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EMC Ionix ControlCenter (formerly EMC ControlCenter) 6.0 StorageScope

Best Practices Planning

Abstract

This white paper provides advice and information on practices that will enhance the flexibility of the reporting and monitoring of StorageScope™ data in EMC ControlCenter® 6.0. Topics include importing Crystal Reports and customizing queries.

Note: EMC ControlCenter is now part of the EMC® Ionix® Family. For the purpose of this white paper, we will continue to utilize the term EMC ControlCenter.

June 2009

Copyright © 2008, 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Part Number H4154.1

EMC Ionix ControlCenter (formerly EMC ControlCenter) 6.0 StorageScope Best Practices Planning 2

Table of Contents Executive summary ............................................................................................4 Introduction.........................................................................................................4

Audience ...................................................................................................................................... 4 StorageScope authorization ..............................................................................4 The Dashboard....................................................................................................5 SRM views .........................................................................................................12 Reports ..............................................................................................................14

Built-in reports............................................................................................................................ 14 Custom reports .......................................................................................................................... 19 Report groups and scheduling................................................................................................... 20

Query Builder ....................................................................................................25 Repository access ............................................................................................35 Conclusion ........................................................................................................43


Executive summary StorageScope™, an integral part of the EMC ControlCenter® family of storage resource management (SRM) software, is an SRM analytics and reporting application. StorageScope 6.0 provides multiple reporting methods for data analysis, each targeted to a specific user role. This tiered approach makes it easier to analyze the data using a common product interface, while still providing a flexible architecture for customized reporting solutions StorageScope provides the following ways of accessing data. This white paper will explain the technical details so that you can fully utilize StorageScope’s rich feature set. • Dashboard: Provides an at-a-glance view of your environment, with “top 10” lists about resource

usage and an enterprise summary. Administrators may also customize the Dashboard’s layout and add their own custom snapshots.

• Views: Present high level views of managed resources in your environment and their usage. You can also drill down from the enterprise level to the device level for detailed information about specific objects.

• Built-in and Custom reports: Provide reports that can be scheduled to run, collated in groups, and distributed to shared folders, emailed, or displayed within StorageScope. Several output formats are available.

• Query Builder: Generate custom database queries using a wizard-based SQL query builder. Queries allow custom joins and calculated columns to meet most customization needs. Queries may be presented as point-in-time displays of SRM data or as historical trending reports. Queries may be output to several output formats. There are also many built-in reports included with StorageScope that handle many common SRM monitoring tasks.

• StorageScope Repository: Oracle database storing StorageScope’s SRM data. The StorageScope Repository is open, allowing custom database monitoring

Introduction StorageScope 6.0 has been significantly redesigned and enhanced from previous releases. It now provides a more flexible range of reporting options, including standard, predefined views and reports for the novice user, as well as fully customizable reports and open access to the StorageScope Repository for expert users. This white paper provides examples of the various features and functionality that are new for StorageScope 6.0. It also provides a practical example of utilizing Query Builder for SRM monitoring. Additionally, it contains an example of accessing the StorageScope Repository with Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Query.

Audience The intended audience for this white paper is EMC customers and EMC Sales Representatives.

StorageScope authorization There are two levels of StorageScope user: StorageScope User and StorageScope Administrator. The authorization rules are configured in the ControlCenter Console. The EMC ControlCenter 6.0 Administrator’s Guide has details on configuring and managing ControlCenter users. StorageScope Users have the ability to view reports and views within StorageScope and may also run existing queries from the Query Builder. StorageScope Administrators have full access to all capabilities of the StorageScope application, including the ability to create, modify, schedule, and delete custom reports and queries.


The Dashboard The Dashboard is the initial screen that is displayed when users log in to StorageScope. All users see the same Dashboard. The Dashboard provides high-level charts and tables—referred to as snapshots –containing summary information about the enterprise. Figure 1 on page 5 shows an example of the Dashboard.

Figure 1. StorageScope Dashboard The Dashboard can be customized by a StorageScope Administrator to meet the specific needs of the enterprise. Figure 2 shows the dialog box used to customize the layout of the snapshots in the Dashboard. This is accessed by selecting the Customize... link in the upper-left corner of the Dashboard. Snapshots are selected from the list in the top of the window and moved to one of three columns, and the order of snapshots within each column can be modified.


