Richard J Anderson

One of the features that has been added to Analyzer (Navisphere and Unisphere) in recent versions is the ability to search for specific LUNs based on criteria.  This feature is actually pretty powerful because the criteria itself is pretty flexible.  For example, you can search for all LUNs attached to a specific host, or with a specific set of characters in the LUN name.  In addition you can search against performance metrics like Throughput, Response Time, or LUN Utilization.  This is where it gets interesting because you can look for poorly performing LUNs really quickly.  In the following example, I am going to build a search that looks for LUNs that have EX in the name (since all of my Exchange server LUNs have EX in the name) that ALSO have high LUN utilization for several polling intervals.

Once you’ve launched Analyzer and opened an Archive, click on the binocular icon in the tool bar to bring up the search dialog. 

You can choose a predefined search (a search you previously created and saved) or a new Object Based Query.  In this example we are going to build a new query so select “Object Based Query” and choose All LUNs in the drop down box.  If you wanted, you could narrow down the search to just Pool Based LUNs, just MetaLUNs, or Component LUNs, etc.)

Next we’ll define the LUN criteria by selecting the Name property, choosing Contains, and entering the “EX” value.  This will filter the search to only those LUNs that have EX in the name.  Finally we’ll set a threshold.  In this example, I’m looking for LUNs that have a LUN Utilization value over greater than 90% for at least 10 polling samples.  I could add more LUN criteria and/or more thresholds to further narrow down the results with AND or OR combinations.

Optionally, you can save the query so that it will be listed in the “Predefined Query” list in the future.  Click Search and set or edit the name of the search.

After clicking OK, Analyzer will create a new tab and populate the results of the search.  Once the search is complete you can graph metrics for the LUNs like normal.  Here I’ve selected Utilization to show why this LUN matched the search criteria — note the high utilization between 2am and 7am.

You can get much more granular with your searches if you are looking for something specific, or use metrics like Response Time to look for poorly performing LUNs attached to a specific server.  It’s pretty flexible.  I started using the search feature recently and thought others might be interested in it.  Try it out and let me know what you think.