The following post
is a place for my researches on OnCommand Balance (formerly Akorri BalancePoint)
In Brief - What
is NetApp OnCommand Balance?
- “Like a GPS,
OnCommand Balance provides IT managers and storage administrators’ directions
to optimize the
performance and capacity of shared infrastructure.”
- Balance is a very powerful tool
differentiated by - “instead of just throwing data at you (like other products),
Balance uses analytics (to answer the important questions) ...”
- Balance is
agentless software that deploys within minutes.
- Supports
multi-vendor virtual and physical servers, and storage (SAN and NAS)
environments: NetApp FAS Series, Engenio/NetApp E-Series, IBM DS/SVC/AIX/VIO/LPAR, EMC
CLARiiON/Symmetrix/VNX, HDS, HP EVA/XP/3PAR, Dell EqualLogic, Linux/UNIX Servers, VMware ESX/vCenter
Servers, Windows/Hyper-V Servers, Brocade/Cisco SAN Switches.
- Provides a
cross-domain, application workload-to-storage view with powerful and flexible
topology diagrams.
- Provides robust
flexible views and reports for capacity, performance, utilization,
troubleshooting, and more.
Where to Get
More Information?
Netapp.com:
*see
below for expanded Balance Library Resources
Balance Library
Resources:
Embedded
Videos:
- Which of my VMs are Bullies and Victims?
- How can I View All Servers Sharing Storage?
- Can I Reclaim Storage?
- Where are my Storage Hotspots?
- Don’t Get Lost, Get OnCommand
Balance
- Which Servers are Causing Resource Contention?
- Optimizing Your Virtual Infrastructure
- Are workloads resource constrained?
- OCI OnCommand Insight Murder
Mystery (detects in-guest
paging!)
Case
Studies:
- Merkle Gains New Data Center
Insight
- Balance Enables Virtualization
Expansion for Web Service Company
And
more:
- Analyst Reports
- White Papers
- Datasheet
Download the
Balance OVA:
*The licensing is
either controller based for NetApp FAS Series, or capacity based for other
storage controllers.
**Works out the box
without a key for connecting to NetApp controllers if you want to free demo/trial
it to get a feel for the product.
***For other
storage providers, a Balance evaluation capacity license can be obtained from your
NetApp account manager or authorized reseller.
*Product
documentation.
The documentation
bundle includes:
- Release Notes
- Installation and Configuration Guide
- User Guide
Where to Learn
About OnCommand Balance?
NetApp University
Learning Center:
The following
courses are sorted by date added (with the newest at the top):
- TOI: OnCommand Balance 4.1 (2*)
- Technical Overview of NetApp
OnCommand Balance (5*)
- Getting Started with NetApp
Software: Installing OnCommand Balance (3*)
- Getting Started with NetApp
Software: Configuring OnCommand Balance (3*)
- Getting Started with NetApp
Software: Using OnCommand Balance Key Performance Indicators (4*)
- Installing and Configuring
OnCommand Balance (4*)
- ABCs of NetApp OnCommand Balance
(3*)
*Note the star
ratings - if you only have time to do one course I’d recommend the Technical
Overview.
External
Sources
Blogs:
YouTube - “NetApp
OnCommand Balance”:
*Apr 25, 2012
*Apr 25, 2012
*Aug 2, 2011
Internal
Only/Partner Resources
Labs on Demand:
NetApp OnCommand Balance 4.0
Internal:
Some Notes from
the Resources Above
NetApp Uni: Technical
Overview of NetApp OnCommand Balance
Module 7 -
OnCommand Balance Use Cases
Use Case 1: Find All Servers That Share Groups or Aggregates
Use Case 2: Identify Application Workloads That Are Limited by CPU, Memory, or I/O
Availability
Use Case 3: Identify Bully and Victim Servers
Use Case 4: Reclaim Storage and Identify Storage That Is Nearing Capacity
Use Case 5: Identify Servers That Are Causing Resource Contention
Use Case 6: Identify Storage Hotspots
Use Case 7: Identify Servers That Have Misaligned LUN Partitions
Use Case 8: Use the Performance Index to Identify Virtual Hosts That Need Optimization
Use Case 9: Display a Baseline View of Your Storage Environment
LoD: NetApp
OnCommand Balance 4.0
Some questions that
can be answered by OnCommand Balance!
1.1 Dashboard
Customer Questions:
- How
can I quickly see infrastructure resources that are in trouble?
- How
do I know where to start troubleshooting a performance problem?
- If
I have lots of problems, will Balance list them by urgency or severity?
- Can
Balance show me which Servers or Storage might be misconfigured?
- Can
I hide resources that I dont really care about?
1.2 Storage Analytics
Customer Questions:
- How
can I see my “Performance Capacity” at a storage level?
- How
do I see all resources sharing storage, Virtual and Physical?
- Can
I see workload contention on my shared storage?
- Can
I be told when a “Bully” Server is victimizing other Servers and/or
overwhelming shared storage?
- How
can I accurately and efficiently right-size storage capacity and deploy new
workloads?
1.3 Topology view and Cross-Domain features
Customer Questions:
- How
do I see my entire infrastructure: VMs, Servers and Storage?
- How
do I see full data paths from VM to storage?
- Can
I see hotspots in order to quickly get to root cause of performance problems?
- Can
I change the perspective of the view from any resource type?
1.4 VM/Workload Analytics
Customer Questions:
- Can
I see the end-to-end infrastructure supporting my VMs and Workloads?
- Can
I see why a VM is performing poorly? Does it have too much or too little CPU,
Memory or I/O?
- Is
my workload storage bound or CPU bound?
- How
would I know if a slow response time is normal or abnormal? What is my normal
response time?
- Can
I see trends between two points in time? Why is my application slower than last
week?
- Can
I identify misaligned LUN Partitions?
1.5 Performance Index
Customer Questions:
- How
do I see how much headroom I have on my ESX or Hyper-V Host?
- How
can I demonstrate efficient use of CPU, Memory or I/O for a Server?
- Am
I spending money on the right resources?
1.6 Scorecards and Reports
List taken from the
latest 4.1.0.1 Balance Appliance:
Standard Reports: Application Reports
- Application
Best Practices Details
- Application
Best Practices Summary
- Application
Mapping
- Application
Performance Index
- Application
Performance Problems
- Application
Storage Trends
Standard Reports: Server Reports
- Server
Storage Utilization
- Server
Volume Capacity Forecast
- Server
Volume Usage
- Servers
With Misaligned Partitions
- Virtual
Guest OS Volume
- Virtual
Host Network Performance
- Virtual
Host Server Performance Index
- Virtual
Host Volume Capacity
Standard Reports: Storage Reports
- Array
Utilization
- Array
Volume Capacity Forecast
- NetApp
Performance
- Storage
Configuration Analysis
Standard Reports: Other Reports
- Event
Summary
- Fibre
Channel Switch Usage
- License
Scorecard Reports:
- Application
Scorecard
- Server
Scorecard
- Virtual
Machine Scorecard
- Server
LUN Scorecard
- Server
Chargeback
- Storage
Scorecard
NetApp Uni: ABCs
of NetApp OnCommand
Who’s Using Balance in Large Enterprise?
AMD, Crocs, CBN, monster, ebay, Comcast, NeimanMarcus,
Autodesk, Time
Warner Telecom, Vertex, Statistics Canada
Fantastic sharing I will share these guides to all of my staff thanks.
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