Tracking Statistics

How to view statistics

Using the stats commands, you can view system statistics to track performance. The stats command is not specific to CIFS-related statistics. The two stats commands that output statistics data are stats show (for real-time statistical data and stats stop (when you are tracking statistics over a range of time). (Note that the cifs stats command is still available.)

The statistics displayed by the stats command are accumulated in counters. You reference a specific counter using a hierarchical name with components, object_name:instance_name:counter_name, for example, a counter might be named system:system:cifs_ops. You can use the stats list command to determine the object_names, instance_names and counter_names available on your storage system.

Tracking statistics over a range of time

The output of the stats show command provides data describing the storage system at the moment you issued the command. To track statistics over time, use the stats start command to mark the beginning of the time period you want to track, and the stats stop command to mark the end of the time period for which you want to collect statistical data. Data ONTAP outputs the collected data as soon as you enter the stats stop command.

Tracking multiple statistics over different time ranges

Data ONTAP allows you to use the stats start and stats stop command to track different statistics concurrently. To do this, you can enter an instance (-i) argument with the stats start and stats stop commands.

For more information about usage and syntax, see the stats(1) man page.

To view a list of statistics you can track, complete the following steps:

Step	Action
1	Enter the following command, to view a list of objects that are tracked by the `stats` command: stats list objects Data ONTAP returns a list of objects you can view using the `stats show` object_name command.
2	Enter the following command, to view a list of statistics instances: stats list instances Data ONTAP returns a list of instances you can view using the `stats show` command. You can use these instances to focus the output of the `stats show` command.
3	Enter the following command, to view a list of statistics counters: stats list counters Data ONTAP returns a list of counters you can view using the `stats show` command.
4	Enter the following command to receive a description of all counters, instances, or objects: stats explain counters Data ONTAP returns a description of all counters, instances, and objects you can use to focus the output of the `stats show` command.

Once you know the objects, instances, and counters you can monitor to track individual statistics, you can use them as command line arguments to focus the output of the cifs show command. For more information, see the stats(1) man page.

How to view specific statistics

To view statistics for individual objects, instances, and counters, perform the following step:

Step	Action
1	Enter the following command: *stats show [[<object_name>][:<instance_name>][:<counter_name>]]* Data ONTAP returns the specific statistics you request.

Saving and reusing statistics queries

You can store and reuse "preset" statistics queries you commonly perform. Preset queries are stored in XML files, in the following location and naming format:

/etc/stats/preset/preset_name.xml

For information about how to store and reuse queries, see the stats_preset(5) man page.