Figure 2. Customize Dashboard dialog box There are many built-in snapshots provided with StorageScope and additional custom snapshots can be created. Snapshots can only be managed by a StorageScope Administrator by selecting Utilities > Snapshots from the StorageScope navigation menu, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Snapshots The default snapshots mostly consist of “top 10” lists, for example, the 10 Most Configured Arrays. There is also an “enterprise summary” snapshot. To create a custom snapshot, click the Custom Snapshots tab and select Create to open the Create Snapshot dialog box as shown in Figure 4. The snapshot Type can be a Table or Chart. Chart snapshots require a SQL query to extract the information from the StorageScope Repository. The Query Builder, discussed later in this paper, can be used to generate the SQL for the


snapshots. You can also write your own SQL queries against the StorageScope Repository and use them for snapshots. There are two snapshot types: File (plain text) and Other. File snapshots display a plain text file as a snapshot. This is useful for displaying policies or announcements. The Other snapshot type displays the output of a report listing any issues with report jobs, which are discussed later in this paper.

Figure 4. Create Snapshot dialog box

The following example shows how to add a graphical snapshot to the Dashboard view. The default Dashboard view has a switch port summary in the column on the right. Some users might prefer to see this information in a graph or chart. This snapshot can be customized by taking the following steps.

1. Select Customize… to open the Customize Dashboard dialog box.


2. Click Manage Snapshots…

3. Select the Switch Port Summary snapshot and click Copy to open the Copy Snapshot dialog box,

which allows the user to create a modifiable copy of the snapshot.


4. Change the Title of the snapshot to reflect that it will be a chart instead of a table.

5. Change the snapshot Type to Chart. In this example, a pie chart is selected.


6. Select Preview to view the result of the changes. 7. If the results are satisfactory, save the snapshot. The new snapshot appears in the selection list in

the Customize Dashboard dialog box.


8. Insert the column into a Dashboard column. In this example, it is positioned above the switch port summary table in the column on the right.

9. Click OK to return to the Dashboard. The Dashboard will display the new snapshot.


SRM views SRM views are simple, web-based views providing high-level information allowing users to perform initial analysis of managed resources. They provide information at the enterprise or group view, and also provide the ability to drill down to individual objects for more granular information. Historical trending is also provided to assist in analyzing past and future resource usage and growth. Trend analysis and forecasting are helpful with capacity planning for managed objects and applications. In StorageScope, forecasting is based on historical usage, and produces “how many weeks until full” metrics. Views are available to all StorageScope users. There are seven types of views that fall into four categories: Storage, Hosts, Connectivity, and NAS. Figure 5 displays the main SRM Views page.

Figure 5. SRM Views page Views are designed for ease of use, quickly providing important information about all areas of the environment. SRM views are static and cannot be customized. However, their contents can be filtered. For example, the Arrays view allows the user to see the Top 10 Configured Arrays, Top 10 Allocated Arrays, Top 10 Utilized Arrays, 10 Least Utilized Arrays, Arrays Full in 6 Months, or a listing of all Arrays in the enterprise. Enterprise summary views are also provided for each resource type. Figure 6 shows an example of the Arrays view. The top-left portion of the page shows the summary of all arrays in the ControlCenter environment. The trending information is displayed in the top-right portion of the page. The bottom half of the page contains two tabs with metrics about resource usage on arrays: Consumption Details and Reclaimable Capacity.


