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VirtualWisdom SAN Availability Probe

VirtualWisdom® SAN Availability Probe - A Fibre Channel SAN SNMP Port Monitor

SAN Performance ProbeVirtualWisdom SAN Availability Probe, a component of the VirtualWisdom solutions, is a non-agent based software probe that utilizes the MIB (management information block) from Fibre Channel switches via SNMP to gather switch performance and link error statistics in a non-intrusive manner. These critical switch statistics are collected by VirtualWisdom’s Server software and presented to the user in an easy to use configurable, graphical user interface called the VirtualWisdom Dashboard.

The SAN Availability Probe monitors all the ports of a particular FibreChannel switch and collects the metrics for each port, such as the number of frames and bytes, as well as the key faults for each port, such as loss of synchronization, link resets, link failures, packet discards, and CRC errors. The SAN Availability Probe calculates the throughput (in MB per second) for each port and the percentage of utilization based on link speed. These metrics are reported to the VirtualWisdom Server by each SAN Availability Probe every five minutes. A single VirtualWisdom Portal Server can support up to 120 switches. 

SAN Availability Probe

Benefits

  • Dramatically reduces the time to identify and resolve SAN-related problems, reducing downtime and improving IT staff productivity.
  • By highlighting over-utilized resources, helps to prevent outages and performance problems.
  • Historical trending analysis enables proactive fault identification, reducing the number of trouble tickets and reducing downtime by up to 75%
  • Enables greater data availability by proactively finding multi-path failures before they affect end users.
  • Enables greater throughput by finding opportunities to tune the use of multi-path links, ISLs, and storage virtualizers.
  • Reduces overall SAN-related capital and operating costs by identifying over-provisioned links ad helping you avoid unnecessary future expenses.

VirtualWisdom® SAN Availability Probe Features

Compared to the most common switch fabric management tools, SAN Availability Probe provides more complete trend analysis for capacity planning, a virtually unlimited record & playback of metrics to pinpoint Intermittent Issues, and supports a wider range of vendor devices. And significantly, SAN Availability Probe provides for a seamless upgrade path to more robust instrumentation, monitoring, measurement, and infrastructure optimization available through VirtualWisdom, Virtual Server Probe and the SAN Performance Probe hardware probe.

  • Provides a dedicated, real-time SAN monitoring solution with flexible thresholds and alerts
  • Gathers Switched Fabric Performance Statistics with a non-agent based software probe
  • Provides overall view of fabric health through centralized switch event monitoring
  • Identifies highly utilized and underutilized ports and links
  • Detects failed multi-pathing links
  • Identifies sub-optimized links (passive vs. active multi-pathing)
  • Generates trend analysis for capacity planning
  • Records & plays back metrics to pinpoint Intermittent Issues
  • Provides historical performance trending over time
  • Detects degraded Inter-Switch Links

     

Technical Specifications and Metrics

The Metrics collected or generated by the SAN Availability Probe include:

  • Switch Port Information: Worldwide names of attached devices, manufacturers of attached devices, link rate, port type, nickname, FCID
  • Switch Metrics: received/transmitted bytes and frames, CRC errors, link resets, link failures, loss of signal, loss of sync, Class3 Discards
  • Switch LED: Error state, signal state
  • Exhaustion of Buffer to Buffer Credit

Standards: ProbeV supports SNMP versions 1, 2c, and 3.

Product Datasheets

  • VirtualWisdom SAN Availability Probe | As a component of the Virtual Instruments’ VirtualWisdom solutions, the SAN Availability Probe is a non-agent based software probe that utilizes the MIB (management information block) from Fibre Channel switches via SNMP to gather switch performance and link error statistics in a non-intrusive manner. These critical switch statistics are collected by VirtualWisdom’s Server software and presented to the user in an easy to use configurable, graphical user interface.

Related Product Datasheets

VirtualWisdom Solution Components

  • VirtualWisdom Overview | VirtualWisdom provides comprehensive instrumentation and I/O measurement capabilities that reduce application response time, increase availability, and improve resource utilization. VirtualWisdom is the only product that can non-intrusively improve the performance of applications and increase the benefits of cloud-driven virtualization in real time by analyzing actual I/O traffic data.

  • VirtualWisdom Virtual Server Probe | Virtual Server Probe collects information specifically about the utilization and performance of virtual machines within the VMware environment via the VMware vCenter server API. It is a virtual software probe that automatically discovers and monitors 120+ CPU, memory, network and disk I/O metrics for VMware ESX virtual machines, physical servers, and clusters. Actual measured data from VirtualWisdom enables IT managers to proactively balance the provisioning of applications on virtual machines for maximum application performance with the confidence that systems will not slow down or fail.

  • VirtualWisdom SAN Performance Probe | The Virtual Instruments VirtualWisdom SAN Performance Probe analyzes every packet on a fibre channel SAN. A SAN Performance Probe can be dedicated to a single SAN link or, using a SANInsight Rover, can rove among many SAN links to provide statistics about storage I/O traffic as it relates to an application server, storage subsystem, remote replication, virtualization or other key SAN device or application.

SANInsight Hardware

  • SANInsight Fibre TAP Patch Panel System | Virtual Instrument’s new SANInsight Fibre TAP Patch Panel System provides a range of options for integrating the unique, patented technology into patch panels. By unifying TAP and patch functions into a single layer of physical infrastructure, SANInsight significantly reduces the cost, complexity, and infrastructure impact of TAP deployment. SANInsight facilitates the broad installation of TAPs into both new and existing physical infrastructures, fully addressing the best practices monitorability requirement and enabling complete SAN optimization.

  • SANInsight Enterprise Rover | The Virtual Instruments’ SANInsight Rover provides advanced capabilities to VirtualWisdom® by maximizing the number of SAN links monitored by a SAN Performance Probe. The Rover extends the reach of VirtualWisdom in large enterprise SANs and lowers the cost of SAN monitoring and analysis.

  • SANInsight Protocol Analyzer | The Virtual Instruments SANInsight Protocol Analyzer is a critical tool for IT personnel to troubleshoot component and systems utilizing the Fibre Channel protocol. It captures traffic and graphically reports performance metrics and data errors in real time whenever there is live Fibre Channel traffic over any monitored link. In addition, users can view MB/s, Kframes/sec, utilization, frame errors, and physical layer errors from each direction of the link.

  • SANInsight Mobile Monitoring Option | As a member of the Virtual Instruments’ VirtualWisdom solutions family, the Mobile Monitoring Option (MMO) is designed to provide all of the features and benefits of VirtualWisdom-based instrumentation, monitoring, and measurement in a purpose-built, mobile cabinet, designed to house SANInsightTM Fibre Channel monitoring equipment. Use of the MMO enables IT staff to easily and quickly deploy an infrastructure optimizing VirtualWisdom solution anywhere in the datacenter.