The Administrator Overview screen is the first in the series of screens that can be used to monitor the NearStore VTL appliance. It is also the most important of the monitoring screens because it is the most generalized, providing information on the many aspects of the system.

It also provides the most-recent required actions and event log entries, as well as links to both the Actions Required and Event Log screens. In this way, the Administrator Overview screen is the central place from which you can monitor the NearStore VTL appliance.

From the Daily Tasks menu, located on the left side of the screen, click Monitoring.

The Administrator Overview screen appears and the following information is provided:

Capacity Allocated—specifies the total capacity of disk space allocated to the system.

Capacity Used—gives the capacity of disk space currently used by the system.

Total Disk Capacity—provides the total capacity of the physical disks that are connected to the system.

Total Virtual Disk Transfer Rate—specifies the current aggregate transfer rate for all physical disk drives that are configured for the system. Clicking this link displays the Statistics screen.

Active Physical Tape Drives—gives the number of physical tape drives that are currently active.

Physical Tape Usage—gives the current aggregate transfer rate for all physical tape drives that are configured for the system.

Actions Required—lists and gives the priority, code, and description of any required actions. This field also provides a link that you can click to acknowledge the action. The Actions Required screen provides a complete list of required actions.

Import/Export Requests—provides a list of the import and export requests. Clicking this link displays the Import/Export screen.

Event Log—displays the most-recent events.

This includes a link (Complete Event Log) which, when selected, provides access to the complete the NearStore VTL event log.

The Actions Required screen lists all system events requiring user action—an action, and provides the interface for you to resolve or acknowledge the actions.

Resolving an action means that the problem that generated the action has been resolved. Acknowledging an action lets the system know that you are aware of it. This, however, does not resolve the action.

There is also a corresponding Action Required icon that appears in the upper-right portion of the interface and flashes when there is a required action. As long as there is an unresolved action displayed on the Actions Required screen, this icon appears in the interface. If you have acknowledged each of the actions listed, or if there are no outstanding actions to be performed, the icon does not flash.

Clicking this icon displays the task that is required for resolving the action.

From the Daily Tasks menu, located on the left side of the screen, click Monitoring > Actions Required.

The Actions Required screen appears and the following information is provided:

Action—names the required action and provides a link that, when selected, displays the task appropriate for resolving the required action.

Priority—lists the priority of the action.

Code—gives the code of the action. The first digit of the code corresponds to the Status Indicator light displayed in the upper portion of the NearStore VTL interface: 1 = Good (green status), 2 = Warning (yellow status), and 3 = Error (red status).

Description—provides a description of the action that is required.

Age—specifies the elapsed time since the required action was triggered.

Acknowledge—provides a link, that when selected, acknowledges the action. This does not resolve the problem for which the action is required, but lets the system know that you are aware of it.

See the NearStore VTL Action Code reference for detailed descriptions of action codes.

You can use the Statistics screen to monitor specific I/O statistics for both the physical and virtual devices that are in use by the NearStore VTL appliance.

For example, you can check the amount of disk space currently allocated to and used by a specific virtual library. This screen also provides the type of virtual tape drives that are being used by the virtual library. This information is helpful in determining the state of the virtual library, including its compatibility with other virtual and physical media, based on the type of virtual tape drive being used.

From the Daily Tasks menu, located on the left side of the screen, click Monitoring > Statistics.

The Statistics screen appears. This screen is divided into three sections: Virtual Library I/O Load, Physical Disk I/O Load, and Physical Tape Device I/O Load.

Virtual Library I/O Load:

Library—gives the name of the virtual library.

Allocated—specifies the amount of disk space that is allocated to the virtual library.

Used—gives the total amount user data stored on the virtual tapes associated with the virtual library.

Data Written—provides the total amount of user data stored on the virtual tape.

Drive—provides the number of virtual tape drives in the virtual library.

Tape Label—if a virtual tape is currently loaded in the virtual tape drive, the NearStore VTL displays the label of the virtual tape. If there is no virtual tape loaded, the NearStore VTL displays 000.

Mode—specifies the mode of the virtual tape drive. Valid modes are:

IO/Sec—provides the total number of operations per second for the drive.

MB/Sec—provides the data rate in megabytes per second for the drive.

Used—gives the amount of user data stored on the virtual tape loaded in the virtual tape drive.

Active Disk—specifies the disk from which the host is either reading or writing data.

RAID Group I/O Load:

Drive—provides the name of the back-end physical disks in the RAID group.

Capacity—specifies the capacity each disk.

Used—gives the amount of disk space that is currently used.

System Overhead—specifies the amount of disk space being used for system overhead.

IO/Sec—provides the number of operations per second for the disk.

MB/Sec—provides the data rate in megabytes per second for the disk.

Active Streams—specifies the number of streams between hosts and the disk. A stream is created when a host either writes data to or reads data from a virtual tape (disk).

Disk Status—provides the status of the disk. Valid disk states are:

Physical Tape Device I/O Load:

Drive—gives the name of the physical tape drive.

Tape—provides the barcode of the physical tape that is currently loaded in the drive.

MB/Sec—specifies the transfer rate of the physical tape drive.

You can use the Import/Export Requests screen as a central place to monitor all of the import and export requests. This includes the status of any given import/export request, which can include possible issues that must be resolved before the import or export can continue.

From the Daily Tasks menu, located on the left side of the screen, click Monitoring > Import/Export Requests.

The Import/Export Requests screen appears and the NearStore VTL displays the following information:

Tape—specifies the name of the tape that is required.

Requester—gives the name of the account that requested the volume.

Library—specifies the name of the virtual library.

Age—provides the length of time since the request was issued.

Status—gives the state of the import/export request. Valid states are:

In addition to monitoring import/export requests, you can select one of the following:

Direction—if import is selected, the data will be imported from the physical tape to the virtual library. If export is selected, the data will be exported from the virtual library to the physical tape.

Delete Request—if cancel request is selected, the request will be canceled and deleted. If the request has been completed, click acknowledge.

You can use the Event Log screen to monitor the complete list of historical events for the NearStore VTL. These events are useful in determining both the current and past states of the NearStore VTL appliance.

Event log information includes the time and code of the specified event. The most-recent event log entries are also available from the Administrator Overview screen. The upper right portion of the screen displays the time at which the data was last updated. You can update the data by refreshing the browser. If you do not have a disk connected to the back-end of NearStore VTL, the event log can only contain 1KB of data before NearStore VTL starts to overwrite earlier data.

From the Daily Tasks menu, located on the left side of the screen, click Monitoring > Event Log.

The Event Log screen appears and the following information is provided:

Time—specifies the time at which the NearStore VTL detected the event.

Code—gives the code for the event.

Description—provides a description of the event.

Click Last Page to move to the bottom of the listing. After navigating within the list, you also see Next Page and Previous Page, that you can use to move to the next page and previous pages. By default, SCSI-related messages are not listed. You can switch between whether SCSI messages are included or not by clicking Show SCSI Messages and Hide SCSI Messages.