5.3.0.x Limitations and known issues for IBM Spectrum Control

CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT PERFORMANCE DATA FOR MIRRORED VOLUMES AND ASSOCIATED POOLS IN IBM SPECTRUM VIRTUALIZE   

 - When a storage system that runs IBM Spectrum Virtualize is configured with mirrored volumes, the IBM Spectrum Control™ and IBM® Storage Insights GUIs show performance data for only the primary copies of the mirrored volumes. No performance data is available for the secondary copies of those volumes.

 - The pool performance data shown in IBM Spectrum Control and IBM Storage Insights includes the volume performance data of only the primary copies of the mirrored volumes. This means that if any pool contains no volumes (other than secondary copies of mirrored volumes), that pool will show volume performance statistics values of zero.

IBM Spectrum Control and IBM Storage Insights cannot currently determine the volume performance impact of secondary copies on its respective pools. However, the disk performance impact of secondary copies on its pools is displayed normally.

APAR IT23975: Port down/offline alerts generated for FlashSystem 900 when the port is simply unused/disconnected.

IBM Spectrum Control is generating "error" alerts for an IBM FlashSystem 900 storage device, for ports that are not physically connected to a SAN.  Spectrum Control is receiving port alerts for ports that are known to be disconnected, and no matter the suppression settings selected, the alerts come back.  This differs from the way that all other IBM storage operates, including SVC, Storwize, and other IBM storage where unused ports do not trigger alerts and do not report errors about unused ports.  Typically port alerts should only trigger if a port that was connected, becomes disconnected.  That is how the rest of IBM storage environment operates.  At this time there is no way to make this behavior consistent with the rest of their storage.

The alert for inactive and configured FlashSystem port is working as designed because the condition is an "offline" status according FlashSystem GUI also.  Inactive and unconfigured FlashSystem port does not represent an error condition to generate alerts in Spectrum Control.  The different port status inactive configured / inactive unconfigured reported by FlashSystem device are due to the installed small form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceivers onto the interface card in the system canister.  When SFP is installed and the port is not connected, the status reported by FlashSystem is inactive and configured port.

The workaround for changing the port status is to remove the unused SFP and reset the interface card in the canister.  More information how to add/remove SFPs to the FlashSystem storage enclosure can be found in the FlashSystem knowledge center:  https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/STKMQB_1.5.1/com.ibm.storage.flashsystem900.1.5.1.doc/tms_add_sfps.html

Provisioning fails when requesting compressed volumes from a data reduction pool

When you provision compressed volumes from storage systems that run IBM Spectrum Virtualize 8.1.1 or later, you might see the following error message:

HWNCA0005E  IBM Spectrum Control cannot provide the requested <n> GiB of capacity that also satisfies the requirements of the service class.

This issue occurs under the following conditions:
- The service class specifies that the storage resources must be able to compress volumes.
- IBM Spectrum Control attempts to provision the storage from a data reduction pool.

Workaround:
Use a service class that does not specify that the storage resources must be able to compress volumes. Alternatively, ensure that the available IBM Storage Virtualizers contain storage pools that are not configured as data reduction pools.

Provisioning tasks may fail to execute if scheduled

When you create and schedule a provisioning task it may remain in pending state instead of executing as scheduled.  In addition, the scheduled provisioning task may fail to execute if attempting to use the Run Now prior to their schedule run time.  

Workaround:
Run the provisioning task when created instead of scheduling the task for a future time.

HDS back-end storage devices behind an SVC shows as "not monitored"

IBM support worked with Hitachi support and this is the answer from Hitachi:

We have identified the root cause and are working on new SVP SMI-S Provider code to fix the issue.

Details: When IBM SMI-S Spectrum Control version 5.2.15.0 sends query “HITACHI_StorageProcessorSystem”, the
Controller ID on DKC1 side that the SVP SMI-S provider calculates was incorrect; so IBM SMI-S Spectrum Control
version 5.2.15.0 does not receive the port information for DKC1 side correctly from the SVP.
 