Figure 6. Arrays view The Consumption Details tab shows information related to the usage capacities on each array such as physical capacity, % raw configured, % raw allocated, and % used accessible. The Reclaimable Capacity tab, shown in Figure 6, displays the amount of storage that can potentially be reclaimed. It shows the storage that is masked but not mapped as well as host accessible capacity that is not being used by file systems, raw databases, Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) volumes, or Raw Device Mappings (RDMs). Brief definitions of each column can be seen by placing the pointer cursor over the column title. The tooltip of the Unused Accessible (GB) column is shown in Figure 6. By selecting an array, the user can drill down for details on the object. For example, selecting CLARiiON array 99-0000-000 produces the detailed information for that specific array, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Array drill down


Reports Reports can be categorized as either Built-in reports or Custom reports. Built-in reports are predefined reports that are provided with StorageScope. StorageScope allows administrators to import Crystal Reports .rpt report templates. Reports can be collated into report groups and can also be scheduled to automatically run. Reports can be output to many formats. Report output files can automatically be sent to a printer or sent to one or more email address(es).

Built-in reports Only StorageScope Administrators can configure Built-in reports. To configure Built-in reports, select Analysis > Reports > Built-in/Custom reports from the StorageScope navigation menu. Numerous Built-in reports are provided, ranging from an enterprise summary report to host and array reports, as well as database and file-level reports. Figure 8 shows the list of Built-in reports.

Figure 8. Built-in Reports tab

To run a Built-in report on demand, select the report name itself or select the box next to the desired report and click the Run Report… button. Built-in reports can be filtered in the resulting Run window shown in Figure 9.


Figure 9. Run “Hosts by Group” window The settings tab allows the user to change the name of the report output as well as choose the output format. Available formats are PDF, XLS, HTML, RTF, and XML. The Filters tab contains different information depending on the type of report selected. This example shows the Hosts By Group report. In this case the Filters tab contains information about user-defined groups, which are created and maintained in the ControlCenter Console, and are frequently used in a nested hierarchies. A top level group could be based on geography (for example, London or Boston). A second level group could be based on department (for example, Sales, HR or Development). The user can select a specific group on which to run the report (such as London) or select a specific department (such as Sales). The user can also select the Group Depth, filtering information to the level for which you want to collect data. Group Depth filtering is applicable where nested groups are present. For example, a London group might contain a Windows Servers group that in turn contains a Sales group.

Note: Refer to the EMC ControlCenter 6.0 Planning and Installation Guide Volume 1 for additional information on how to generate user-defined groups in the console.

Select the Remember these filters checkbox to save the report’s filter configuration; subsequent instances of the report will utilize the same filters by default. StorageScope does not save the output type of a report run on demand; the output type is selected each time a report is run. The default output type is PDF. You can reset the filters by clicking Restore all values.


Figure 10 shows an example of the filters for the Enterprise Summary report. In this report, the user can filter on a specific Array Name, Host Name, Array Type, or Host OS. Again, Built-in reports can be tailored to provide site-specific information. By filtering the Enterprise Summary report, the user can create customized outputs for specific arrays or hosts. For example the user could select array 000190101876 and host ECC52sp4_Template for a report containing information for just those specific arrays and hosts. The user can also select multiple arrays and hosts. The report can also be filtered by Array Type or Host OS. For example a user can select HDS from Array Type to filter the report output to only contain storage information on the HDS arrays from within the ControlCenter environment. The user could also select Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise and Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard to generate a report that would contain only host information on the Windows 2003 hosts in the environment.

Figure 10. Filters for Enterprise report


Once it has been run, the resulting report appears in the Interactive Reports page, accessible from Analysis > Reports > Interactive Reports menu, as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Interactive Reports display The resulting reports can be viewed either by directly selecting the report or selecting the checkbox adjacent to the report and clicking View. All StorageScope Users can view Interactive Reports, but only StorageScope Administrators may delete a report. The StorageScope Administrator should periodically remove draft interactive reports that are on the Interactive Reports page. Figure 12 shows an example of the Hosts By Group report filtered on the London user-defined group. The output type is PDF. Both pages of the report are shown. The output provides subtotals for the HR and Sales subgroups as well as a total for the London group as a whole. It also shows information for the individual members of each group.


Figure 12. Hosts by Group report for London


Custom reports StorageScope Administrators can import Custom reports built in Crystal Reports, a report generation tool available from Business Objects. The resulting .rpt file can then be imported by navigating to Analysis > Reports, selecting the Custom Reports tab, and clicking Import… as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13. Custom Reports tab After clicking Import, the New Custom Report dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 14.

