Open for Voting

Poll for Snapshot information on a volume within a Netapp filer

Currently, SRM does not poll for snapshot info on volumes in a Netapp SVM. I would like to request that this be added to SRM. Currently, we use OnCommand to monitor the % usage of our volumes - including the amount of space that snapshots are taking up. As my coworker described to me, snapshots can take up significantly more space on a volume than expected under several types of unique circumstances (most revolving around abnormally high writes to a database, I believe). This means that reporting on the % free or % used on a volume, based on total capacity and total data usage, is an inaccurate report on the true usage of a volume. This, in turn, makes reports created based on these numbers inaccurate and makes SRM an ineffective product for our environment. Conversely, If anyone is intimately familiar with the usage of snapshots in NetApp Ontap 8.3.x cluster mode, and understands it differently than I just described, I would be very appreciative of an explanation as to the 'why' so that maybe we can start using SRM with reports on volume capacity/usage a bit more effectively.

Can polling for Snaps be included in a SRM release in the near future?

asisit

  • This was a challenge for the previous Solarwinds Storage Manager product in that it treated the Volume and it's Snapshot capacity essentially like separate containers. When (not if) Snapshot information is added to SRM, it needs to be treated as a separate capacity measurement in the Volume.

    Each Volume on a NetApp should have the following data collected (in addition to what is already there);

    • Size
    • Data space used (can calculate percentage)
    • Snapshot space used (can calculate percentage)
      • USEFUL - Number of Snapshots
      • USEFUL - Oldest and Latest Snapshot
      • BONUS - List of Snapshots with Name, Date and Size in a table linked to the Volume
    • Free space (can be calculated)
    • Deduplication Savings (While we are at it, this should be tracked as well)

    The simplistic Volume depictions below are comprised of 20 characters (GB) between the | characters.

    NOTE: Because the font is not monospaced and "S", "D" and "-" characters are all different widths, the Volumes appear to be different sizes.

    D = Data

    S = Snapshot

    - = Empty

    |DDDDDD--------------|

    Volume with 6GB of Data or 30% full

    |DDDDDD--------SSSSSS|

    Volume with 6GB of Data and 6GB in Snapshots looks to be 60% (12GB / 20GB) full.

    * That is really 30% in Data and 30% in Snapshots

    The actual size and percentage of Data or Snapshots should be available to Report and Alert on in SRM.

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