SAN Health Tips and Tricks

Your Quick Guide to Optimizing SAN Health Today!

Steve Wynne Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Installing SAN Health................................................................................................ 1 Running SAN Health................................................................................................. 2 Running SAN Health - Step 1: Enter Site Details. ........................................................... 3 Running SAN Health - Step 2: Select Fabrics To Audit. ................................................... 4 Running SAN Health - Step 2b: Audit Execution & Report Options.................................. 7 Optional Use of Custom Names, Extra Device Information, and Creating Hyperlinks:....................................................................... 9 Custom Hyperlinks. .................................................................................................. 10 Running SAN Health - Step 2b: Audit Execution & Report Options (cont.)...................... 11 Scheduling SAN Health........................................................................................... 13 Running SAN Health - Step 3: Running The Audit. ....................................................... 15 Running SAN Health - Step 3: Running The Audit (Monitoring)..................................... 16 Running SAN Health - Step 3: Running The Audit (Stopping Sessions)........................... 17 Running SAN Health - Step 3: Running The Audit (Performance Capture)....................... 18 Running SAN Health - Step 3: Running The Audit (Completed Data File)........................ 19 Running SAN Health - Step 4: Report Creation (Review Captured Data)........................ 20 Running SAN Health - Step 5: Report Creation (Report Generation Queue). ................... 21 Report Return - Processing & Return is Entirely Automated............................................ 22 Summary............................................................................................................... 23 Questions & Answers. .............................................................................................. 24

2006 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. GA-RG-775-00 Brocade, the Brocade B weave logo, Fabric OS, Secure Fabric OS, and SilkWorm are registered trademarks and Tapestry is a trademark of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the United States and/or in other countries. All other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of, and are used to identify, products or services of their respective owners. Notice: This document is for informational purposes only and does not set forth any warranty, expressed or implied, concerning any equipment, equipment feature, or service offered or to be offered by Brocade. Brocade reserves the right to make changes to this document at any time, without notice, and assumes no responsibility for its use. This informational document describes features that may not be currently available. Contact a Brocade sales ofce for information on feature and product availability. Export of technical data contained in this document may require an export license from the United States Government.

Installing SAN Health

Select a suitable workstation

Any Windows box that has TCP/IP connectivity to the management port of the SAN switches.
CPU and memory requirements are dictated by the number of switches that you wish to concurrently audit. Less than 20 switches at once requires 128MB RAM and a 500MHz CPU. The memory requirement then grows exponentially to 68 switches at once (max supported) which requires 2 GB of RAM on a 3GHz CPU.

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Running SAN Health

Main Work Area

Program Navigation Activity Log

4 Steps to running SAN Health

1. 2. 3. 4. Enter Site Details Select Fabrics to audit 2b. Optionally set report and audit options Run the audit Generate the report

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Running SAN Health

Step 1: Enter Site Details

Your Information Optional Brocade Contact Information Optional Partner/ OEM Information

This information is used on the report title screen and to determine the recipients of the resulting report.

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Running SAN Health

Step 2: Select Fabrics To Audit

Fabrics and Switches selected for audit Tip: Right-click on the tree view for additional menu items

Switch & Fabric details

Audit whole fabrics at a time because partial fabrics result in incomplete Visio diagrams.

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Running SAN Health

Step 2: Select Fabrics To Audit (cont.)

Issue a fabricShow command and add any additional fabric members found. If fabrics are discovered, do all members have the same password? Specify an IP address or use DNS with switch names.

Scan an IP address Range. For remote ofce SANs, select a slower detection timeout value on the Options Menu.

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Running SAN Health

Step 2: Select Fabrics To Audit (cont.)

The connectivity test will log in and attempt to determine the switch name and WWN.

The Activity Log displays the telnet session and any errors encountered.

Test connectivity to the selected switches (not a mandatory step).

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Running SAN Health

Step 2b: Audit Execution and Report Options

Select Options

Directory that the resulting data le is saved to (.BSH)

Automatically send the resulting data le to an email address. See the FAQ for more information.

Set the audit execution options.

For slow WAN links or busy LANs change the timeout value.

Mask the IP Address for security-conscious sites.

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Running SAN Health

Step 2b: Audit Execution and Report Options (cont.)

Select Options

Brocade commands will be sent to Brocade switches and McDATA commands to McDATA switches. Dont worry about platformdependant commands. For example, issuing a chassisShow command on a non-chassis-based product does not cause a problem.