Figure 14. New Custom Report window In this dialog box, the StorageScope Administrator enters a name and description for the Custom report. The path and filename of the custom Crystal Reports .rpt file should be entered in the File Name field. You can also browse to the file. Use the Print Orientation field to select Landscape or Portrait page layout for the report. The Report Groups field displays a listing of report groups to which this report belongs. Report groups are discussed later in this document. Figure 15 shows a StorageScope Administrator browsing to import the C:\ECC\STS500\SrmConsole\CustomReports\London_Hosts.rpt file.


Figure 15. Importing a Custom report Once the custom Crystal Report has been imported, it appears in the Custom Reports list as shown in Figure 16. The StorageScope Administrator can then run the report on demand and view the results in the Interactive Reports section, add it to a report group, and/or schedule the report to run automatically.

Figure 16. Custom Reports tab

Report groups and scheduling Reports created by the StorageScope Administrator can be grouped together into report groups and/or scheduled to run automatically. Report groups are a convenient mechanism for organizing groups of reports that will be used by specific sets of clients, or are central to a set of related management tasks. For example, one could create a report group for an organization’s UNIX system administrators that would contain UNIX system host reports and reports on the disk arrays that support those UNIX systems. When scheduled to run automatically, the resulting report outputs can be generated in multiple output formats and


can automatically be sent directly to a printer or emailed to an individual or group of individuals. This functionality greatly simplifies the process of monitoring resources in the environment. The user must be a StorageScope Administrator to access the Report Group menu. To group multiple reports in a single report group, select Analysis > Reports > Report Groups. Under the Report Groups tab, click Create… to open the new Report Group dialog box as shown in Figure 17. Enter the name for the report group and click OK.

Figure 17. Creating a report group Once the report group is created, the StorageScope Administrator can add reports to the group. Figure 18 shows an example where the London Reports report group has been created and the Arrays by Group and Hosts by Group reports have been selected for addition to it. Custom reports can also be added to the report groups by selecting them from the Custom Reports tab.

Figure 18. Adding reports to a report group


Once the reports have been added, they will show up under the report group. Figure 19 shows that three reports have been added to the London Reports report group. The Arrays by Group and Hosts by Group reports are Built-in reports, and London Custom Report is a Custom report.

Figure 19. Report group members The StorageScope Administrator can schedule individual reports or report groups. To access the scheduler, select Analysis > Reports > Scheduled Report Jobs. Click Create… to create a new Scheduled report job.

Figure 20. Creating a Scheduled report job Figure 20 shows an example of creating a Scheduled report job called London_Reports_daily. Two different output types are shown in this example, File and E-mail. Each Scheduled report job can only have one Output Type. A third Output Type, Printer, also can be configured to send reports directly to networked printers. For an output type of File or E-mail, the following options are available: PDF, XLS, XML, HTML, or RTF. An E-mail Address field is provided to send the reports to specific individuals or


distribution lists. Multiple email addresses can be entered using a semicolon-separated (;) list. The StorageScope Administrator can configure settings for email distribution by selecting Utilities > Settings > Report E-mail Settings. Once the Scheduled report job is created, the StorageScope Administrator can add reports and report groups to the job using the Add Reports dialog box, shown in Figure 21.

Figure 21. Adding reports to a Scheduled report job In this example, the London Reports report group is added to the London_Reports_daily scheduled report job. As can be seen in Figure 19 on page 22, individual Built-in reports and individual Custom reports can also be added to a scheduled report job. Once the reports are added to the scheduled report job, the job can be manually started via the Start button under the Status tab. The Settings tab allows the StorageScope Administrator to change the output format of the job from how it was originally configured in Figure 20. The Schedule tab is used to modify the job’s schedule. Clicking Change… opens the Schedule dialog box, as shown in Figure 22. You can specify up to four separate times to run the report job. In this example the reports will be run at 6:00 A.M. every day of the week and every week of the month.