Unfortunately there is no workaround at present. The permanent fix will be to upgrade to the new code.
You can see the status of this APAR here: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1IT25032

Submitting 2 Tiering jobs concurrently may not complete 

When submitting 2 tiering jobs to run at the same time or overlap, they may stall and fail to complete.  Some optimization tasks may complete correctly, but at some point the tasks may hang. There are no errors displayed, and the logs indicate that the jobs are still running, however once they stall no further tasks are updated or completed.  This can happen for the first tiering job or for both.

The work around is submitting one tiering job at a time, and waiting for it to complete before submitting another tiering job.

Information about resources that use the iSCSI protocol is not shown in IBM Spectrum Control 

IBM Spectrum Control does not collect iSCSI port information for storage systems and servers. Information about resources that connect to monitored storage systems using the iSCSI protocol is not shown in the web-based GUI. For example, information about iSCSI mapped volumes is not shown.

In Metro Mirror or Global Copy relationship, if a Peer to Peer Remote Copy (PPRC) is terminated and then deleted on one of the storage systems, the other storage system retains the relationship  
If a storage system is not aware of the termination due to the loss of the PPRC path, volumes on that system might be counted as both unprotected and protected.
To correct the reporting, take one of the following actions:
Issue a terminate to the storage system, which retains the relationships.
Reestablish the PPRC paths and the relationship by using the dscli command or another copy services management tool (such as the CSM product).

Provisioning fails with ADD_PORTS_TO_HOST message on XIV 11.5.0 when modifying host   

When trying to provision storage from an IBM XIV® 11.5.0 system, the provisioning task fails with an "ADD_PORTS_TO_HOST task failed" message when trying to provision storage to a host that is already defined on the XIV subsystem.  This can happen when the host definition does not contain all the Fibre Channel ports that IBM Spectrum Control is trying to assign the volume to.

For example, if you try to provision storage to a host that has 2 Fibre Channel ports and the host is
already defined on the XIV 11.5.0 system but with only one of the Fibre Channel ports, the assign job will fail and the second port will not be added to the host.

This condition does not occur when IBM Spectrum Control is creating the host definition, or when an existing host definition already has all ports defined. This issue does not occur with XIV 11.4 systems, and 11.5.1 or later systems.

Workaround: modify the host definition on the XIV 11.5.0 system to contain all the Fibre Channel ports, then run a probe of the XIV 11.5.0 system in IBM Spectrum Control or upgrade to XIV 11.5.1 or later.

Enabled ethernet port that is not connected to a switch can cause the GUI to hang  

On some IBM servers running Windows 2012, an enabled ethernet port can cause the IBM Spectrum Control web-based GUI to stop responding if the port is not connected to a switch.  This condition causes a DB2 SQL -911 error and also causes the IBM Spectrum Control GUI to stop responding.

To prevent this, disable the ethernet port or configure the port by using the instructions here:  https://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/bladectr/documentation/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.bladecenter.hs22.doc/dw1iu_t_lan_over_usb_install_windows_driver_install.html

Switches from a subordinate server with Unknown condition are seen as Normal on the rollup master server  

If a subordinate server is at a level lower than Spectrum Control 5.2.10, switches in an Unknown condition will be seen as Normal on the rollup master server.
Upgrade the subordinate server to get the correct status shown on the master server.

Fabrics on master server are not displayed under Rollup Fabrics reports after upgrade from Tivoli Storage Productivity Center or Spectrum Control to Spectrum Control  5.2.10 or later 

When Tivoli Storage Productivity Center or Spectrum Control 5.2.9 or lower is upgraded to Spectrum Control 5.2.12 or higher, fabrics on the master server are not displayed under Rollup Fabrics reports. Once fabrics have been probed on the upgraded master server, they will appear in the Rollup Fabrics reports.

Unassigned Volume Space and Assigned Volume Space values are slightly different between the subordinate server and the rollup server.  

Due to differences in the methods used to calculate Unassigned Volume Space and Assigned Volume Space, there may be minor variations between the rollup and subordinate servers.  The value recorded in the subordinate server resource list panel is the definitive one.

