Extracting and viewing performance data with the IBM Storage Tier Advisor Tool

You can use the IBM® Storage Tier Advisor Tool, which is also referred to as advisor tool, to view performance data that is collected by IBM Easy Tier® over a 24-hour operational cycle. The advisor tool creates Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) files that you use to view the data when you point your browser to the file.

About this task

To obtain the Storage Tier Advisor Tool, search for Storage Tier Advisor at the www.ibm.com/support website and download the software from IBM Fix Central.

To extract the summary performance data, follow these steps by using the command-line interface (CLI).

Procedure

  1. Enter the following command to find the current dpa_heat.node_name.date.time.data files in the clustered system. 
    lsdumps -prefix /dumps/easytier
  2. If necessary, enter the following command to copy the summary performance data files to the current configuration node. 
    cpdumps -prefix /dumps/easytier/dpa_heat.node_name.date.time.data node_id | node_name
  3. Use PuTTY scp (pscp) to copy the summary performance data in a binary format from the configuration node to a local directory.
  4. From a Microsoft Windows command prompt, use the advisor tool to analyze the binary files. The results are stored in HTML files that are put into a local directory.
  5. Point your browser to the HTML files in your local directory.

Results

The advisor tool displays the following statistical reports.

System summary report
  • The number of storage pools that are monitored
  • The number of volumes that are monitored
  • The total capacity that is monitored
  • The estimated total hot data capacity
  • List of storage pools that are monitored, including pool ID, capacity, tier configuration, tier status, and data management status.
System recommendation report
  • A sorted list of suggested flash MDisks to add to the storage pools (sorted by estimated performance improvement)
  • A sorted list of suggested Enterprise MDisks to add to the storage pools (sorted by estimated IOPS improvement)
  • A sorted list of suggested Nearline MDisks to add to the storage pools (sorted by estimated Bandwidth improvement)
  • For each suggested MDisk: The estimated improvement
Storage pool recommendation report
  • For each storage pool: list MDisk's current IOPS utilization and projected IOPS utilization
  • For each storage pool: show the workload distribution on each tier
  • For each storage pool: a list of suggested flash MDisks to add to the storage pools
  • For each storage pool: a list of suggested Enterprise MDisks to add to the storage pools
  • For each storage pool: a list of suggested Nearline MDisks to add to the storage pools
  • For each suggested MDisk: The estimated improvement
Volume heat distribution report
  • The distribution of hot data and cold data for each volume copy
  • The configured capacity of a volume copy, along with the volume ID, copy ID
  • The percentage of each volume copy's IO workload within the storage pool
  • The capacity of each volume copy already on each tier

What to do next

You can view this information to analyze workload statistics and evaluate which logical volumes might be candidates for Easy Tier management. If you did not enable the Easy Tier function, the usage statistics that are gathered by the monitoring process can help you determine whether to use Easy Tier to enable potential performance improvements in your storage environment.