Figure 22. Report Job Scheduler The final setting that can be configured for a Scheduled report job is the Aggregate Filters. The Aggregate Filters dialog box, shown in Figure 23, allows the StorageScope Administrator to set global filters on all of the reports in the scheduled report group. These filters will override any filters on individual reports. When utilizing filters, a best practice would be to utilize the aggregate filters for the scheduled reports jobs. This will prevent filters on individual reports to affect the scheduled reports. For example, if a Windows system administrator needs an individual report to be run on a specific host, the Hosts Built-in report may be run on demand and filtered to generate an interactive report on that specific host. With Aggregate filters in place, this activity will not affect any of the scheduled reports that may be utilizing the built-in Hosts report.


Figure 23. Aggregate Filters window

Query Builder The Query Builder, new for StorageScope 6.0, is a wizard-based interface to the StorageScope Repository that can be used to generate custom queries to meet your needs. The resulting SQL can be used in any type of client application to query the StorageScope Repository. For example, SQL generated by the Query Builder can be used in Crystal Reports to generate Custom reports and import them into StorageScope as described in an earlier section of this paper. Within the StorageScope user interface, the SQL can be used to build custom snapshots that can then be displayed on the Dashboard, or displayed on their own in a variety of output formats The Query Builder is accessed via the Analysis > Queries menu selection. The main Query Builder page displays a list of existing queries. In addition to user-created queries, there are many predefined queries that are installed with StorageScope. Additionally, several 5.2 StorageScope reports can be imported into StorageScope 6.0 as queries. The EMC ControlCenter 6.0 Release Notes provide instructions on how to import the 5.2 StorageScope reports. Figure 24 shows the main Query Builder page. StorageScope Users are provided the ability to run queries and view the resulting SQL associated with each query. StorageScope Administrators are allowed to perform additional actions including the creation of new queries, modifications to existing queries, or deletion of obsolete queries.


Figure 24. Query Builder When creating a query, the Query Builder guides the StorageScope Administrator through selecting tables and columns within the StorageScope Repository, allows the creation of custom calculated columns, and provides the ability to filter, sort, and total the results. The following example demonstrates how to create a custom query that will report on virtual machines, the ESX Servers that host those machines, the Symmetrix® LUNs on which those machines reside, and also the VMDK files. It also creates and adds a chargeback column that charges each VM based on the VMDK file size and subtotals the chargeback based on a user-defined group, called Department.


From the opening Query Builder display, click the Create… button on the bottom of the screen to begin creating a new query. The first screen that appears is the Define Initial Settings step of the wizard as shown in Figure 25. Provide a name for the query and also select a Query Category. The Query Category is simply a label for the query to assist with organization of the queries. It does not affect the information that is returned by the query. This page also allows the user to select a time period for the data - Current Data or Historical Data. Selecting Current Data will query only the tables containing current data. Selecting Historical Data allows the user to select historical data for trending purposes. Tables that have weekly and monthly metrics associated with them contain historical data that can be used for historical queries. For example, the ArrayMetrics table is linked to the ArrayMetricsWeekly and ArrayMetricsMonthly tables. The EMC ControlCenter 6.0 StorageScope API and Repository Reference Guide has details on which tables within the StorageScope Repository contain historical information.

Figure 25. Step 1: Defining the initial settings


The next step in the wizard, shown in Figure 26, allows the StorageScope Administrator to select the tables from which to collect the information. The window is divided into various areas of interest, such as Hosts, Backup, Connectivity, Applications, Arrays, NAS, and CAS, as well as Custom Fields and Groups. The various lines between the boxes represent internal relationships between these elements within the StorageScope Repository. The complete StorageScope schema is published in the EMC ControlCenter 6.0 StorageScope API and Repository Reference Guide. Only related elements can be selected as certain categories of information are selected; unrelated categories are disabled.

Figure 26. Step 2: Selecting tables


Once the tables are selected, step 3 allows the user to select the individual columns from each of the previously selected tables. This is shown in Figure 27. The last two columns in this query are user-defined fields (UDF), also known as custom fields. Custom fields allow ControlCenter users to associate custom field names and values to objects discovered within ControlCenter. For example, an object can be tagged with asset management information such as location, vendor, lease date, and cost. This information is then accessible in query builder via the UDF columns. In this example, custom fields were created for Location and Department.

