Troubleshooting
Problem
Tivoli Storage Productivity Center is updated to support the Hitachi Data Systems Virtual Storage Platform (HDS VSP) for thin-provisioning, host alias cleanup upon volume unassignment, and new web GUI views of VSP. However, there are some limitations with Tivoli Storage Productivity Center, VSP SMIS, and Tivoli Common Reporting. This technote provides solutions to some known issues.
Cause
The limitations below are categorized based on the Tivoli Storage Productivity Center area or function that is being affected.
- Known Limitations with VSP SMIS (Provisioning)
- Known Limitations with VSP SMIS (Incorrect Values)
- Known Limitations with VSP SMIS (Other)
- Known Limitations for Cognos/TCR for Reports of VSP
Known Limitations with VSP SMIS (Provisioning)
Symptom | Impact | Solution |
| Volume assignment for the Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Provisioning can take 30 - 60 minutes or longer. | The Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Provisioning against HDS managed subsystems is very slow. IMPACT: HIGH PROBABILITY: HIGH | Fixed with patch DVM07-61-S01.20140303.0932.zip for Hitachi Command Suite (HCS) S 7.6.1-01. The volume assignment takes 5 – 10 minutes with patch. |
| Tivoli Storage Productivity Center provisioning tries to set the host name and OS type when creating the host alias definition. After provisioning, the HDS element manager and Tivoli Storage Productivity Center never shows the correct OS type and host name of the host alias definition if the host alias definition was created by Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. The OS type is always shown as Standard. Only the initiator WWPN is shown. | HDS SMIS ignores the host OS type and name passed by Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for host alias definition creation IMPACT: LOW PROBABILITY: HIGH | None |
| Tivoli Storage Productivity Center provisioning does not warn about the virtual space limit of the thin-provisioning pool. | The Thin Provisioning Pool Subscription Limit set in the Hitachi Storage Navigator is not visible to Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. Tivoli Storage Productivity Center cannot check the limit before thin-provisioning. IMPACT: LOW PROBABILITY: MEDIUM | None |
| Tivoli Storage Productivity Center provisioning does not warn about the space limit of the pool based on external storage. | Tivoli Storage Productivity Center has a work around that does not check supported volume sizes during provisioning on VSP Pools that are based on external storage.
The effect of this work around is that if the pool does not have enough space for the specified volume(s), the volume creation request gives no warning and fails when the request is sent to the VSP SMIS Agent. IMPACT: LOW PROBABILITY: LOW | Fixed with patch DVM07-61-S01.20140303.0932.zip for HCS 7.6.1-01. |
| If a volume is already assigned, the standard error code is not given for assigning the same volume. The generic vendor error code is given instead. | When Tivoli Storage Productivity Center gets an error from the HDS CIMOM on volume assignment, Tivoli Storage Productivity Center cannot distinguish between two discrete errors: (1) The Hitachi Device Manager (HDvM) is too busy. Try again later. (2) The volume is already assigned to the initiator. IMPACT: MEDIUM PROBABILITY: LOW | None |
| Volume unassignment through the Tivoli Storage Productivity Center CLI or through integrated software products can take 30 - 60 minutes or longer. | The Tivoli Storage Productivity Center deprovisioning of volumes against HDS managed subsystems is very slow.
| None |
Known Limitations with VSP SMIS (Incorrect Values)
Symptom | Impact | Solution |
| The user friendly names for Pools and Volumes that are visible through the Hitachi Storage Navigator and Hitachi Command Suite are not populated in the SMIS objects. | Tivoli Storage Productivity Center users have difficulty to correlate VSP Pools and Volumes with what is displayed in the Hitachi element managers. IMPACT: MEDIUM PROBABILITY: HIGH | None |
| VSP Port Speed is reported as the lowest possible speed, not the current negotiated speed. | The port speed of VSP ports is reported incorrectly in Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. IMPACT: LOW PROBABILITY: HIGH | None |
| RAID level is reported incorrectly for thin-provisioned volumes. | RAID level is reported incorrectly for thin-provisioned volumes. IMPACT: LOW PROBABILITY: HIGH | None |
| Tivoli Storage Productivity Center sometimes reports a good status on a volume even though it might be in a warning or error state. | When the zoning between the VSP and the back-end storage is removed, the VSP volume, based on back-end storage, should be reported in a Warning or Error state. However, it is not in either of those states. IMPACT: MEDIUM PROBABILITY: LOW | None |
| If LUN Security is turned off on the back-end storage, Tivoli Storage Productivity Center cannot correlate VSP pools and volumes with back-end storage. | This condition occurs when HDS VSP has HDS AMS or other HDS storage as back-end storage. IMPACT: LOW PROBABILITY: LOW | None |
| The Hitachi SMIS Agent is reporting invalid or incorrect firmware for its disk drives | VSP disk drives firmware are not reported correctly in Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. IMPACT: LOW PROBABILITY: HIGH | None |
Known Limitations with VSP SMIS (Other)
