HPE Storage Users Group

Hi,

first: good work with the new release!

There's one part in SSMC that still lacks polish: Could you please make reports and threshold alerts multi-system/more flexible?

Threshold Alerts: Creating the same set of alerts for each of our 18 3PARs is a pain, it would be great to define alerts that check multiple (or all) systems. And not every single alert over and over again for each system... And, btw, why are alerts not editable at all??

Reports: It would be great if "system" would be a drop down list of all systems. Same as with alerts: Creating ten records for each of our 18 systems is no fun. Strange enough, one can change nearly everything in a report very quickly when pressing "edit" - except the system, this can not be altered after report-creation.

These two contraints make the reports and alerts-part of ssmc unusable for us, powershell-scripts with on-node-sr and ms excel are ALWAYS faster.

Or am I missing some fundamental part of ssmc that enables what I need?

_________________
When all else fails, read the instructions.

Hi,

Would it be possible to have 2 different modes to SSMC, a simple mode and an advanced mode? The general feeling from my customers is that they like the detail that IMC offers and this is not available in SSMC. They don't like the simplified look and feel and want to see more of what is going on. I know HP have tried to hide it in IMC but the chunklet visual layout feature is liked by customers and it is very useful to prove that a tunesys has done what it is supposed to do.

The "load more" feature is still around in 2.2 when displaying volumes. Can it not default to just displaying all the information instead of keep having to click "load more"?

2.2 does seem to be faster than 2.1.

I personally still think you should give customers a choice of what interface to use and not force SSMC onto them.

Don't forget command line is always an option =)

_________________
Richard Siemers
The views and opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Speaking of cli: Defining an alert in ssmc makes the alert show up when doing "showsralertcrit". Hey, SSMC-alerts seem to use the underlying functionality that cli uses as well! Idea: Script the creation of all the alerts, they should show up in ssmc afterwards! Sadly, that doesn't happen. It just works in one direction (ssmc --> cli), the other way round does not work...

_________________
When all else fails, read the instructions.

...but after creating one additional alert in ssmc, magically the cli-created alerts show up as well. I already waited one whole day for ssmc to catch up, but that did not help. But after clicking on "Create" in the define alerts -panel, when the new alert showed up, the others appeared as well.

_________________
When all else fails, read the instructions.

Sorry for spamming this thread, but still trying to figure out how this threshol alert stuff works.

SSMC-created alerts show up in cli ("showsralertcrit").
cli-created alerts show up in ssmc (as long as you have at least one ssmc-created alert defined)

But:

cli-created alerts alert to the standard-targets all stuff goes to (snmp and/or mail). They do NOT alert to the sr-target that's defined in ssmc. Meaning lots of mails in a lot of mailboxes this morning... I guess ssmc-created alerts only alert to the ssmc-defined targets.

Does anybody know how to create an alert via cli/script and change alerting, so that it only sends mail to the system-reporter-recipient defined in ssmc?? I can't find an appropriate cli-command, and reading the sr-, cli- or ssmc-guides did not help.

I still hope I can avoid creating all alerts I want in ssmc via gui...

_________________
When all else fails, read the instructions.

This thread seems stalled. I find it hard to believe people are not finding more SSMC issues? Or have more feedback?

I have been very focal about SSMC and how painful the product is. We now manage 12 array in SSMC and I can tell you we have no desire to keep buying 3pars until the toolsets are fixed and robust for day to day management. Across our 12 arrays I have over 28,000 volumes and over 300 RC Groups. IMC crashes constantly and SSMC is painful to use and has its own list of issues. The total waste of screen real estate and the fact that I can get at more data easier and more quickly in IMC (when it does not crash) is a huge problem. I have to constantly keep bouncing around and spawning new pages to get at basic info I could get on one screen in IMC.

Also I have 8 vCPUs and 16GB of RAM and it needs every bit of it and still lags with the information it has causing us to periodically have to restart SSMC to make sure it has accurate info. Then the SR functionality is so weak compared to external SR. If you have many scheduled reports there is no real organization and you have to drill in to see the past reports. In the process of drilling into each report it has to execute the overall report that is defined, causing delays and wasting processing resources on the SSMC.

Also being forced to use the One View layout does not fit 3par well, but HP has a mandate on them to have same format, well thank you HPE for not caring about the customer and just that 2 tools that may or may not be used by same people look the same. Conceptually SSMC is a good idea, but execution is poor. Sure if you are a new customer and that is all you have seen you are probably happy, but any power user I think will be frustrated.

I'll confess, I have not been able to participate as much as I should because I am still using MMC and System Reporter. Did the ability to measure host IO balance across the ports make it into SSMC? Such as when a windows host is not set to round robin, and is sending all traffic to one host port on the 3PAR?

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Richard Siemers
The views and opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

I honestly don't know because I do not use SSMC for SR and rely on external SR as SSMC's reporting is so weak and bad.

The problem here is 3par product management is taking the lack of complaints on SSMC as acceptance that it is doing the right thing. I have them telling me how many customers have it deployed, which I challenge. Downloading a product and even doing the install is not using the product and definitely not evidence that people like the product.

SSMC is being forced to use the One View framework which in itself is a little bit flawed. The inability to resize pop up panes and the wasted space and the lack of the info you want on the screens you want it on all hinder SSMC. We rely hevaily on SR and SSMC will NEVER be an adequate replacement for anyone that was a heavy external SR user.

Also SSMC is just filled with bugs. In 6 months I have opened probably over dozen cases, 3 just yesterday with issues of things not working in SSMC. In the mean time IMC has scale issues because we have so many volumes and RC groups so we are stuck right now. We are to the point we have put a hold on purchasing any more 3pars for our satellite offices and are looking at alternatives.

I love the arrays and their technology, but the tools just are horrible.

Hi, I am a new 3PAR 8400 user. Not used to this GUI Is there a way to display IOPS?