Note: For additional information on creating custom fields and assigning values to custom fields, please consult the EMC ControlCenter 6.0 Custom Fields Technical Notes.

Figure 27. Step 3: Selecting columns


To create a column called Chargeback, click the Manage Calculated Columns button. Select the Create a New Column checkbox and give it a name; in this case the column is named Chargeback($). Utilizing the various mathematical functions in the center of the screen, create the necessary expression. In this case, the VM File.VM File Capacity(KB) column is selected and converted to GB. The result is multiplied by 2 to charge $2.00 per GB. Once complete, click Save and then close the window. Figure 28 shows this example in the Query Builder.

Figure 28. Creating a Chargeback column


When the Select Columns window is again displayed, the Chargeback($) column is now available to be added to the query as shown in Figure 29. Highlight the column and click Add > to add the Chargeback($) column to the query. It should be noted that this Chargeback($) column will be available to any query that accesses the VM File table.

Figure 29. Adding the Chargeback($) column to the query


Step 4 allows the user to create filters for the query output. Figure 30 shows that the report will filter on the user-defined group called Location and will therefore only select those hosts that have a Location set to London.

Figure 30. Step 4: Creating a filter


Step 5, shown in Figure 31, shows how the query is sorted and subtotaled. In this example, the query is sorted on the VM Machine.Host System Name column and then on the VM Machine.UDF.Department custom field column. Subtotals are calculated based on the department so that appropriate chargeback numbers will be displayed for each department. Selecting the Show summaries only checkbox limits the output to contain only the subtotal summaries, omitting the detailed rows of the query that make up the subtotals. In this example, the option is not enabled.

Figure 31. Sorting and subtotaling


Step 6 allows the user to limit the number of results that are returned by the query and also limit the amount of time before the query times out. This will prevent the query output from growing too large. By default, these settings are 1000 records and 10 seconds, respectively. Also, the user can set the output format to either Screen, E-mail, or File.

• If Screen is selected, the output is returned in HTML format. • If E-mail or File is selected, the output can be PDF, XML, or CSV.

In this example, shown in Figure 32, the results are being returned to the screen.

Figure 32. Step 6: Configuring the Run Settings


After saving the query, the View SQL and Run Now buttons are available. Clicking Run Now returns the query results to the screen shown in Figure 33. Clicking View SQL displays the query’s SQL statement. The text in the View SQL window can be copied and pasted into other reporting tools or database management applications. It can also be used within StorageScope to create custom snapshots to display information on the StorageScope Dashboard.

Figure 33. Query results for VM Chargeback subtotaled by department

Repository access The StorageScope Repository is an open Oracle database and can be accessed by any Oracle client application. During the installation of StorageScope, a username and password are configured, providing the user credentials to access the database. Oracle Client software is a prerequisite for repository access. EMC ControlCenter Performance Manager installs an Oracle Client.


Once the Oracle Client is installed on a host, various applications on that host such as Oracle Enterprise Manager or Microsoft Excel can utilize it to access the database. The following example uses Microsoft Excel on a Windows XP host and utilizes the Oracle Client installed with EMC ControlCenter Performance Manager. Before accessing the StorageScope Repository, the client software must be configured so that it can communicate with the StorageScope server and database instance. This is configured in the tnsnames.ora file. Figure 34 shows an example of the tnsnames.ora file configured to communicate to a host with an IP address of 158.169.34.115. The name of the connection is lglab115 which, for reference purposes, is the hostname. The StorageScope Repository instance name is represented by the SERVICE_NAME variable, and is always emcstsdb. The Oracle listening port is set to 1521.

Figure 34. tnsnames.ora file

Once the tnsnames.ora file is configured, then an ODBC connection must also be configured. To do this, access the ODBC Data Source Administrator window by selecting Data Sources (ODBC) from the Windows Administrative Tools menu. Under the User DSN tab, click Add… In the Create New Data Source window, select an Oracle driver. Figure 35 shows the Create New Data Source window with the Microsoft ODBC for Oracle driver selected.