Disable Windows User Account Control to edit configuration files

On Windows installations, if you installed IBM Spectrum Control by using a domain user account, you must disable User Account Control to edit the IBM Spectrum Control configuration files.

Cannot report detailed back-end storage information for a DS5000 or a DS4000 system 

If a SAN Volume Controller uses back-end storage from a DS5000 system or a DS4000 system, some information about the back-end storage might be missing. If you did not create explicit host connections for the back-end disks on the DS5000 or DS4000 system, the following problems might occur:

The CIM agent for the DS5000 or DS4000 system does not report any detailed information about the back-end storage.
IBM Spectrum Control cannot provide other information about the back-end storage for the consuming disk system. For example, IBM Spectrum Control cannot provide RAID information.

Therefore, you must create explicit host connections for the back-end disks on the DS5000 or DS4000 system. It is not sufficient to associate the back-end disks with the default host group.

IBM Spectrum Control cannot detect the mount status of file systems on Scale Out Network Attached Storage and Storwize V7000 Unified storage systems   

If a file system is manually unmounted from an IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) or Storwize® V7000 Unified storage system, IBM Spectrum Control cannot detect that the file system was unmounted. Because of this limitation, information that is displayed in the IBM Spectrum Control GUIs is not accurate and some storage-related actions on the file system might fail.

For example, when you provision storage, a file system on a Storwize V7000 Unified storage system might be recommended for provisioning. However, if that file system was manually unmounted after it was first detected by IBM Spectrum Control, the provisioning action will fail. An unmounted file system cannot be used for provisioning. To avoid this issue, ensure that the monitored file systems on the Storwize V7000 Unified storage system are mounted before you run the provisioning action.

A new IBM SONAS fileset might be mistakenly deleted

The fileset information was deleted in the other system before the new fileset with the existing ID was created.

If IBM Spectrum Control discovers a new IBM SONAS fileset, the ID of a deleted file set might be reused for the new file set. If you delete the older fileset in IBM Spectrum Control, the new file set is deleted instead. This issue occurs in the following circumstances:

A file set that is known to IBM Spectrum Control is deleted in a system other than IBM Spectrum Control.
IBM Spectrum Control retained the deleted file set information, either because the probe was not run after the file set was deleted or because the retention period of the file set has not expired.

The file set information was deleted in the other system before the new fileset with the existing ID was created.

The change password tool cannot restart the Device server  

When you run the change password tool, the following message is displayed:
There was an error restarting the Device server. Restart the server manually.

To manually start the Device server, follow these steps:

On Windows operating systems:

At the command prompt, go to the TPC_installation_directory\scripts directory.
Run the stopTPCDevice.bat command.
Run the startTPCDevice.bat command.

On AIX® or Linux operating systems:

At the command line, go to the TPC_installation_directory/scripts directory.
Run the ./stopTPCDevice.sh command.
Run the ./startTPCDevice.sh command.

Running multiple optimization recommendations at the same time results in a Pool Exhaustion Exception error  

In some cases, running more than 15 optimization recommendations at the same time can cause one or more of the individual recommendation executions to result in a Pool Exhaustion Exception error. This can be caused by a lack of available resources in the operating system thread pool. You can manually complete the failed recommendations.

If this situation occurs frequently, contact IBM Support for assistance in reducing the number of concurrently running optimization recommendations.
 

Changing an existing NetApp filer that uses a Storage Resource agent to use NAPI 

You cannot change an existing NetApp filer that is managed by using a Storage Resource agent to be directly managed by using NetApp NAPI-based management. If you want to change from using a Storage Resource agent to NAPI for your existing NetApp filers, you must add the filers to IBM Spectrum Control again. Specify the NetApp credentials when you add the filer.

IBM Spectrum Control determines that the NetApp resource is already monitored. IBM Spectrum Control modifies the data source information so that the NetApp filer data is retrieved directly from the NetApp itself rather than from the Storage Resource agent.

