Storage_layer

1 IBM SVC
2 IBM Storage Virtualize
3 Dell Unity
4 Dell PowerStore
5 NetApp ONTAP
6 PureStorage FlashArray

IBM SVC

IBM SVC

Create a BVQ user on the SVC system

For communication between a SVC system and BVQ, a user account with at least user group 'Monitor' is required on each SVC system.

svctask mkuser -name bvq -usergrp Monitor -password <my_secure_password>

Check NTP, time and time zone

Check if an NTP server is configured: it is mandatory to use NTP to synchronize the time of all systems (SVC Systems and BVQ Server):

svcinfo lssystem | grep 'ntp_IP_address'

Set your NTP Server: Synchronize your SVC cluster with a specific NTP server:

svctask chcluster -ntpip <IP address of NTP Server>

Adjust SVC cluster time zone: Set the time zone of your SVC cluster with:

svctask settimezone -timezone 360

Show SVC clock settings: Check the current time setting on your SVC:

svqueryclock

Check performance statistics interval

The SVC performance statistics are generated regularly (in intervals) by the SVC and picked up by the BVQ SVC Scanner. BVQ supports all intervals possible in the SVC (1min to 5min).
We recommend to set the time interval to 1 minute.

Check statistics status and frequency: Use this command to see if and how often your system collects statistics:

svcinfo lssystem | while read key value; do [[ "$key" =~ ^(statistics_status|statistics_frequency)$ ]]&& echo "$key $value"; done

Change statistics collection frequency: Define how often system statistics are collected:

startstats -interval <interval_in_minutes>

IBM Storage Virtualize

Scanner type "IBM Storage Virtualize" is a so called group-scanner which allows to scan multiple IBM Storage Virtualize systems within a single scanner configuration.

Pre-requisites for systems to be scanned

v8.7.0.x or higher
no MM / GM / GMCV configured
systems are configured in partnerships (PBHA/PBR setup)
the same systems are not configured using the legacy SVC scanner

How to add a new IBM Storage Virtualize scanner configuration

Configuration name: Name of the scanner configuration (cannot be changed later on)
Open Connection-Tab and enter a System group name: This is a name for the group of systems you have in that config. Typically identical to configuration name.
Select Add System and enter Hostname or IP address and login credentials of the first system.
If applicable, repeat this step for up to 7 additional systems.
optional: Physical controller name pattern

This option is interesting for IBM SAN Volume Controllers with multiple backend storage systems configured.
It helps grouping multiple controller objects from lscontroller-output into physical controller objects based on a defined regex pattern.

Per default the pattern is set to "match all" (.*). In this case, one physical controller object is created for each entry in lscontroller.

Example
Assume that lscontroller delivers the following output:

id controller_name ctrl_s/n             vendor_id product_id_low product_id_high site_id site_name
2  FS5300_N2       2076                 IBM       2145
3  FS5300_N1       2076                 IBM       2145

Here, the suffix is introduced by an underscore _, while the common base name is FS5300. In this case, configure the following regex pattern to ‘trim off’ the suffixes. The remaining string becomes the name of the physical controller object:

^[^\_]+

Hint
If you prefer to use a separator other than _, simply replace the underscore in the regex with the desired character.
Make sure you keep the \ as an escape character in front of the desired character:
e.g.: ^[^\-]+ or: ^[^\.]+ trims off all characters following - or ..
If unsure how to configure a proper regex expression, use one of the freely available regex generators or ask AI for help.

Dell Unity

Dell Unity
A user is required for the operation of the BVQ Scanner with at least Operator role permissions.

Please create this user on your Unity system prior to configuring the the BVQ Scanner.

Dell PowerStore

Dell PowerStore
Configure a user with minimum role “Operator”

NetApp ONTAP

NetApp

A user with at least 'read-only' role permissions on the ONTAP Cluster is required to operate the BVQ Scanner.

Please create this user prior to configuring the BVQ Scanner.

We recommend using the name 'bvq' for this user.

sec login create -user-or-group-name bvq -application http -authentication-method password -role readonly

BVQ Version < 2024.H2.1 or ONTAP version < 9.11
sec login create -user-or-group-name bvq -application ontapi -authentication-method password -role readonly

PureStorage FlashArray

PureStorage FlashArray

Configure a user with minimum role "read_only" and API token on each array.