Storage Wisdom!

Fingers Crossed!

Once you have installed Tivoli Storage Productivity Center (TPC) a few times you are used to holding your breath and crossing your fingers in order to help the install go through error free.  However there are a few more scientific ways of helping the install complete successfully.

For those that are new to TPC there are several components that need to be installed in the right order.  These components and the order of install are:

1. DB2 database server
2. Agent Manager
3.  TPC DB Schema
4. TPC server and client components

The most painful step of the install in my experience is the second step, the installation of the Agent Manger.

Below are several tips to ease the installation process:

1. Agent manager fails to install with return code 2 and no other information

Often the installation of the Agent Manager will begin then bomb out with a very vague message such as a “Return Code 2″.  I am not sure what causes this but it has always occurred when logged into the TPC server as a domain admin.  The solution has always been to login as a local admin (db2admin will work as it gets created during DB2 install).

2. Agent manager install on a 64bit DB2 database server.

The Agent manager supports both 32-bit and 64-bit DB2 database server.  However the install wizard for the Agent Manager needs some spoon feeding to install on the 64-bit version.  If you just select the option in the wizard to install onto a 64-bit DB2 server you will get an error stating that the DB2 database on localhost is not responding.  The solution is to manually create the IBMCDB database manually before running the wizard.  The process is described in the IBM manuals:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v4r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.tpc_V41.doc/fqz0_t_installing_the_agent_manager_64bit_DB2_unix_gui.html

3. Install of TPC 4.1.1 DB schema fails with UTIL_HEAP_SZ errors

I have experienced a problem when installing the TPC database schema (step 3 in the process) where the install fails and there are messages in the <TPC install location>\log\dbSchema\install\dbSchemaInstall.log mentioning that UTIL_HEAP_SZ has run out of space.

UTIL_HEAP_SZ is a DB2 parameter.  This parameter indicates the maximum amount of memory that can be used simultaneously by the BACKUP, RESTORE, and LOAD utilities.

The solution that I found was to increase this parameter while the install process was underway (you can’t do it before hand as the TPCDB database doesn’t exist).  Below are the steps I used:

1. Start the TPC setup wizard and select a custom install and only install the DB Schema

2. While the install is running perform the following steps

3. Open the DB2 “Command Line Processor” This sets the environment for your command session.

4. Quit out of the “Command Line Processor” but keep the window open.

5. Enter the following commands:

db2 connect to tpcdb user <db2 username eg db2admin> using <password>

db2 update db cfg for tpcdb using util_heap_sz 524288

6. You can check that the setting has taken by using:

db2 get db cfg for tpcdb

7. Keep checking the parameter during the install because sometimes the setting seems to get changed automatically.

Hope someone finds these tips useful.  Happy installing!

I am currently working on a large study considering backup and storage strategy for a government organisation.  In doing this we needed to get some performance information from their SAN.  The challenge was to monitor the disk systems (EMC CX3-40 Clariion) with TPC 4.1.  I have happily done this before with IBM/engenio storage but not EMC.  But after a day of reading up and config it was up and working.  Here are some notes on what I did.

1. Downloaded several versions of the SMIS Provider and Solutions enabler from the EMC Power link site.  The latest version (SE 7 SMIS 4) of the Solutions Enabler changes the CIM server setup and uses something called ECOM (EMC Common Object manager).  I found that this version wasn’t compatible with TPC so I used an older version that uses our old friend the pegasus CIM server code!  the version I ended up with was SE 6.5.2.xxx and SMIS Provider 3.2.2

2. Install the Solution Enabler (the SMIS Provider gets installed at the same time if you download the combined code bundle from power link).

3. go to c:\program files\EMC\SYMCLI\storbin and run testsmiprovider.  take the default prompts (for host, port, username and password etc).

4.  run command dv to check you are not getting any errors (i had some weird 401 authorisation errors at one point and had to turn CIM authorisation off).

5. to add the Clariion for monitoring use the command addsys put in the IP address of the clariion along with the Clariion username and password and sit back (it should return 0 and list the device added).  If it returns an error it probably means you have the wrong version of the Solutions Enabler/SMIS Provider  – at this point read the manual and get the right version.