Setting the rate at which data is copied between volumes that run IBM Spectrum Virtualize

IBM Spectrum Control can do tasks that significantly alter the structure of storage. For example, IBM Spectrum Control can add a mirrored volume copy, or migrate volumes from one pool to another by using storage optimization functions. When IBM Spectrum Control performs these tasks, a default synchronization rate of 100% is set.

For more information about how to change the synchronization rate, see the "Changing the synchronization rate for volumes on SAN Volume Controller or Storwize family systems"  http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS5R93_5.3.0/com.ibm.spectrum.sc.doc/tbs_svc_setting_sync_rate.html.

Linux SRA Probes hang and remain "In Progress" forever

SRA probes run Logical Volume Manager (LVM) commands and these can hang causing the entire SRA to hang and appear to be "In Progress" indefinitely.  

To verify that this is the situation causing the hang, view the SRA trace log on the SRA Deployment and verify that the last command was an LVM one.

To recover from this:
Kill the hung SRA process
Kill the hung LVM command
From a command line, retry the LVM command and verify that it runs successfully. If it does not, use the LVM documentation to repair the LVM so that it does.  
Restart the SRA
You can follow the progress of the APAR related to this issue here:  http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1IT15105

Spectrum Control may report incorrect vmdk size and incorrect capacity of VM.

Spectrum Control persists the relation between a vmdk and vmdisk, restricting the relation to vmdisk <-> current vmdk file. The current vmdk file has an aggregate size which includes the sizes of snapshots up to the current vmdk file. Spectrum Control associates the latest running delta file with vmdisk, hence Spectrum Control may report the size smaller than actual size of the vmdisk if there are newer snapshots (which are not included in the current vmdk size).

Installation, upgrade, and configuration for Saving custom reports to file systems on remote servers
The machine on which the Web server component was installed and runs must be able to access the remote or shared file system that is specified for saving custom reports.
To make file systems on a server available to remote clients, they must be mounted as a CIFS export on Windows operating systems or as an NFS export on UNIX or Linux operating systems. On Windows operating systems, the file system must be mounted as the local system user or from a service that is running under the local system account so that it is visible to all logon sessions. One way of mapping a drive as the local system user is to map the drive from a psexec command window. The psexec command window is available as part of the Sysinternals command-line tools for Windows operating systems.

RHEL known issues with fprintd-pam module (fingerprint authentication module)

Export Performance Data Tool  

The output format from the exportPerformanceData Script has changed with this release. To minimize the impact of this and all future output format changes,  users of the CSV files are encouraged to parse the column headers they are interested in.

 

EMC support issues

In 5.2.14 and later, you can view more information about the capacity, space usage, and performance of EMC™ storage systems. However, keep in mind the following issues for EMC support:

On the details page for an EMC storage system, duplicate NAS nodes might be displayed if the EMC's NAS Servers support both NFS and CIFS protocols. This issue occurs because each protocol represents a node. For example, on the same NAS server, if nas1451 supports NFS and NAS1451 supports CIFS protocols, two node entries are displayed on the details page for the storage system.

Information about both FC and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) ports are returned when FC ports are probed.

VNXe:
Thin-provisioned volumes: The value for allocated space is incorrect.
Total or available capacity values of each storage tier in a storage pool are incorrect.

VNX:
Thin pools: The value for physical allocated space is incorrect.
File system pools are not displayed.
Total or available capacity values of each storage tier in a storage pool are incorrect.
Disk and volume response times and utilization percentages: The displayed values for these metrics are higher than their actual value.
 
VMAX3:
Available pool space or any allocated capacity values are always 0.
All aggregated volume capacity values are 0 because of the missing relationship between pools and volumes.
Mappings of volume to pool and volume to disk are not displayed.

Reporting: In Cognos Analytics, pre-defined reports might not be available for EMC storage systems.

 

Language Related issues

Changing language in web browser doesn't change the entire Spectrum Control GUI

When the WebSphere Liberty Profile (WLP) is running in another language, other than English, the user can not change the Spectrum Control GUI to English.  However, it can be changed to any language other than English (the default language) and some fields in the Spectrum Control GUI are displayed in an incorrect language.  

