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Version 10.2.00
APTARE Technical Documentation
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APTARE StorageConsole Technical Documentation
What’s New for this Release
APTARE StorageConsole 10.2.00 includes a number of new enhancements including collection from new systems, storage optimization and risk mitigation solutions, additional reports, new chart types, and many Portal enhancements.
The 10.2.00 release includes all patch release fixes up to and including version 10.1.01P8.
Capacity Manager Enhancement
Time Period Quick Filters - The LUN Overview report now includes pre-set Time Period quick filters allowing you to change the time period for the line charts on demand.
Data Collection: Enhancements
Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.8 Support - If you are upgrading to 10.2.00 from a version prior to 10.1.01 P5, in some situations, primarily on Windows Portals, the automatic Data Collector upgrades may not complete. Refer to the release notes for complete information.
Windows 2016, Red Hat 7, CentOS 7 and SuSE 12 Support - Data Collector servers are now certified as supporting these operating systems.
EMC XtremIO Expanded Collection - EMC XtremIO data collection now collects logical used capacity, makes it available for use in the Dynamic Template Designer, and exposes the data in the reports, Array Capacity & Utilization and Array Utilization Summary.
EMC Avamar Utility Node Collection - EMC Avamar data collection now collects utility node details, including the utility node chassis serial number. Use the database published view, sdk_v_eavm_nodechassisinfo, to create custom report templates using the SQL Template Designer.
HP 3PAR Version 3.3.1 Support
HP 3PAR Volume Capacities by Tier (CPG) Collection - HP 3PAR collection now supports collection of data reduction ratios and tiering information. Collection of capacities by Common Provisioning Group (CPG) provides the details that enable reporting of capacity usage, based on the location of the volumes across multiple tiers. This enhancement is built into the existing data collection policy and requires no additional configuration updates.
HP 3PAR Virtual Volume and CPG Deduplication and Compression Collection - This collection enables administrators to see how well the Common Provisioning Groups (CPGs) and Virtual Volumes (VVs) on HP 3PAR All-Flash arrays are compressing and deduplicating data. Analytics based on historical data enable better capacity predictions and support decisions on how to make Flash arrays more efficient. The following database published views have been modified to support this collection: aps_v_h3p_logical_unit and aps_h3p_array_group.
EMC Data Domain Backup VTL Performance - A VTL Performance probe has been added to the EMC Data Domain Backup data collection policy. No configuration changes are required for existing policies. Virtual Tape Library performance data is collected automatically, but the probe's schedule can be modified. This data is available in the Data Domain VTL Performance report.
Veritas NetBackup 8.1 Support - Veritas NetBackup 8.1 introduced a series of changes to the way a NetBackup host (such as the APTARE Data Collector) communicates with NetBackup Masters. These changes incorporate an enhanced secured channel for communication and more sophisticated host identity verification. These changes require installation steps on the centralized Data Collector system that are not required for collection from NetBackup Master Servers prior to version 8.1. Refer to the APTARE StorageConsole Data Collector Installation for Backup documentation for the list of prerequisites.
New System Parameters for Data Collector Status Retention - New system parameters can be modified to control how much historical Data Collector status data is retained. The parameters and their defaults include: KEEP_COLL_PROBE_STATE_MAX_DAYS: 90 days and KEEP_COLL_PROBE_STATE_ACTIVE_DAYS: 7 days.
Infinidat Infinibox 3.0.12.0 (Infinibox F4000) Support
Huawei OceanStor - StorageConsole now collects capacity data for Huawei OceanStor storage systems.
EMC Symmetrix Unisphere 8.3 Support
Bantam Collection Performance Improvement
Improvements to Linux Host File Analytics Meta Data Collection - Performance and resiliency improvements have been made to Linux Host File Analytics meta data collection. Additional settings such as filtering scan depth and capturing from remote shares can be performed using the advanced parameter FA_HOST_DIRECTIVE.
EMC Data Domain Storage Collection - APTARE no longer treats a Data Domain system as a simple backup target. This release provides the ability to collect and report on the Data Domain system just like a storage array. Deep capacity probes have been separated into the Data Domain systems and the resulting data is licensed under Capacity Manager or Storage Management Suite products. For users that continue to use Data Domain systems as a backup target, this will continue to be licensed and included in their Backup Manager licensing. For users that use all or part of a Data Domain system as a storage array or disk target, this portion will be licensed as a Terabyte license under Capacity Manager or our Storage Management Suite.
