Preventive Service Planning
Abstract
This document provides information about limitations and known issues that you might encounter when you use IBM® Spectrum Control™ 5.4.8.
Content
This document contains the following sections:
- Support links and documentation
- General IBM Spectrum Control issues
- Non-IBM Storage Support issues
- Cognos Analytics
- Documentation and product interface corrections
- Browser Issues
Support links and documentation
To access all of the support documentation, including alerts and APARs, go to the IBM Support Portal.
For more information about the devices that are supported by IBM Spectrum Control, see the support matrix at http://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/388393
IBM Spectrum Control documentation: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/spectrum-control
PDF guides for IBM Spectrum Control: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/spectrum-control/5.4.8?topic=printable-documentation
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Product licenses for IBM Spectrum Control
IBM Spectrum Control 5.4.8 offers product licenses with differing licensing metrics to meet your storage management needs. For more information about these licenses, see https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/spectrum-control/5.4.8?topic=product-licenses.
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IMPORTANT Security Update: Apply the Db2 11.5 fix pack to address Apache Log4j 2.x vulnerabilities
If you run any vulnerable fix pack level of Db2 11.5, you can download the special build containing the interim fix for the Apache Log4j 2.x vulnerabilities from IBM Fix Central. These special builds are available based on the most recent fix pack level for the V11.5.6 and V11.5.7 releases. You can apply them to any affected fix pack level of the appropriate release to remediate this vulnerability.
- For information about how to install the fix pack for Db2 11.5, see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6559200.
- For more information about Db2 and Apache Log4j vulnerabilities, see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6528672.
General IBM Spectrum Control issues
APAR IT39031: Performance data can't be collected for devices with slashes ("/" or "\") in their names
Performance metadata can't be collected about a device that includes a forward slash (/) or backslash (\) in its name. Before you add a device for monitoring, remove any slashes in its name.
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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 fails.
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 and port offline alerts generated for FlashSystem 900 when the port is simply unused or 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 alerts for ports that are disconnected and suppression settings don't work.
This alerting 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 trigger only if a port that was connected then becomes disconnected. Currently, 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 statuses, inactive configured and 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 or remove SFPs to the FlashSystem storage enclosure can be found in the FlashSystem documentation at https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/flashsystem-900/1.6.1?topic=hardware-adding-additional-sfp-transceivers-storage-enclosure.
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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 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 more information about recommended microcode levels for DS8000, see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ds8000-code-recommendation.
For more information 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 issue, disable the ethernet port or configure the port by using the instructions at https://bladecenter.lenovofiles.com/help/index.jsp.
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Spectrum Scale cluster with configured sudo-wrapper environment cannot 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 a SAN Volume Controller or Storwize device is configured with data reduction pools, it no longer reports the used space for a specific volume and the tier distribution. This issue occurs on firmware levels with data reduction pools and deduplicated volume, including 8.1.3.3.
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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)
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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 by 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. Therefore, if there are newer snapshots (which are not included in the current vmdk size), it might report the size smaller than actual size of the vmdisk.
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Export Performance Data Tool
The output format from the exportPerformanceData Script was changed, starting in IBM Spectrum Control 5.4.4. 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 does not monitor the performance of iSCSI ports.
Non-IBM storage support issues
Non-IBM storage devices show node relationships in the Volumes table only if the relationship is 1:1. Therefore, if a volume resides on more than 1 node, the node column is empty for that volume.
EMC Support issues
In IBM Spectrum Control, 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 FC and Serial Attached SCSI ports is 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 issue 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.
NetApp Support issues
For NetApp systems Copy Data cannot 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 lists the target system but cannot correlate the remote volumes or display a link.
If IBM Spectrum Control is monitoring only the target system of asynchronous relationships, no details of the source system are available.
Cognos Analytics
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 cluster.
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IBM 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 5.4.8 predefined reports are incorrect
When you use Cognos Analytics to generate IBM Spectrum Control predefined reports, the Help links fail and do not go to the documentation. To view the documentation, you must update the URL that appears when you click a Help link.
For example, if you click a Help link for a predefined report, the following URL might be shown:
https://www-03preprod.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS5R93_5.4.8/com.ibm.spectrum.sc.doc/rpt_predefined_capacity_reports_steps.html
That link results in an error. To go to the correct documentation, update the domain in the URL from "www-03preprod.ibm.com" to "www.ibm.com". In the previous example, here's the corrected version of the URL:
After the domain name in the link is updated, you are automatically redirected to the corresponding documentation.
Tip: The system running Cognos Analytics requires access to the internet to open to the documentation.
Documentation and product interface corrections
Browser issues
Browser displays a security certificate error
Some browsers might display: "There is a problem with this website's security certificate." when you log in to IBM Spectrum Control. To continue to the GUI, click "Continue to this website". The previous page is displayed. This behavior does not occur on all browsers.
Related Information
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Document Information
Modified date:
18 August 2022
UID
ibm16600283