The work around is to modify the WLP language to English:

1. Stop the Spectrum Control web server
2. Navigate to:
  <TPC_install_location>\wlp\usr\servers\webServer\
3 Edit jvm.options file, and add these lines:
  -Duser.language=en
  -Duser.region=GB
4. Start the web server
5. Open the web browser, set the language in the browser, and open the Spectrum Control GUI.
6. (optional) Confirm the changes were made by viewing log file.
Navigate to <TPC_install_location>\wlp\usr\servers\webServer\logs\
Open the console.log file, the content should be in English.

 

Cognos Analytics

GPFS/GSS/Spectrum Scale is not supported in Cognos Analytics

GPFS/GSS/Spectrum Scale™ file systems are not correctly represented in Cognos reports and are not supported in Cognos.

Information is not collected about NFS and CIFS exports that are defined on a GPFS/GSS/Spectrum Scale clusters.

Links to Help in Spectrum Control 5.3.0 predefined reports launch the public Spectrum Control Knowledge Center

When using the Cognos Analytics User Interface to generate Spectrum Control predefined reports, the Help link will launch the public Spectrum Control Knowledge Center.  The system running Cognos Analytics will need access to the internet in order to get to the Knowledge Center.  Alternatively, you can access the online help in the Spectrum Control GUI and navigate to the help information for reports.

Migrating Cognos BI reports with schedules from Tivoli Common Reporting to IBM Cognos Analytics
To export schedules with your Cognos BI reports content from Tivoli Common Reporting, follow these steps:
On the Select the public folders content page, select Include schedules.
Set Conflict resolution to Replace existing entries.
Click Next.
To import the report content and the schedules into IBM Cognos Analytics, follow these steps:
On the Select the public folders, directory, and library content page, select the items to import.
Select Include schedules.
Set Conflict resolution to Replace existing entries.
Click Next.
The results of importing the reports and schedules into IBM Cognos Analytics contain the following similar messages:
CM-REQ-4328 A problem was encountered while importing the object "/content/folder[@name="IBM Spectrum Control Predefined Reports"]/ folder[@name="Servers"]/report[@name="Servers Capacity"]/schedule". CM-REQ-4329 The following references cannot be resolved and were cleared: "credential: CAMID("VMMProvider:smadmin")/credential[@name=’Credential ’] ".
CM-REQ-4328 A problem was encountered while importing the object "/content/folder[@name="IBM Spectrum Control Predefined Reports"]/ folder[@name="Servers"]/report[@name="Servers Capacity"]/ schedule[@name="2018-04-27T18:03:22.638Z"]". CM-REQ-3282 The schedule will not run because the credential is missing.
You can safely ignore the messages as they are expected.
After you import the report content and schedules into IBM Cognos Analytics, the schedules will not run due to missing credentials.
To update the schedules in IBM Cognos Analytics with the correct credentials, follow these steps:

1. Open a web browser and enter either of the following URLs:
     http://FQDN_Of_Your_Machine :port/ b i
          Or
          https: / /FQDN_Of_Your_Machine:port/bi
    Where http or https are protocols, FQDN_Of_Your_Machine is your fully qualified domain name (for example, myserver.mycompany.com), and the port value is the value where Cognos Analytics is listening for communication. The default port value is 9300.

2. On the IBM Cognos Analytics Welcome page, click Team content.
3. Select a report that has an existing schedule.
4. Select the Properties for the report.
5. Select the Schedule tab.
6. Select the > icon to open the schedule.
7. Click Update on the schedule page.

Repeat steps 3 - 7 for each migrated report whose schedule you want to run in IBM Cognos Analytics.

 

Documentation updates and Corrections

There are no documentation updates or corrections at this time.

 

Browser issues

Browser displays a security certificate error 

Some browsers will display: "There is a problem with this website's security certificate."  when you log in to IBM Spectrum Control. To continue to the GUI, click "Continue to this website" and you will be returned to the previous page.  This behavior does not occur on all browsers.