Brief description

We added support for some new platforms in BVQ 6.2:

• BVQ for IBM PowerVM
• BVQ for NetApp ONTAP
• BVQ for Dell EMC Unity
• BVQ for Brocade SAN (enhanced to gather information directly from the Switch API)
• BVQ Unified Storage Platform

For storage platforms we now differentiate the support level between In-depth and Basic.

• For In-depth supported platforms, the BVQ objective is to explore most of the platform features and internal structures, like storage copy functions, site awareness, caches, internal layers, ... .
• For Basic supported platforms, the BVQ objective is to show such systems in connection to other layers like SAN or Compute, or to support basic capacity and performance monitoring tasks.

To ease access to general information from multiple platforms, we consolidated basic objects and attributes to the BVQ Unified data model, which is also new in this version.

The following Table provides an overview across all platforms supported with this version:

Infrastructure layer	Platform	Support level	Unified model
Compute	VMware vSphere	In-depth
	IBM PowerVM	In-depth
Network	Brocade SAN (scanned via BNA)	In-depth
	Brocade SAN (scanned via Switch API)	In-depth
	Cisco SAN (scanned via DCNM)	In-depth
Storage	IBM Spectrum virtualize (SVC) IBM Storwize IBM Flash Systems	In-depth
	NetApp ONTAP	In-depth
	Dell EMC Unity	Basic
	BVQ Unified Storage Platform	Basic

^{New platforms of this version are highlighted}

In general, the full BVQ functionality is enabled for each of the new Platforms. With that you are able to interactively explore your configuration and check it for issues, chart performance and error statistics, create reports about asset, configuration, capacity and performance utilization and drill through all the layers end to end from your Compute VMs through connected SAN infrastructure down to attached Storage systems.

Licensing

Please review BVQ License Information Page or ask your sales contact for more information.

BVQ for NetApp Ontap use cases

BVQ for NetApp ONTAP finds answers to your typical use cases around that platform:

• Get insight into favourite ONTAP features like Fabric Pools, SnapMirror, SnapVault, Flash Pools, Flash Cache, FC/iSCSI Block storage, FC/IP Metro cluster
• Do I have enough spare drives or partitions available to cover failed drives?
• What dependencies are between my VMware or IBM PowerVM LPARs and my NetApp FC/iSCSI Block storage LUNs or NFS shares (Workload? Capacity?)
• Are there bottlenecks in the internal data flow inside my NetApp cluster (FC or Ethernet ports? Node cache or CPU? Data reduction layers?)
• When and where are bottlenecks for my CIFS and NFS shares?
• When do I need to extent my capacity?
• Is my configuration according to best practices?

Information gathering

BVQ scans topology and performance informations from the REST API of each NetApp ONTAP storage system.

What information is collected?

• Topology configuration information
  • Scanned every 1 hour (default)
  • 47 object types containing a total of ~575 attributes:
    Clusters, Nodes, RAID groups, Aggregates, SVMs, LAN/SAN interfaces, Volumes, Shares, ...
    
    
• Performance statistics
  • Scanned every 5 minutes (default)
  • 8 object types containing a total of ~329 performance statistics

Additional information:

• See Supported NetApp ONTAP systems (SW)  for more information about which versions are supported.
• See Scanner for more Information about BVQ Scanner configuration.
• See NetApp ONTAP preparation for additional Cluster preparation tasks.
• See /wiki/spaces/~557058f85a2b71be2d496e8e4575a825a92089/pages/13831013 for more details about scanned information.

End to end inter platform relations

The BVQ NetApp ONTAP platform model is interconnected to the following other platform models supported by BVQ. With that all NetApp ONTAP objects can be combined in an end to end relationship to objects of these platforms.

Object types

The following overview shows the elementary relationships of physical and logical objects:

          Legend: Gray colored objects are visible, light gray invisible, red bordered ones contain performance statistics

Predefined system health checks

The health of your NetApp ONTAP systems is shown in the BVQ Systems Health Map inside the Web UI of the BVQ Server.

We started with a set of ~20 general rules permanently checking your systems. Of course you can add your own customized health check rules there, tailored to your environment.

See /wiki/spaces/~557058f85a2b71be2d496e8e4575a825a92089/pages/13831031 for more details.

Predefined web dashboards

BVQ Web Dashboards are based on our BVQ Datasource Plugin for Grafana. We streamlined the experience from many of our SVA NetApp ONTAP Experts to predefine three essential dashboards to provide an overview across configuration, capacity and performance:

See BVQ for NetApp ONTAP monitoring dashboards for more details.

Predefined reports

Our expert NetApp ONTAP team designed some reports to provide a general overview about that platform.

See BVQ for NetApp ONTAP reports for more details.

BVQ Expert GUI representation

All objects, attributes and statistics of this platform can be interactively browsed within the BVQ Expert GUI. We assembled 3 predefined and commented BVQ Multi view favorites to give you a first overview about your configuration, performance and capacity. We will add more as soon, as we identify additional general use cases.

