Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.0 for Microsoft SCOM 2012/R2 Best Practices Kris Piepho Microsoft Product Specialist Dell Compellent Technical Solutions Group April 2014 This document has been archived and will no longer be maintained or updated. For more information go to Storage technical documents and videos on Dell.com or contact support.
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Table of contents Revisions ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Executive summary .......................................................................................................................................................................... 5 1 2 3 4 Preface .................................................................................
6.5.1 Using SCOM to monitor SQL server .......................................................................................................................... 36 6.6 4 Microsoft monitoring agent ........................................................................................................................................ 36 7 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................................
Executive summary This document provides best practice recommendations and many step-by-step procedures for the following: 5 Install and configure the Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.0 for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2012/R2. Uninstall previous versions of the Dell Compellent Management Pack from Windows Server 2012/R2 and SCOM 2012/R2. View and close active Storage Center alerts in SCOM 2012/R2. Use SCOM 2012/R2 dashboards to view Storage Center data.
1 Preface This document is highly technical and is intended for storage and systems administrators who monitor Dell Compellent Storage Center devices from the Microsoft Systems Center Operations 2012 R2 (SCOM) Management Console. Readers should have a good working knowledge of Microsoft SCOM 2012/R2 and the Dell Compellent Storage Center. 1.
2 Introduction A brief overview of the major components that comprise the environment is provided in this section. 2.1 Dell Compellent Storage Center overview The Dell Compellent Storage Center is an enterprise-class storage area network (SAN) that lowers capital expenditures, reduces storage management and administration time, provides continuous data availability and enables storage virtualization.
Rather than querying the Storage Center directly, Management Pack 3.0 uses Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager as the data collector. The Management Pack uses a WMI Provider to query for Storage Center component and performance data from the Enterprise Manager API web service. The WMI provider can be configured to connect to one or more Dell Compellent API endpoints, and can query information from multiple Storage Centers.
3 Management Pack installation and configuration Use this section as a supplement to the Dell Compellent Management Pack 3.0 for Microsoft SCOM Administrator’s Guide found on Knowledge Center. As mentioned above, Management Pack 3.0 uses Enterprise Manager as the data collector, and uses a WMI Provider to query data from Enterprise Manager. The WMI Provider converts data received from the Dell Compellent API to WMI classes which SCOM uses to collect and display data.
4. In the Administration menu, select Management Packs. 5. In the Management Packs listing, right-click Dell Storage Library and select Delete. 6. Click Yes to remove the Management Pack. 10 Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
7. 11 Once it has been removed it will no longer show in the Management Packs window. Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
4 Management Pack components The Dell Compellent Management Pack 3.0 monitors, collects and displays the following Storage Center information: Active alerts Performance (through dashboards) Controllers Disks Enclosures Replications Servers Storage types Volumes In addition, the Management Pack displays health information for discovered data collectors and WMI Providers. Only components that require special configuration or attention will be covered in this section. 4.
4.1.1 Threshold alerts SCOM only monitors the status of Storage Center objects, and therefore will not discover or report on threshold alerts created through Enterprise Manager. However, if a defined threshold is met for a Storage Center object (a volume, for example) and that threshold changes the status of the object, SCOM will report back on the status change. 4.1.2 Closing alerts Closing an alert in SCOM does not remove the alert from Storage Center.
Figure 3 Detailed replication information Clicking on a replication will show more information in the Detail View window. Figure 4 4.3 Replication detail Dashboards SCOM dashboards were created to allow quick access to multiple data points. This is particularly useful in troubleshooting scenarios, and when data is contained in different views.
The Storage Center Management Pack contains the following predefined performance and usage dashboards: Storage Center IO Performance Storage Center Usage Controller IO Performance Disk Class IO Performance Server IO Performance Server Usage Volume IO Performance Dashboard Volume Usage Figure 5 15 Storage Center IO performance dashboard Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
Note: The Storage Center data displayed in performance dashboards is collected every 15 minutes. Storage Center data displayed in usage dashboards is collected every 12 hours. Both performance and usage collection intervals can be changed with overrides. 4.4 WMI Provider The WMI Provider folder contains health information about any discovered data collectors and WMI Providers.
The WMI Data Collector Providers shows all detected WMI Providers in the environment. Figure 8 WMI data collector provider details Note: The status of both the Data Collector and WMI Provider must show as healthy for the Management Pack to receive any Storage Center data. In situations where SCOM cannot communicate with the Data Collector, the entry for the Data Collector will show a greyed out status.
5 Overrides Overrides are used in SCOM to change monitoring settings for monitors, attributes, object discoveries, and rules. Overrides can be applied to individual objects, or groups of objects. The Dell Compellent Management Pack 3.0 is preconfigured with monitors that do not require any configuration, although overrides can be used to modify the default configuration.
Note: Pay careful attention to the option selection. Choosing the wrong option could result in SCOM no longer reporting critical alerts from Storage Center. For information about setting override properties, refer to Section 5.3. 5.2 Creating an override from the Authoring pane To create an override from the Authoring pane: 1. 19 From the SCOM Management Console click Authoring. Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
2. Click Management Pack Objects. 3. In the Management Pack Objects window, click Scope on the menu bar. 20 Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
The Scope Management Pack Objects window appears. 4. Use the Look for: field to: 21 - Filter down to a specific target Sort all targets by Management Pack a. To search for a specific target leave the View common targets radio button selected and type in a specific target name. Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
b. To see all targets of a specific management pack select the View all targets radio button and type in the name of the management pack. 5. Select the Management Pack target(s) to edit and click OK. 6. When a scope has been defined, a message similar to the following is displayed in the Management Pack Objects pane: 7. To modify the existing scope, click Change Scope… 8. Create an override in one of three ways: - 22 Right-click on the target, select Overrides, and then select Override the Rule.
