System Configuration Parameter Descriptions: Additional Info
Some configuration settings are straight forward and do not require more explanation than is available in the Portal through the field-level help. Other settings require more information. The section covers the additional information not displayed in the Portal.
Data Collection: Capacity Chargeback
• Drive capacity chargeback range in GB: When configuring Capacity Chargeback Policies, a Drive Capacity (GB) policy type can be defined. This value is treated as a range of capacity, with the default set to: plus or minus 10 GB. Often this default is not sufficient for an environment’s chargeback policies. Using system parameters, the range for the Drive Capacity policy type can be modified. The value configured in the policy will be treated as a range of values—that is, the Policy’s Drive Capacity plus or minus the Drive Capacity Range that is configured in the system parameters.
• Enable chargeback logging: Enable or disable capacity chargeback logging. This allows data to be collected and then custom report templates developed with one of the report template designers can query this data to generate chargeback reports. Capacity chargeback logging is enabled by default. If this is not a requirement for your environment, disable it.
Database Administration: Database
• Large index number leaf blocks: In large environments, to improve the performance of index builds, a system parameter can be configured to define the number of leaf blocks for a large index. The default value is 10,000 leaf blocks. This parameter configures the number of leaf blocks in a database index.
• Maximum number of large indexes for rebuild: To improve the performance of index recreation, modify this parameter to change the number of large database indexes that will be processed in a single run. The default value is 10.
• Rebuild indexes schedule (days): In large environments, if report generation performance begins to degrade, database indexes can be built more frequently. The default is to rebuild indexes every 60 days.
• Maximum time in minutes for large index rebuilds: To improve the performance of index recreation, configure this parameter to define the number of minutes the index rebuild should run. The default value is 10 minutes. If the rebuild takes longer than this time, the job will stop. In very large environments, it may be necessary to increase this time to accommodate large indexes.
Host Discovery: EMC Avamar
In a specific circumstance, EMC Avamar data collection can persist duplicate clients in the Portal database. This occurs in the following case:
• Multiple enterprise domains are configured.
• The same host name is used in multiple domains, but for different hosts.
If your Portal has the above configuration, configure the following to prevent the creation of duplicate Avamar clients. And, logging can be configured to identify how a host is determined and persisted in the Portal database.
Note: Another parameter, Enable IP address matching for Host search, is also used by the Avamar host-matching algorithm. If your environment has already enabled this parameter, it will be honored by the host-matching algorithm.
• Enable short name matching for Avamar Host Search: This parameter is used to enable comparisons of a client’s base name. During data collection, the data persistence logic will compare the short name retrieved by data collection and compare it to what exists in the Portal database. This parameter currently is used only while searching for a host in Avamar data. For example, the host name in the database might be xyz.aptare.com, but the collected host name is xyz.apt.com. If this parameter is enabled, the host-matching algorithm will find the host with the name, xyz.aptare.com, based on matching the short name, xyz, thereby preventing the creation of a duplicate host.
• Remove patterns in host matching: This parameter will enable the stripping of unwanted suffixes while searching for hosts based on host name. This parameter is currently used only while searching for a host in Avamar data.
• Prerequisite: Any suffix that needs to be ignored must first be inserted into the apt_host_name_excld_suffix database table, as described in the following procedure. When the parameter is enabled, the host-matching algorithm searches this table for suffixes that should be ignored.
Add suffixes to the database table:
INSERT INTO apt_host_name_excld_suffix (excld_suffix, suffix_length, priority) VALUES (<<excludeSuffixInitials>>,<<totalSuffixLength - lengthOfexcludeSuffixInitials>>, <<priority>>);
COMMIT;
Examples
The data searching logic used when this system parameter is enabled is described in the following examples.
• Host name in the database is xyz and the collected host name is xyz_UCMAAZWlR6kihhBHN5R8iA. The host-matching algorithm will find the host with the name xyz and _UCMAAZWlR6kihhBHN5R8iA will be removed while searching.
• Host name in the database is xyz and the collected host name is xyz_UA3rT06VdULrQyViIxEFuQ2011.07.22.16.05.49. The host-matching algorithm will find the host with the name xyz and _UA3rT06VdULrQyViIxEFuQ2011.07.22.16.05.49 will be removed while searching. The time portion, 2011.07.22.16.05.49, is automatically removed if the parameter is enabled.
• Host name in the database is xyz and the collected host name is xyz2011.07.22.16.05.49. The host-matching algorithm will find the host with the name xyz and 2011.07.22.16.05.49 will be removed while searching. The time portion, 2011.07.22.16.05.49, is automatically removed if the parameter is enabled.
• Host name in database is xyz and the collected host name is xyz2011.07.22.16.05.49_UA3rT06VdULrQyViIxEFuQ. The host-matching algorithm will find the host with the name xyz and 2011.07.22.16.05.49_UA3rT06VdULrQyViIxEFuQ will be removed while searching. The time portion, 2011.07.22.16.05.49, is automatically removed if the parameter is enabled.
Host Discovery: Host
• Enable IP address matching for Host search: In certain environments, where hosts or VMs are frequently provisioned and/or decommissioned causing IP addresses to be re-used, these duplicate IP addresses can result in multiple aliases for a single host. Use this parameter to activate/deactivate IP address matching. By default, this value is active. When the parameter is disabled, a collected host with an IP address that matches a host in the database, but that has a different host name, will result in the creation of a new host in the database.