I have to say I found it easier (marginally) to use the basic MRTG distribution and copy-in the useful bits from the NOW package - largely because it'd been prepared and tailored a leetle too much in NetApp 8)
I, for example, wanted/needed to run it all on an SGI box, and the precompiled SPARC binaries weren't very useful in this instance (read HP/IBM/Linux/etc. if more apt).
I'll have to do the same thing over again when I get the latest MIB.
I'd kill to get my hands on the proper SNMP tools where I work, as it is I have to work far too hard to work out what variables do what to get even basic info out of any MIB. But that's just a general complaint about SNMP on my part. 8)
MRTG is useful, but it's also very limited. I want to do some graphs which tie together the main characteristics of filer (network use, CPU, NVRAM-cache-flushes, cache-age, NFS-ops, CIFS-ops) on the same graphs - try to do that with just two variables. (Yes some of those are desirable but not currently reported - to the observant who spotted my imagination running away with my fingers).
I also wanted to be able to graph all the per-client stats. But the problem we found there was that the filer only kept a table of 256 such stats, or at least that's all the we could get through SNMP.
Per-volume, per-client stats, now that'd be interesting. Per-volume stats would be interesting. Per-disk stats, would be interesting, if slightly un-immediately-useful.
Exposing more of the error- and performance-reporting from the disks would be fascinating too. You could graph that data over time to see if there's a disk that's being hot-spotted for some reason, or which is throwing up more low-level, otherwise hidden errors, or which is responding in a below-par relative to its siblings. You could move data around or pre-emptively maintain problems with such information.
As the number of clients and disk increase, getting these stats might make the difference between running a silky-smooth operation with the filer or having disks blow randomly in quick succession in just the most critical sections of the filer, serving the most demanding clients - without even knowing such a relationship pertained.
That's my Xmas wishlist on the topic. I'll be praying Santa listens to this one though.
Mark D Simmons wrote:
I have to say I found it easier (marginally) to use the basic MRTG distribution and copy-in the useful bits from the NOW package - largely because it'd been prepared and tailored a leetle too much in NetApp 8)
I, for example, wanted/needed to run it all on an SGI box, and the precompiled SPARC binaries weren't very useful in this instance (read HP/IBM/Linux/etc. if more apt).
Oh, that's what we did as well. We too like SGI. :) And with all the stuff we added ourselves, we only used some of the Perl code provided by NetApp, and of course the documentation. Sorry, NetApp. :)
Still, even though we may not readily use tools provided by NetApp for whatever reason (mainly because we already have so much of our own), it is always very helpful to see what they provide--it can give us some good ideas, to say the least. And then you know, it's always easier to enhance someone else's work than to start from scratch. :)
Regards Elena
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