This article indicates How to monitor VMAX Thin Pool though Solutions Enabler, EMC Control Center and Symmetrix Management Console.

VMAX Virtual Provisioning also known as thin provisioning, it provides the ability to present a host and therefore an application, with more storage capacity than is physically allocated to it in the storage array. Virtual Provisioning can optimize the storage capacity and ease and speed of storage provisioning etc. This article will not include the basic steps for creating Virtual Provisioning, but will introduce several methods to monitor the VMAX Virtual Provisioning Thin Pool utilization.

To list the Thin Pools in VMAX array, use following Solutions Enabler command:

# symcfg -sid xxx list -pool -thin

In below output, it shows Pools in current VMAX array, they are “jsh, Oracle, pds_pool, RP_TP”:

Symmetrix ID: 000294901xxx

                       S Y M M E T R I X   P O O L S

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pool         Flags  Dev              Usable       Free       Used Full Comp

Name         PTECSL Config           Tracks     Tracks     Tracks  (%)  (%)

------------ ------ ------------ ---------- ---------- ---------- ---- ----

jsh          TSFDEI 2-Way Mir         14364        612      13752   95    0

Oracle       TFFDEI RAID-5(3+1)     1966140    1420476     545664   27    0

pds_pool     TFFDEI 2-Way Mir         14364      14364          0    0    0

RP_TP        TEFDEI RAID-5(3+1)      288000     258432      29568   10    0

To see the usable tracks, alloc tracks, thin device state, data devices and utilization of Thin Pool, use following command:

# symcfg -sid xxx  show -pool    -thin –detail

In below output, it shows Thin Pool named “BCDR_pool” which bind 53 thin devices. “Pool Utilization (%): 100” means the BCDR_Pool is fully allocated. But Thin Device allocation rate is 89% which means no more data can be written from host side to the Thin Devices.

Symmetrix ID: 000294901xxx

Symmetrix ID                     : 000294901xxx

Pool Name                        : BCDR_Pool

Pool Type                        : Thin

Disk Location                    : Internal

Technology                       : FC

Dev Emulation                    : FBA

Dev Configuration                : RAID-5(7+1)

Pool State                       : Enabled

Compression State                : Disabled

# of Devices in Pool             : 112

# of Enabled Devices in Pool     : 112

# of Usable Tracks in Pool       : 419735520

# of Allocated Tracks in Pool    : 419735520

# of Tracks saved by compression :   0

# of Shared Tracks in Pool       :   0

Pool Utilization (%)             : 100

Pool Compression Ratio (%)       :   0

1. Subscription      Percent        : 100

Rebalance Variance               :   1%

Max devs per rebalance scan      : 256

Pool Reserved Capacity           : None

Enabled Devices(112):

  {

   ---------------------------------------------------------

   Sym        Usable      Alloc          Free     Full FLG Device

   Dev        Tracks     Tracks         Tracks   (%)  S     State

   ---------------------------------------------------------

   0055      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   0056      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   0057      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   0058      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   0059      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   006D      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   006E      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   006F      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   0070      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   0071      3847728    3847728          0  100  .  Enabled 

   …….

             ---------- ---------- ---------- ----

   Tracks  419735520  419735520          0  100

  }

Pool Bound Thin Devices(53):

  {

   ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                                Pool              Pool             Total          Compressed

   Sym   FLG       Total Sub      Allocated      Written       Size/Ratio

   Dev    T       Tracks   (%)     Tracks (%)     Tracks (%)     Tracks   (%)

   ----------------------------------------------------------------------

   0119   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0121   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0129   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0131   B      7919520   2    7919616 100     220068   3    7919616   0

   0139   B      7919520   2    7919616 100      68257    1    7919616   0

   0141   B      7919520   2    7919616 100       8243     0    7919616   0

   0149   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0151   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0159   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0161   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0169   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0171   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0179   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0181   B      7919520   2    7919616 100    7913520 100    7919616   0

   0189   B      7919520   2    7918440 100    7912959 100    7918440   0

   ………

                 ---------- --- ---------- --- ---------- --- ---------- ---

   Tracks      419734560 100  419735520 100  372227387  89  419735520   0

  }

In order to avoid thin pool utilization is critical and avoid to encountering pool full condition, following methods can be leverage to monitor  Thin Pool through Solutions Enabler, EMC Control Center and Symmetrix Management Console software.

1.     1. Solutions Enabler stordeamon events:

Symevent list command is unable to list all the Thin Pool Alerts, User should use stordaemoncmd option to list alters: (The syslog or SNMP function also can be used to capture thin pool related alerts)

# stordaemon action storevntd -cmd list –events

The Thin Pool events that can be monitored by the event daemon are as follows:

        1111 — Save or data device pool is full.

        1206 — Pool state has changed to [Not Present | Unknown | Online | Write Disabled | Offline| Failed].

        1207 — Pool configuration has changed.

        1208 — Pool utilization is now %u percent. 

        1216 — Pool device state has changed.

For more details about proactively monitoring Thin Pool through Solutions Enabler, please refer the Monitoring EMC Symmetrix Using the Solutions Enabler Event Daemon on EMC online support.

2.     2. EMC Control Center (ECC)

After ECC ver 6.1.UB7, It supports Thin Pool alters as following format:

       Pool utilization is now percent.

         VALUE:

         Warning  severity at 60%

         Minor      severity at 65%

         Major      severity at 70%

         Critical    severity at 80%

         Fatal       severity at 100%

3.     3.Symmetrix Management Console (SMC):

After SMC ver 7.2 and Enginuity 5773, the thin pool utilization thresholds is enabled by default.

To configure a pool utilization threshold:

1. Change to the Tasks view.

2. In the Monitoring panel, under Alert Configuration, click Configure Pool Utilization   Thresholds to open the Config Pool Utilization

    Threshold dialog box.

3. Select a Symmetrix ID from the drop-down list.

4. Enable threshold alerts by clicking Enable All, or selecting the enabled state checkbox for individual pools.

5. Disable threshold alerts by clicking Disable All, or clearing the enabled state checkbox for individual pools.

6. If enabling threshold alerts, specify a threshold value (percentage of utilization) for each of the severity levels: Warning, Critical,

    and Fatal. For example, if you set Warning to 50 for a particular device pool, SMC will issue a warning alert when that device

    pool is at 50% utilization.

7. Click OK.

For complete SMC help guide, please refer the Symmetrix Management Console Online help on EMC online support.

Author: Fenglin Li

            

iEMC APJ

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