- Select Overrides on the Action pane, then select Override the Rule. - Click the Overrides tab on the menu bar, and then select Override the Rule. 9. Select the appropriate override option from the menu. 23 Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
5.3 Setting override properties An override created from the Authoring or Monitoring panes is ultimately displayed in the Override Properties window. Figure 11 Override properties To set an override: 1. 24 Select the parameter(s) to override. A corresponding override value must be applied to the parameter(s). To enable the override, check the Enforced box. Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
2. Select the override destination management pack. Note: Microsoft does not recommend saving overrides to the default Management Pack. As a best practice, create a new management pack to save Overrides. 3. Create a new Management Pack. a. 25 Click New… Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
b. Assign a name to the Management Pack and if desired, assign a version and provide a description. Click Next, and on the following screen, click Create. 4. Verify that the newly created Management Pack is selected, and click OK. 26 Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
The override takes effect immediately. 5. To see effective overrides for a particular monitor, object discovery or rule, right-click the item and select Overrides Summary. 6. To view all overrides applied to a specific scope, click Overrides in the Management Pack Objects menu in the Authoring pane. 27 Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
6 Troubleshooting This section provides tips and resources to help identify and resolve common issues with the WMI Provider, Enterprise Manager, SCOM, and SQL server. 6.1 Troubleshooting the WMI Provider installation The WMI Provider is the first place to investigate when objects are not being discovered by the Management Pack. The following steps will ensure proper operation of the WMI Provider. 1. Ensure the WMI Provider has been marked for discovery. a.
3. Check that the WMI Provider has been correctly registered. a. Log on as an administrator to the WMI Provider server. b. Open PowerShell and type in the command below to ensure a list of classes beginning with the Dell_ prefix is displayed. PS C:\> gwmi -List -Namespace "root\Dell\Storage" | ?{$_.Name -like 'Dell_*'} | select Name c. 29 If the WMI Provider has been correctly registered, the following output is received. Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
d. If no class names are returned, the WMI Provider was not correctly registered. To register the provider manually, run the Dell.Storage.WMIConfigurator.exe with the /i switch from within PowerShell (or the command prompt). PS C:\> cd 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\Dell Storage WMI Provider' PS C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\Dell Storage WMI Provider> .\Dell.Storage.WMIConfigurator.exe /i e. 6.2 Run the PowerShell gwmi command again to verify the Dell WMI Provider classes are displayed.
4. 5. 6. 7. Right-click WMIDataCollectorProvider and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Enter LogLevel for the name. Right-click on the new entry and select Modify… Enter a value and click OK. Value settings are: - 0: Errors only (default) 1: Information and errors 2: Trace (including information and errors) Changes to the log level require the WMI Provider to be reloaded. When the SCOM agent is running, The WMI Provider is reloaded automatically approximately every 5 minutes. 6.
Note: The Operations Manager log is installed on the SCOM server and on any server running the Microsoft monitoring agent. 3. The WMI Provider records to the Application log under Windows Logs. If errors are generated from the WMI Provider, the listed source is Application Error. 32 Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
6.4 Enterprise Manager memory settings Enterprise Manager can be used to monitor multiple Storage Centers throughout the enterprise. As the amount of Storage Centers and data collected increases, Enterprise Manager can suffer performance degradation. This can negatively affect SCOM, as well as other applications that rely on Enterprise Manager as a data collector.
3. Select Service from the menu on the left side of the window. 4. In Application Settings, set the maximum amount of memory that Enterprise Manager can use in MB based upon the amount of Storage Centers and volumes in the environment. 5. 34 a.
6.5 SQL database settings SCOM requires a SQL database, and will create one during the installation. The size and destination of the database can be set, as shown in Figure 13. Figure 13 SCOM operational database setup In most cases, the default database size of 1 GB is too small, especially in environments with multiple storage centers and a high number of volumes.
When the SCOM SQL database reaches its maximum size, SCOM no longer accepts and displays new data. In this case, error 10801 is displayed in the Operations Manager event log showing the following information: Discovery data couldn’t be inserted to the database. This could have happened because of one of the following reasons: Discovery data is stale. The discovery data is generated by an MP recently deleted. Database connectivity problems or database running out of space.
Note: If restarting the Microsoft monitoring agent on the WMI provider server does not alleviate the connection issues, the agent can also be restarted on the SCOM server. Be advised that restarting the agent on the SCOM server will stop all data collection within SCOM until the agent is running. 37 Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
7 Conclusion This document has provided administrators with answers to commonly asked questions associated with the Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.0 for SCOM 2012/R2. For more information, please refer to the documentation listed in “Additional resources” below. 38 Dell Compellent Storage Center Management Pack 3.
A Additional resources Support.dell.com is focused on meeting your needs with proven services and support. DellTechCenter.com is an IT Community where you can connect with Dell Customers and Dell employees for the purpose of sharing knowledge, best practices, and information about Dell products and installations. Referenced or recommended Dell Compellent publications on Dell TechCenter: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/5018.compellent-technical-content.
