HP MSA P2000 Management Pack – Yes it also monitors performance

NOTE: This Management Pack has been updated. Information and download location can be found here.

 

It happens so that our company needed to know what is going on with our low-end storage devices. We wanted to monitor performance. But this is low-end storage, there is no way to monitor performance. Oh  but there is a way…

If you answer all three questions Yes then this MP is for you:

1. I am using HP MSA P2000 Storage
2. I have SCOM 2007 or 2012
3. I want to monitor storage performance

How it Works and what it is capable off

OK first things first. Lets let’s look at the views which Contains logical structure of controllers, ports, vdisks and volumes:

You can view multiple performance counters for controllers, Ports, vDisks and Volumes. There is also option to monitor performance on per physical disk basis but this is turned off by default but Still override is possible.

For example if we want to see Average response time for vDisk we can select vDisk we are interested in and data is displayed as follows:

If you are still interested I can further explain how this MP actually works. There is HP tool which can pool MSA storage. It generates xml files and MP is driven by PS scripts which gather data collected from this xml files.

Basically what you will need is server which will pull data from your MSA storage devices. This server must have SCOM agent installed. I suppose you might be deployed on Management server (MS), but I never tested it on MS so I cannot vouch for that.

OK it is time to get our hands dirty.

How to deploy this MP

1. Log on to SCOM Agent Server which will gather XML files
2. Under HKLM insert registry key: SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Hewlett-Packard\MonitorMSAP2000isInstalled
3. WARNING: Modifying REGISTRY settings incorrectly can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the configuring of REGISTRY settings can be solved. Modifications of these settings are at your own risk.Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs.
4. Preparing Agent to Collect XML Data from SCOM:

• Download HP P2000 MSA Performance Tool from Here
• Copy downloaded files on Server:

libiconv-2_.dll
libxml2-2_.dll
libz_.dll
msacli.exe

• In folder where MSA Tool was installed create XML file with name: get_astat.xml and put following code into it:

<msacommandlist>
<command>show system</command>
<command>show host-port-statistics</command>
<command>show controller-statistics</command>
<command>show vdisk-statistics</command>
<command>show volume-statistics</command>
<command>show disk-statistics</command>
</msacommandlist>

• Create Batch File for each MSA Storage

C:\SCOM_Perf\msacli\msacli.exe” -ip 10.15.16.17 -user monitor -pass pwd -cmdfile “C:\SCOM_Perf\msacli\get_astat.xml” -outdir “C:\perf\MSAfriendlyName1” -format xml:verbose -noConsole -fwVersion false -errFileName staterrormsg.txt
Exit

• Save Batch files under: C:\SCOM_Perf\msacli\CMDScripts Folder
• Prepopulate folders for each MSA Storage. For example if you have three storage systems create folder structure:

C:\perf\MSAfriendlyName1
C:\perf\MSAfriendlyName2
C:\perf\MSAfriendlyName3

• Create Another Batch file which will Call above mentioned Batch file-s with a name: get_HP-P2000_G3.cmd and save it in folder with other scripts. For example:

start C:\SCOM_Perf\msacli\CMDScripts\MSAfriendlyName1.cmd
start C:\SCOM_Perf\msacli\CMDScripts\MSAfriendlyName2.cmd
start C:\SCOM_Perf\msacli\CMDScripts\MSAfriendlyName3.cmd

• Create a Schedule task which will call get_HP-P2000_G3.cmd script every 2 minutes. You can also run this in elevated mode and task will be created:

schtasks /create /tn GET_P2000_SCOM /tr “C:\SCOM_Perf\msacli\CMDScripts\get_HP-P2000_G3.cmd” /sc minute /mo 2 /ru SCH.MSAdataForSCOM /rp SetComplexP@$$word!!!

5. Once script starts to gather XML files we can proceed with standard Management Pack Import.

 

This is it. After a while data should Visible in SCOM..

Happy SCOMing,

Jure

 

Still not working? Check these notes:

Note1: You can also create just one Batch script and run it in a Schedule. But we decided to separate them se we do not have to rebuild schedule task each time new MSA Storage arrives.

NOTE2: This is where SCOM will look for data. If folder already exists it should be renamed. Data for each MSA instance must be saved in separate folder under C:\Perf

 For Example:

C:\Perf\MSAfriendlyName1
show__controller_statistics.xml
show__disk_statistics.xml
show__host_port_statistics.xml
show__system.xml
show__vdisk_statistics.xml
show__volume_statistics.xml

C:\Perf\MSAfriendlyName2
show__controller_statistics.xml
show__disk_statistics.xml
show__host_port_statistics.xml
show__system.xml
show__vdisk_statistics.xml
show__volume_statistics.xml

NOTE3: If you are having problems you might want to check: if msacli.exe, get_astat.xml and Batch Scripts are correctly called by Task or other CMDs.

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