Symptom | Impact | Solution |
| Tivoli Storage Productivity Center disables the CIM Indications subscription from HDS CIMOMs to prevent a Hitachi Device Manager (HDvM) crash. |
PROBABILITY: MEDIUM | None |
| In some scenarios, after creating a volume on a VSP Pool that is based on external storage, the wrong capacity on the VSP pool is given. | The VSP overall capacity and Pool capacity is incorrect in some situations. IMPACT: MEDIUM PROBABILITY: MEDIUM | Run the HDS CLI to Refresh Array to fix the problem. |
| In some scenarios, when a probe of the HDS VSP is done, the unreserved space of Pool is reported incorrectly in Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. | The unreserved space of Pool is reported incorrectly in Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. IMPACT: MEDIUM PROBABILITY: MEDIUM | Continue probing the VSP. This condition seems to be a temporary state and it corrects itself. |
| The user is unable to launch the Hitachi Storage Navigator from Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. | The user is unable to launch Hitachi Storage Navigator from Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. IMPACT: LOW PROBABILITY: MEDIUM | None |
| In some scenarios, a Tivoli Storage Productivity Center probe of the HDS VSP fails. Error message HWN021529E is displayed. | The HDS SMIS returns unexpected values and this causes the Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Probe to fail. This limitation occurs in the rare condition when the VSP Pool has no storage volumes created on it. IMPACT: MEDIUM PROBABILITY: EXTREMELY RARE | Create a volume on this pool. |
Known Limitations for Cognos/TCR for Reports of VSP
Affected Report | Problem Description |
| Go to the Pools Capacity report:
Predefined Reports > Storage Systems > Pools > Pools Capacity | The "Storage Pool Virtual Allocation Percentage" value does not match the value from the Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Web GUI. The total sum for the "Storage Pool Capacity" should not include the thin pools capacity. |
| Go to the Pools Historical Capacity report:
Predefined Reports > Storage Systems > Pools > Pools Historical Capacity
| The VSP Storage Virtualizer does not appear in the drop-down list when filtering for "Storage Virtualizer". |
| Go to the Disks Capacity report: Predefined Reports > Storage Systems > Disks Capacity | Internal disks are incorrectly correlated with the thin-provisioning pools in the report. |
| Go to the Storage Systems Historical Capacity report:
Predefined Reports > Storage Systems > Storage Systems Historical Capacity | 1. Storage System Configuration should be "Storage Virtualizer" instead of "Storage System".
2. The following values are not correct: Storage System Used Space, Storage System Available Pool Space, Storage System Volume Capacity, Storage System Overhead, Storage System Disk Capacity, Storage System Total Disk Capacity, Storage System Real Available Pool Space, Storage System Real Configured Available Pool Space, Storage System Mdisk Available Space |
| Go to the Most Active Pools reports:
Predefined Reports > Storage Systems > Pools > Most Active Pools -> Performance of One Pool -> Compare Performance of Multiple Pools -> Compare Performance of One Pool over Time Ranges | The Performance Reports option should not be shown for VSP Pool Volumes. |
| Go to the Managed Disks Capacity report:
Predefined Reports > Storage Systems > Managed Disks Capacity | 1. The VSP reports are not consistent with USP-V reports. For HDS VSP, the internal and external disks appear in the report. For USP-V reports, only external (virtual) disks appear in the report.
2. The disks that belong to any VSP Thin Pool are listed in the report as local disks even though they are based on Parent Volumes which can be from internal or external (virtualized) Pools 3. The Pool Volume to Thin Pool relationship is not reflected in the report and in the bar chart. Thin Pools have parent Pool Volumes, which have parent Pools. This chart should show the disks of a thin pool that are derived from a non-thin provisioning pool. |
| Go to the Storage Systems Capacity report:
Predefined Reports > Storage Systems > Storage Systems Capacity > Select VSP | The following values are not correct: Storage System Pool Capacity, Storage System Used Pool Space, Storage System Pool Available Space, Storage System Volume Allocated Space, Storage System Number of Disks, Storage System Overhead, Storage System Disk Capacity, Storage System MDisk Available Space |
| Go to the Capacity and Usage Metrics report:
Storage Virtualizer ad-hoc reports > Storage Virtualizer Pools > Capacity and Usage Metrics | The following values are not correct: Storage Virtualizer Pool Virtual Allocation Percentage, Storage Virtualizer Pool Shortfall Percentage, Storage Virtualizer Pool Unallocated Volume Space, Storage Virtualizer Pool Used Space Percentage |
| Go to the Capacity and Usage Metrics report:
Storage Virtualizer Volumes Report > Capacity and Usage Metrics | The following values are not correct: Storage Virtualizer Volume Capacity, Storage Virtualizer Volume Allocated Space, Storage Virtualizer Volume Overhead, Storage Virtualizer Volume Used Allocated Space Percentage, Storage Virtualizer Volume Unallocatable Space |
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Document Information
Modified date:
22 February 2022
UID
swg21667294