6. run dv again and you should see the firmware level of the Clariion listed – this shows that the device is being monitored by the SMIS Provider

7. All that remains is to add the CIMOM to the TPC server.  Do this by navigating to Administrative Services -> CIMOM Discovery.  Click add, then fill in the details.  I used /interop as the interoperability namespace (older versions of the SMIS Provider use /root/pg_interop).  I didn’t include a CIM username and password as by default it will accept CIM requests over http (port 5988) without authentication.

once those steps are complete you can run a probe of the CIM agent and find the storage system.  After that performance monitoring awaits you!!

Useful links for more info:

TPC 3.3.x hints and tips ( i couldn’t find a TPC 4.1 Hints and Tips doc)

EMC SMIS Provider 3.2.2

I have been setting up TPC 4.1 for a customer over the past few days.  The install went fine and monitoring of DS4000, SVC was very easy.  I then came to the DS8100 and found I had to fiddle about before I could monitor it within TPC.  This was mainly down to the pegasus CIM agent that resides on the HMC (DS8000 management server).  I wrote some notes of the process of getting the CIM agent configured for use in TPC.  I thought I would share them:

The following steps were taken when enabling the CIM agent for DS8000

1. Enable CIM agent on HMC
2. Check admin password on the DS Storage Manager Software on the HMC
3. Installing the DSCIMCLI on the TPC server
4. Configuring the CIM agent on the HMC
5. Adding CIM agent to TPC
6. Discovering managed devices

1. Enable CIM agent on HMC
Log call with IBM.  They will enable the pegasus CIM agent on the HMC (this involves firewall changes).  For more info on the process see here – http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7001583&aid=1 (DS Open Application Programming Interface Reference).

It is also useful to open a terminal session on the HMC and run the netstat –a | grep LISTEN to see the ports that are used by the CIM.  The ports used will either be 6989 ot 5989.  Check which ones are used as you will need the information later.

2. Check admin password on the DS Storage Manager Software on the HMC
Go to http://<hmc ip address>:8451/DS8000/Login  in a browser
login with admin (default password admin, it will prompt you to change it). 

3. Installing the DSCIMCLI on the TPC server
Go to http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&uid=ssg1S4000557 and pick the download link for the ZIP file of the DSMCIMCLI utility.

Unzip the file into a sensible location (in this example we will use d:\utils\IBMCLI\)

Add the bin folder to the path (edit the window envrionment variable PATH and add d:\utils\IBMCLI\w2003\bin)

Add a new environment variable called DSAGENT_HOME and point it to d:\utils\IBMCLI\w2003

Open a command prompt and type:
dsmcimcli -help
 
this will give you all the help text for the command.

4. Configuring the CIM agent on the HMC
The config work is all done through the DSCIMCLI on the TPC server.  You can’t manage the CIM locally to the HMC.  First list the devices being managed by the CIM:

Dscimcli –s https://<hmc ip address>:6989 –u superuser:passw0rd lsdev -l

Type  IP              IP2             Username
===== =============== =============== =========

This shows no devices being managed.
To add devices use the following command:

dscimcli -s https://<hmc ip address>:6989 -u superuser:passw0rd mkdev <hmc ip address> -type ds -user admin -password <stg mgmr password>
Device successfully added.

Where:
-u superuser:passw0rd = the CIM agent username and password (not HMC or the storage manager password)

-user admin -password <stg mgmr password> = the Storage Manager username and password (see step 2 for details)

When you repeat the lsdev command you will see the following:

Type  IP              IP2             Username
===== =============== =============== =========
DS    10.20.30.40    -               admin
5. Adding CIM agent to TPC

Within TPC navigate to Administrative Services -> Data Sources -> CIMOM Agents

Click “Add CIMOM”

Fill in the details as below:

The CIMOM will appear on the list.

6. Discovering managed devices
Once the CIMOM is added we need to discover the devices that it is managing.  With the TPC GUI navigate to Administrative Services ->Discovery.  Right click on “CIMOM” and select “Run Now”.  Monitor the job and the logs, you should see the logs detail that the DS8000 being discovered.

Hope that is useful to someone…