Where to find NetApp ONTAP objects?

Similar to all other objects, they show up in the Path browser inside the property panel of the BVQ Expert GUI or can be opened as a Table view from the BVQ Favorite browser.

Object attributes

BVQ displays all interesting attributes provided. Please explore the BVQ NetApp Table view favorites to get an impression of the most important attributes.

Performance and error statistics

The BVQ NetApp ONTAP module gathers major important statistics delivered from ONTAP via ZAPI.

Typical questions around performance, load and utilization are answered by BVQ:

• Which Volumes or Aggregates are overloaded and show high latencies?
• Is there a congestion at an attached SAN port?
• Which Volume or SVM puts a heavy load on my cluster?
• Does an latency peak have influence on the performance of an Aggregate?
• Is the FC host performance affected by slow drainers in the SAN?
• What Volume causes peak overloads in my Aggregate?

To view performance statistics for one or multiple objects, simply select the objects and open the performance view. There you can choose the metrics you are interested in from the properties panel:

BVQ for IBM PowerVM use cases

BVQ for IBM PowerVM finds answers to your typical use cases around that platform:

• Overview and dependencies: BVQ knows about the current dependencies between HW components like CPUs, adapters, memory, VIOSs, FC switches, storage systems and LPARs and makes all these visible to the user.
• Redundancies: Are my LPARs connected redundantly to the outer environment? Is it save to shutdown a particular VIOS or will my LPARs survive an outage of a VIOS or storage path?
• Health state: Is my configuration according to best practices?  Are Profile Auto-Sync, SRR, LPAR Auto-Start, RMC services set corectly?
• SAN zoning: Are my vFC Adapter ports zoned for active and passive ports, to ensure successful Live Partition Mobility?
• Utilization: Are my systems overloaded - especially for CPU, memory, capacity, network ports?

Information gathering

BVQ scans topology and performance informations about the IBM PowerVM hypervisors from the REST API of the IBM Power Systems Hardware Management Console (HMC).

What information is collected?

• Topology configuration information
  • Scanned every 1 hour (default)
  • 49 object types containing a total of ~650 attributes:
    HMCs, Systems, VIOSs, LPARs, LAN interfaces, VLANs, Storage volumes, CPU cores, ...
    
    
• Performance statistics
  • Scanned every 5 minutes (default) (30 seconds interval averages)
  • 13 object types containing a total of ~180 performance statistics

Additional information:

• See Supported IBM PowerVM systems (SW)  for more information about which HW/SW versions are supported.
• See Scanner for more Information about BVQ Scanner configuration.
• See IBM PowerVM preparation for additional HMC preparation tasks.
• See /wiki/spaces/~557058f85a2b71be2d496e8e4575a825a92089/pages/13831293 about scanned information.

End to end inter platform relations

The BVQ PowerVM platform model is interconnected to the following other platform model supported by BVQ:

Object types

The following graphs show the elementary relationships between PowerVM objects.

Hardware objects

Storage objects

Shared storage pool objects

Network objects

Predefined system health checks

The health of your PowerVM systems is shown in the BVQ Systems Health Map inside the Web UI of the BVQ Server.

We started with a set of ~20 general rules permanently checking your systems. Of course you can add your own customized health check rules there, tailored to your environment.

See /wiki/spaces/~557058f85a2b71be2d496e8e4575a825a92089/pages/13831031 for more details.

Predefined web dashboards

BVQ Web Dashboards are based on our BVQ Datasource Plugin for Grafana. We streamlined the experience from many of our SVA PowerVM Experts to predefine three essential dashboards to provide an overview across performance, capacity, CPU core & memory utilization and environmental status:

See BVQ for IBM PowerVM monitoring dashboards for more details.

Predefined reports

Our expert PowerVM team designed some reports to provide a general overview about that platform.

See BVQ for IBM PowerVM reports for more details.

BVQ Expert GUI representation

All objects, attributes and statistics of this platform can be interactively browsed within the BVQ Expert GUI. We assembled 6 predefined and commented BVQ Multi view favourites to give you a first overview about your overall, network and storage configuration, your performance load or to guide you through analytic tasks to identify issues around redundant VIOSs or configuration. We will add more as soon, as we identify additional general use cases.

Where to find IBM PowerVM objects?

Similar to all other objects, they show up in the Path browser inside the property panel of the BVQ Expert GUI or can be opened as a Table view from the Favourite browser. All PowerVM objects can be combined in an end to end relation to objects of other platforms.

Object attributes

BVQ displays all interesting attributes provided by the HMC. Please explore the BVQ PowewVM table view favourites to get an impression of the most important attributes.

Performance and error statistics

The BVQ PowerVM module gathers all System and LPAR statistics delivered from the HMC.

Typical questions around performance, load and utilization are answered by BVQ:

• Is the LPAR performance negatively affected by the SAN congestion or storage latencies?
• Which LPAR puts a heavy load on a storage volume?
• Does an latency peak have influence on the performance of an LPAR?
• Does LPAR load generate latency peaks in storage
• Is the LPAR or host performance affected by slow drainers in the SAN?
• Which LPAR is used for a SAN port?

