectrum Control is monitoring only the target system of asynchronous relationships, no details of the source system are available.
 

Cognos Analytics

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GPFS/GSS/Spectrum Scale is not supported in Cognos Analytics

GPFS/GSS/Spectrum Scale™ file systems are not correctly represented in Cognos reports and are not supported in Cognos.

Information is not collected about NFS and CIFS exports that are defined on a GPFS/GSS/Spectrum Scale clusters.

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Spectrum Scale is not supported in Cognos Analytics

GPFS/GSS/Spectrum Scale™ file systems are not correctly represented in Cognos reports and are not supported in Cognos.

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Links to Help in IBM Spectrum Control 5.4.2 predefined reports open the public IBM Spectrum Control Knowledge Center

When using the Cognos Analytics User Interface to generate IBM Spectrum Control predefined reports, the Help link will open the IBM Spectrum Control Knowledge Center on ibm.com.  The system running Cognos Analytics will need access to the internet to open to the knowledge center.  

 

Documentation Updates and Corrections

Performance monitoring is not supported for object storage systems

The following documentation for IBM Spectrum Control incorrectly states that performance monitoring is available for object storage systems: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/spectrum-control/5.4.2?topic=resources-collecting-data.