Installation Manual

Discovering Switches, Storage Systems, NAS Devices, and Tape Libraries154
About Discovery Data Collection
Discovery Data Collection is required to obtain detailed information from discovered elements.
Discovery Data Collection must be performed before you can do provisioning and/or obtain
provisioning information, such as data about zone sets and LUN numbers.
Keep in mind the following:
• Running Discovery Data Collection takes time. You might want to perform this process when the
network and the managed elements are not busy.
• Reports show data from the last successful Discovery Data Collection and report cache update.
When a scheduled Discovery Data Collection finishes, the report cache refreshes automatically.
If you run Discovery Data Collection manually, the report cache updates every 6 hours. For
information about refreshing the report cache, see the User Guide.
• During Discovery Data Collection the data you see in the user interface is not updated until the
data collection is finished.
• During Discovery Data Collection, the topology in System Manager is recalculated. While the
topology is being recalculated, the loading of the user interface in Storage Essentials may be
slow. See”Recalculating the Topology” on page 414for more information.
• You can use discovery groups to break up Discovery Data Collection. For example, instead of
running Discovery Data Collection for all elements, you could specify only the elements in
Discovery Group 1. For more information, see ”Using Discovery Groups” on page 162.
• When an element in a discovery group is updated, its dependent elements are also updated.
• You can quarantine elements to exclude them from Discovery Data Collection. For example, if
you want to get information about all the elements in a discovery group except for one, you can
quarantine that element. For more information, see ”Placing an Element in Quarantine” on
page 166.
• If a problem occurs with a host or SMI-S element during Discovery Data Collection, the host or
element is automatically quarantined. To remove the element from quarantine, see ”Removing
an Element from Quarantine” on page 166.
• If you want to receive status reports about Discovery Data Collection, see ”Configuring E-mail
Notification for Discovery Data Collection” on page 398 for information about how to
configure this option.
• If an element changes and you run Discovery Data Collection while the provider cache is
updating, an error might occur or the gathered details might be inconsistent with the actual
element status.
Running Discovery Data Collection
To obtain details about the elements on the network:
1. Select Options > Storage Essentials > Discovery > Run Discovery Data Collection.
2. Select Include infrastructure details, which gathers the latest information about SAN details.
You do not need to select Include backup details unless you have already discovered hosts
running backup applications and installed CIM extensions on those hosts. For information about