To view performance statistics for one or multiple objects, simply select the object(s), right-click and select the performance object type you are interested in.

In the performance chart view, open the properties panel to select the metrics you are interested in:

BVQ for Dell EMC Unity use cases

BVQ for Dell EMC Unity finds answers to your typical use cases around that platform:

• What dependencies exist between my VMware or IBM PowerVM LPARs and my Unity FC/iSCSI Block storage LUNs (Workload? Capacity?)
• Are there bottlenecks in the internal data flow inside my Unity system (FC or Ethernet ports? Node cache or CPU? Data reduction layers?)
• When do I need to extent my capacity?
• How much capacity of my volumes are distributed on which tier of my pools?

Information gathering

BVQ scans topology and performance informations from the REST API of each Dell EMC Unity storage system.

What information is collected?

• Topology configuration information
  • Scanned every 1 hour (default)
  • 10 object types containing a total of ~325 attributes:
    Systems, Nodes, Pools, Tiers, SAN ports, Volumes, Hosts, ...
    
    
• Performance statistics
  • Scanned every 10 minutes (default) (10 minute interval averages)
    (that will be improved soon)
  • 3 object types containing a total of ~30 performance statistics

Additional information:

• See Supported Dell EMC Unity systems (SW)  for more information about which HW/SW versions are supported.
• See Scanner for more Information about BVQ Scanner configuration.
• See Dell EMC Unity preparation for system preparation tasks.
• See /wiki/spaces/~557058f85a2b71be2d496e8e4575a825a92089/pages/13831013 about scanned information.

End to end inter platform relations

The BVQ Dell EMC Unity platform model is interconnected to the following other platform models supported by BVQ. With that all Dell EMC Unity objects can be combined in an end to end relationship to objects of these platforms.

Object types

The following overview shows the elementary relationships of physical and logical objects:

BVQ Expert GUI representation

All objects, attributes and statistics of this platform can be interactively browsed within the BVQ Expert GUI.

Where to find Dell EMC Unity objects?

Similar to all other objects, they show up in the Path browser inside the property panel of the BVQ Expert GUI.

Object attributes

BVQ displays all interesting attributes provided. Please explore the BVQ Unity Table view favourites to get an impression of the most important attributes.

Performance and error statistics

The BVQ Dell EMC Unity module gathers major important statistics delivered from the Unisphere API.

Typical questions around performance, load and utilization are answered by BVQ:

• Which LUNs or Pools are overloaded and show high latencies?
• Is there a congestion at an attached SAN port?
• Which LUNs put heavy load on my system?
• Does an latency peak have influence on the performance of a Pool?
• Is the FC host performance affected by slow drainers in the SAN?
• What Volume causes peak overloads in my Pool?

To view performance statistics for one or multiple objects, simply select the objects and open the performance view. There you can choose the metrics you are interested in from the properties panel:

Brocade/Broadcom discontinues the Brocade Network Advisor which is currently used by BVQ to collect topology and performance information via SMI/S. 
End of support for the BNA will be 02/08/2022. The free of charge SMI-S Agent will reach its end of support the same day.

As an improved alternative, switch and fabric related information can now be collected from the switches directly using REST API. 
This feature requires Fabric OS 8.2.1 or higher (see Supported Brocade systems).

Refined Object model

Brocade SAN REST Model has been refined to reflect the Brocade API model:

Information gathering

While BNA was a single point of entry for BVQ and provided us the data for all switches and fabrics managed by the BNA, it is now necessary to create one scanner instance for each fabric.
For switches having virtual fabrics enabled, a scanner instance for each virtual fabric id is required.

It is recommended to use the fabric principal as the main switch in the scanner configuration. Other switches in the same fabric are discovered automatically by the scanner configuration.
Switches in access gateway mode are not part of the fabric, and hence, have to be added to the configuration manually.

Additional information:

• See Supported Brocade & Cisco SAN systems for more information about supported HW/SW.
• See Scanner for more Information about BVQ Scanner configuration.
• See Brocade SAN Switch preparation for additional Switch preparation tasks.
• See /wiki/spaces/~557058f85a2b71be2d496e8e4575a825a92089/pages/13831307 for more details about scanned information.

Additional use cases

The legacy SMI/S interface restricted the available information, that new REST interface now shows.

Once the scanners are collecting data, all topology and performance information known from the previous Brocade module plus a bunch of new attributes and metrics can be explored in BVQ - be it the Expert GUI for a deep dive, Grafana dashboards for a nice graphical overview, or the predefined alert rules which are visualized in the Systems Health map to quickly see the state and health of the SAN configuration.

Especially object type Brocade Switch port offers a whole lot of additional information:

There are many new attributes available showing details like port configuration and it is now possible to monitor the environmental characteristics of the SFPs: New switch port metrics showing temperature, power consumption or electrical details of the transceiver media.