Figure 35. Configuring an Oracle ODBC connection

Figure 36. Microsoft ODBC for Oracle Setup After completing the Create New Data Source wizard, the Microsoft ODBC for Oracle Setup window is displayed as shown in Figure 36. Enter the Data Source Name as it will appear in the ODBC Data Source Administrator window, a description for the connection (optional), the user who will connect to the StorageScope Repository, and the Server name that was configured in the tnsnames.ora file (in this example, lglab115). Once this connection has been properly configured, an application like Microsoft Excel can access the StorageScope Repository. From Excel, select Data > Import External Data > New Database Query, as shown in Figure 37.


Figure 37. Database query within Excel The Choose Data Source window will appear when New Database Query… is selected. This window is shown in Figure 38. In this window, select the data source that was previously created, called Custom_STS_Reporting in this example.

Figure 38. Choose Data Source window Once the data source is selected, the Microsoft ODBC for Oracle Connect window, shown in Figure 39, appears. The User Name field will be pre-populated with the user specified when creating the data source. Enter the password that will allow the user to connect to the StorageScope Repository and click OK.


Figure 39. Microsoft ODBC for Oracle Connect If a successful connection to the database is made, the Query Wizard window will appear within Excel, as shown in Figure 40. Figure 40 also shows the resulting Table Options window after clicking the Options button in the Query Wizard. This will allow the user to select only those tables and views owned by the EMCSTS user; these are the tables and views containing ControlCenter StorageScope data.

Figure 40. Query Wizard The Excel Query Wizard allows for simple queries from a single table within the database. A simple example shows the results of selecting various columns from the V_DSS_HOST_FILESYSTEM database view. The results show information such as file system alias, file system total and used amounts, and a usage percentage. This is displayed in Figure 41.


Figure 41. Query results from the V_DSS_HOST_FILESYSTEM database view Note that the host is identified in the results as HOSTKEY. To obtain the actual hostname, a more complicated query that requires a join needs to be used. For more complicated queries that require joins, one must use another application, such as Microsoft Query. Microsoft Query can be launched during the creation of the query with Query Wizard. In the final step, select View data or edit query in Microsoft Query and click Finish, as shown in Figure 42.

Figure 42. Launching Microsoft Query


The result of opening this view in Microsoft Query is seen in Figure 43.

Figure 43. V_DSS_HOST_FILESYSTEM view in Microsoft Query In order to obtain a hostname, the V_DSS_HOST_LIST view needs to be added to the query. To add a table or view to the query, select Table > Add Tables... Select the V_DSS_HOST_LIST view from the list and click OK. It will then appear in Microsoft Query. To create a join within Microsoft Query, highlight the column from one table or view and drag and drop it on the column from the second table or view. In this case, select the HOSTKEY column from V_DSS_HOST_FILESYSTEM and drag and drop it onto HOSTKEY in V_DSS_HOST_LIST. The result is shown in Figure 44.

Figure 44. Joining the two views on HOSTKEY


Finally, to view the hostname itself, select the HOSTNAME column from the V_DSS_HOST_LIST table and drag it to the bottom of the screen. The results are shown in Figure 45.

Figure 45. Adding HOSTNAME to the query result At this point, the query can be returned to Microsoft Excel by selecting File > Return Data to Microsoft Office Excel. Within Excel, the data can be sorted and formatted as desired. Figure 46 shows the results returned to Excel and sorted on the HOSTNAME column.

Figure 46. Data returned to Excel with HOSTNAME


Conclusion EMC StorageScope 6.0 provides a myriad of ways for storage administrators to monitor and report on the managed resources in their environment. In addition to many built-in reporting tools for common monitoring tasks, it also provides several flexible means for storage administrators with site-specific requirements and those working in heterogeneous environments. StorageScope also provides an at-a-glance view of resource usage in the SAN. StorageScope’s open repository allows for advanced database reporting and management capabilities, and its integration with the EMC ControlCenter suite provides unparalleled capabilities for current, point-in-time, and historical trend reporting on your storage environment.


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EMC Ionix ControlCenter (formerly EMC ControlCenter) · PDF fileEMC Ionix ControlCenter (formerly EMC ControlCenter) ... Administrator’s Guide has details on configuring and