Offline Scanner page

Owned by Michael Pirker
Last updated: 01.11.22 by Dominik Karch

Abstract

The BVQ Offline scanner - for Storage, Compute or Network - is the application of choice to collect information for a BVQ analysis without installing any program. Start this application on any Windows, Linux or MacOS based server or laptop and let it collect configuration and performance information for a dedicated timeframe (hours up to days or weeks). This information is put into a single zip file which can be sent to a central BVQ service point (SVA or partners) where it will be analyzed for you. Transmission of the offline scanner zip file is encrypted by a https connection when sending it via SVA Sharefile.


The zip file packaged by the offline scanner consists of

  • topology information (configuration and runtime parameters)
  • performance statistics
  • event- and audit-logs (if applicable)


Security

Topology and performance files include metadata of objects, like name, size and attributes plus performance statistics.

Data residing on an object will NOT be collected!


There is one version of the tool available for each platform. To see which data is collected and how the data is collected, click on the desired platform:


Some thoughts before you use the offline scanner

  • Running the BVQ Offline scanner is easy and non-critical. No installation is needed and it can be run on any MS Windows, Linux or MacOS based client system with TCP/IP connection to the systems to scan.
  • Scan time is dependent on the objective of the scan:
    • 10 -14 days of scanning is sufficient to prepare for any kind of analysis like risk analysis or IO density analysis for storage planning. This timeframe is also used for a BVQ PoC.
    • 5-7 days of scanning is the minimum to prepare for a risk analysis.
    • 1-2 days of scanning can be used for short term performance issue analysis (e.g. peak latency analysis) given that the bottleneck actually happens in this time. (Please let us know, when exactly the performance issue occurred.)

  • There's a video tutorial available which shows how to use the scanner for SVC/Storwize:
    Video how to run the BVQ Offline scanner

  • Contact your BVQ partner or the BVQ team to prepare an analysis of the data:
    https://www.bvq-software.de/en/contact/ or send a mail to BVQ@sva.de



Step 1: Download & Unpack the Offline scanner

Download the Offline scanner on a Microsoft Windows or Linux system that has access to the system(s) which need to be scanned:

Note: The download opens a zip file browser! Please use the blue download button on the right top of the page to download the zip file:

 Click here to see a picture ..

Unzip the Offline scanner to an existing or new folder.

Step 2: Prepare the Systems to be scanned

On IBM SVC/Storwize systems:


 Click here to expand...

User authentication and user role

Provide login credentials for an user in the Administrator user group. Administrative rights are required because the offline scanner uses the cpdumps-command to copy data from all nodes in the cluster to the config node.

Performance statistics interval

Please adjust the interval in which statistical performance data is collected:

  • 5min intervals are best for risk or storage planning analysis
  • 1min intervals are best for short term performance issue analysis

This can be done using CLI command startstats -interval <time_in_minutes>

Note: If the systems are monitored by other products like IBM Spectrum Control oder IBM Storage Insights, then an interval < 5min cannot be set and the stats interval need to be changed in IBM Spectrum Control/IBM Storage Insights. Otherwise changes done on the CLI will be reset to whatever was configured on those tools.

Time synchronization

BVQ server as well SVC/Storwize systems need to be synchronized with NTP.

  • BVQ scanner system: time synchronization with NTP server option

  • SVC/Storiwze system: Run the following commands:
    settimezone -timezone <timezone_id>    ### run the command lstimezone to see a full list of available timezones
    chsystem -ntpip <ntp_server_ip_address>

Local filespace write access and free space

The data is collected in subdirectories and stored in the same filespace as the scanner binaries. Later in the process, this data will be packed into a zip file, typically stored into the directory 'My Documents'.
You need write access to this filespace and enough free space for the raw data and the .zip file.

The required capacity is mostly depending on the number of scanned volumes.

Some estimated values:

Number of volumes

Daily output

scanner directory

10 days output

scanner directory

Zipped 10 days output
for my documents
20070 MB700 MB180 MB
500170 MB1650 MB400 MB
1000330 MB3300 MB800 MB

5000

1700 MB16500 MB4000 MB
100003300 MB33000 MB8000 MB


Step 3: Data Collection

You need to go through a sequence of dialogs to get the offline scanner started:

  1. Configure access to the system
  2. Run Pre-requisite checks
  3. Scan the system
  4. Zip and store the collected data

The scanner will run until you force it to stop. Until then, the scanner will continuously gather performance statistics and configuration information.

After the scan has finished you need to upload the resulting data zip file to the BVQ service point to be analyzed there.

Step 3.1: Start the scanner

Start the scanner by double clicking on the appropriate executable: bvq-<product>-scanner-offline.exe.

Step 3.2: Define a profile

Offline scanner profiles allow to run more than one scanner in parallel. This is helpful in case multiple systems need to be scanned at the same time, e.g. two SVC systems in an remote copy partnership.

If you want to scan multiple systems at the same time:

  • Start one scanner per system. You get a separate control window for each instance.

  • Configure one profile (IP connection information and user credentials) for each system as described below. Each profile configuration is kept and can be reused.

  • Each profile uses its own working directory in the path underneath the installation directory ./instances/<profilename>

  • After finishing one instance the scanner offers to store the result ZIP archive file in the working directory with ann individual filename.

Step 3.3 Configure system access


Fill in the information that is required to access the system which needs to be scanned:


V7000 Unified

If you scan a V7000 unified then please enter the IP address of the storage system, not the unified heads! The offline scanner can not distinguish between these systems and will not collect any data if the wrong IP address is entered.

Note: Don't forget to adjust the "Max age of data in days"!

Step 3.4: Start the automated prerequisite check

Once the access is configured, the offline scanner will run some pre-requisite checks to make sure the system to be scanned is accessible and there is sufficient free space in the filesystem to store the collected data.

The tool cannot continue until all checks are successful!



Step 3.5: Scanning

In the next step, the offline scanner starts to collect data and copies the topology, eventlog and performance statistics in the according instance-directories.

Example: SVC Offline scanner


Note: If the tool is running for a longer timeframe, please check from time to time that the scanner is still running fine and still able to access the scanned system. The easiest way to do this, is to open the directory ./instances/<profilename> and check whether new data is coming in.

If scan time is over or you decided to stop the scanner earlier, click Finish to end the scan process.

Step 3.6: Stop scanning and store the results

Finally the tool packs all gathered information in a ZIP archive file. The tool defaults to store this to the instance working directory.

Example: SVC offline scanner


Step 4: Contact us to upload the data for analysis or reporting

Contact us to prepare the upload for you
https://www.bvq-software.de/en/contact/ or send a mail to BVQ@sva.de

Please use the following request and enter 'offline scan' into the message field.

Your BVQ team can now start the analysis of the data and provide feedback on the results!