Data Domain Storage collection can be configured to collect CIFS shares, NFS mounts, and folder-level compression rates, enabling a consolidated view of storage utilization. A Capacity Manager probe collects file-level compression ratios for both folders and files stored on Data Domain CIFS or NFS mounts. Folder-level data compression rates enable chargeback on used disk space associated with shares and mounts, and folders within those shares and mounts. This feature augments the existing Data Domain Backup data collection, which includes an option to collect file-level compression ratios associated with NetBackup backup images. To configure data collection, use the Data Collector policies: EMC Data Domain Backup and EMC Data Domain Storage. Note that report instances for the following Data Domain reports will no longer be valid because their corresponding report templates have been moved from Backup Manager to Capacity Manager: Data Domain Replication History, Data Domain Snapshot History, and Data Domain MTree Summary. Separate Data Domain System Summary reports are available for backup and capacity reporting.
Data Collection: Monitoring and Validation
You can now quickly initiate, monitor, edit and validate the live status of your data collection all within the portal.
Views for Collector Status and Collection Administration have a refreshed design with new interfaces and functions not previously available through the Portal. The new Data Collection Status and Data Collection Administration pages, located on the Admin tab allow for easy troubleshooting and resolution all within the StorageConsole interface.
Portal Enhancements
New Sparkline Type for Charting - A new sparkline type, Line, has been made available as a formatter in the SQL Template Designer and the Dynamic Template Designer.
Impersonate Feature - A user, assigned the Super User role can impersonate another user. The Impersonate feature enables a Super User to easily log into a separate user session to for example, diagnose issues, verify permissions, and manage a user’s scheduled reports. This is especially useful in an MSP environment. This information is captured in an audit.log file.
New Inventory Category for SQL Template Designer and Dynamic Template Designer - A new Inventory category, Forecasting, is available for classification from the report template designers.
SUN Java 2 Standard Edition SDK - The portal now supports version 1.8.0_144.
Apache HTTP Web Server - The portal now supports versions:
2.4.25 for LINUX upgrades and fresh installs
2.4.27 for Windows upgrades and fresh installs
Apache Tomcat Java Servlet Engine - The portal now supports version:
8.5.23 for LINUX and Windows upgrades and fresh installs
Auditing User Activity in the Portal - By default, the audit.log captures user logins and user impersonations. Now you can choose to capture additional information about a user’s activity in the portal by modifying the file systemlogger.xml.
Single Session per User - A system-wide setting to restrict a user ID from signing on multiple times with the same or different browsers by modifying the portal.properties file. The last user ID to login will have access to the portal. Other users with same login will be logged out.
Inventory Host Hierarchy Displays Subsystem Vendors - The Inventory now displays the subsystem for all hosts, regardless of type.
Chart Label Improvements - Legends in donut and pie charts in reports no longer have truncated labels.
CPU Utilization Default Grouping Updates - In the Inventory, the default grouping for the CPU utilization for the reports, VM Server and VM Server Group, is now 4 days by hour.
New Setting for Inventory Objects - Using a new portal property, portal.ocn.defaultVisibleObjectType, users can set a default in the Inventory for which objects to load.
Solutions: Risk Mitigation and Storage Optimization
Introducing Solutions, curated and actionable analytic report templates for proactive data center management. These solutions leverage the data already collected by APTARE and transforms it into rules you can select for what-if and historical analysis.
Risk Mitigation Solution
The Risk Mitigation Solution addresses the infrastructure risk for both backup/recovery and storage operations to prevent downtime for critical applications. In partnership with the Storage Optimization Solution, the Risk Mitigation Solution supplies not only data, but business analytics to manage backup compliance and storage performance.
Report templates include:
Risk Mitigation Analysis - Displays an interactive chart of risk categories that may enable you to identify areas of opportunities for mitigation.
Risk Mitigation Trend - Displays risk mitigation categories over time to identify risk prone areas enabling you to assess areas within your enterprise that may be at risk of failing to meet data protection objectives. Configure rules to isolate specific conditions relevant for your environment.
Storage Optimization Solution
The Storage Optimization solution introduces rules that can be configured to help you identify both on-prem and cloud resources that may be reclaimable or that can be optimized. Analytics can be used to find dark storage, in an effort to contain costs and delay/avoid purchases. By examining collected historical data for multiple data points, Storage Optimization provides visibility into storage utilization over time, with true analytics that support infrastructure rightsizing.
Report templates include:
Storage Optimization Analysis - A graphical representation of analytics associated with configured rules provides drill down access to details that reveal reclamation possibilities, such as Undiscovered LUNs or Powered-Off VMs.
Storage Optimization by Tier - A chart shows potentially reclaimable and non-reclaimable storage, by tiers.
Storage Optimization Overview - This chart provides a high-level view of reclaimable vs. non-reclaimable storage.
Storage Optimization Trend - This trend chart illustrates storage optimization over time.
Storage Optimization Detail Reports - A variety of detail reports can be accessed via the above reports.
Virtualization Manager Enhancements
Database tables and views have been updated along with Inventory and Virtualization Manager reports to include the Data Center (and its related VMware objects) in which an ESX server resides.
Data collection now captures Datastore folders (including Storage Pods) in the container hierarchy.