Review the diagnostic commands that will be sent to the switches.

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Optional Use of Custom

Names, Extra Device Information, and Creating Hyperlinks

Select Options

CSV Columns Format: 1) Required - Port WWN 2) Required - Device Name 3) Optional - Additional Info 4) Optional - Hyperlink

Zone aliases or port names are used to map WWNs to device names. For users that do not use zone aliases or McDATA port names, provide a comma-separated-value le to map WWNs to device names.

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Custom Hyperlinks

Example Hyperlinks http://HQ-MAIL03/Manage.html Telnet://HQ-DBSVR05 http://TLibrary02/Allocate.jsp LUN_Allocate.cgi FRAME_DF_Report.txt

If the hyperlink is to a le, the le must be in the same directory as the Visio or Excel le.

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Running SAN Health

Step 2b: Audit Execution and Report Options (cont.)

Select Options Select between the full report, or a shorter summary report. Select to include a performance graph, and/or an explanatory appendix Select the paper type to use when printing out the report Include an optional logo in report page footer

Set Excel report options.

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Running SAN Health

Step 2b: Audit Execution and Report Options (cont.)

Select Options Select whether Visio diagrams are all on one page, or each one is on its own page, or create an additional high-level diagram

Select the text that you wish to use on the Visio icons Tip: If you loaded a CSV le, dont forget to set the options here to use it.

Set Visio diagram options.

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Scheduling SAN Health

SAN Health Path and Executable followed by the path and name of the audit SET

SAN Health is a foreground task and must run under the logged on account

SAN Health can be scheduled to run unattended. Automated repeat audits Schedule audits to run after hours

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Scheduling SAN Health

Ensure that you test your newly created task by right-clicking on the task and choosing run.
If the task is set up correctly you will see SAN Health run in the foreground. If the audit successfully completes, the BSH and LOG les are saved and SAN Health will exit. If the audit fails, SAN Health remains open and paused with an error message displayed.

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Running SAN Health

Step 3: Running The Audit

A pre-ight check is conducted. If any of the SAN Health options are incomplete or incorrectly formatted, a corresponding error will be displayed in the activity log. The audit will not start until the pre-ight check successfully completes.

Select Start Audit

Click on Start Audit to launch an individual telnet socket for each switch targeted for audit.

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Running SAN Health

Step 3: Running The Audit (Monitoring)

Detailed view of an individual switch session High-level summary view of all running sessions

Periodic status check on the telnet sessions

The diagnostic commands are executed and the output is captured.

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Running SAN Health

Step 3: Running The Audit (Stopping Sessions)

Click on any switch in the progress list to: Display that switch session in the detailed view window Stop that switch session Stop all switch sessions and abort the running audit

You can control the telnet session activity at all times.

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Running SAN Health

Step 3: Running The Audit (Performance Capture)

The performance capture duration may be set to values from 1 minute up to 48 hours. The sample rate is automatically assigned based on a logical value that will deliver between 600 to 1000 samples for the given capture period. For example, 2 hours uses a 10-second sample where 36 hours uses a 90-second sample rate.

A telnet session will be held open while the diagnostic information is captured and for the duration of the performance.

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Running SAN Health

Step 3: Running The Audit (Performance Capture)

If any telnet sessions time out or fail to connect, review the activity log for a detailed explanation

If you wish to re-run the audit, click Discard Data

This information is used on the report title screen and to determine the recipients of the resulting report.

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Running SAN Health

Step 4: Report Creation (Review Captured Data)

The contents of the BSH data le are displayed for review.

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Running SAN Health

Step 5: Report Creation (Report Generation Queue)

Send to the report queue as an email attachment

Or send to the queue via the secure Web page

Submit the encrypted data le to the report generation queue.

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Report Return
Processing and Return is Entirely Automated

Reports are usually processed in 1 to 10 hours depending on the fabric size. Several hundred consistency checks are run. If any fail, the report is faulted into a slower moving queue that requires one of the SAN Health Admin team members to check it. This will imply an additional delay. If you do not receive the report back after 48 hours, please contact SHAdmin@brocade.com and specify the BSH le name that you submitted.

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Summary

1. Enter Site Details

2. Select Fabrics to Audit

3. Set Report and Audit Options

4. Run the Audit

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Questions & Answers

The CD contains: The SAN Health Program Example Report and Visio Demonstration Video Frequently Asked Questions

SAN Health is free, quick, and easy!

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