More and more large enterprise applications are creating and accessing data that resides on storage area networks. SAN technology reduces the cost and complexity of information storage, which is a must-have as the amount, types and importance of information continue to grow.
From time to time, however, these applications will not work properly, will behave unpredictably, or will stop providing the performance that is expected or required by your organization. In today’s 24x7 world, problems like these can quickly put at risk your revenue and profitability, the satisfaction of your customers, and your reputation.
In some cases, these issues can be investigated or resolved through the use of tools provided by your application supplier, your network infrastructure provider, or the supplier of your SAN systems.
But in other cases, these tools will not be adequate. Indicators and dashboards provided by these vendors will suggest that operations are proceeding normally, but application users will face delays and problems, and begin to complain. Storage area networks will often be identified, rightly or wrongly, as the culprit. In such cases, there is no substitute for the ability to view and understand the SCSI and Fibre Channel information flows within the SAN. Examining packets moving between applications (initiators) and storage devices (targets) offers a very valuable insight into SAN operations. Without this visibility, it can be very difficult to troubleshoot or optimize SAN application performance.
The NetWisdom family of products and services, from optical networking leader Finisar Corporation, provides this much-needed insight, making you better able to support and optimize SAN-based applications. With NetWisdom, you can determine and demonstrate whether storage area networks are causing application difficulties, and when they are, you can rapidly investigate, understand and address them.
NetWisdom products are available in a range of configurations to meet the needs of your environment. A software-only solution can be quickly deployed and can provide valuable new information about network load distribution, link failovers and fabric congestion. NetWisdom fibre TAPs and ProbeFCX probes can be used to instrument your SAN fabric for detailed information on performance, including I/O, latency and responsiveness, as well as providing error and event data.
SAN vendor interoperability issues and serious SAN configuration errors are the root cause of some of the biggest SAN challenges. In these cases, Finisar’s Xgig network protocol analyzer, which is fully integrated with NetWisdom, can be employed. Xgig “traces” are used by your SAN vendors to design and test their own products, and can be invaluable when problems arise that require vendor interaction, or are intermittent and difficult to diagnose.
Complementary NetWisdom services include NetWisdom training courses, as well as protocol training and testing services from Finisar’s Medusa Labs subsidiary, and our SAN Health Check Analysis, SAN Application Performance Analysis and SAN Trouble Link Assessments.
NetWisdom products and services can provide value to your organization as you diagnose problems with SAN-based applications, work to prevent future problems, and plan future application strategies as you advance the use of storage networking and information in your organization.
Diagnose: NetWisdom offerings allow you to examine your SAN systems at the SCSI and Fibre Channel link level, analyzing and understanding any conversation between storage systems, switches and applications. NetWisdom can spot and help analyze link-level errors that can point to software or communications errors, excessive “re-tries,” or failed or failing components. In cases where a problem is not SAN-related, NetWisdom can be used to demonstrate that the SAN is indeed operating correctly. In more severe problem cases, Xgig analyzers can provide an even deeper look, and generate industry-standard “traces” that can be provided electronically to your SAN vendors to expedite problem resolution. This information is especially valuable when encountering intermittent problems or vendor interoperability issues. When the SAN is not at fault when application problems occur, NetWisdom makes it easy to demonstrate that the SAN is operating correctly.
Prevent: NetWisdom can be used to examine your SAN fabric for any unknown or unexpected occurrences, identifying and addressing them before they create problems, and issuing proactive alerts to call problems to your attention. With NetWisdom, you can take baseline measurements of your SAN and applications under normal conditions, and receive alerts whenever operating statistics deviate from this baseline. You can also take baseline measurements before an application change or upgrade takes place, and compare them with later data to verify that performance has not been adversely affected.
Advance: By helping your organization to reliably operate, introduce and optimize SAN-based applications, NetWisdom offerings allow you to drive new, more strategic uses of information. You can take full advantage of SAN resources, and properly plan for future growth and change. You can more evenly distribute your network load, optimize SAN configurations and settings, and resolve issues that affect performance. By making the most of your existing storage networks, you can not only boost end user satisfaction but also increase the lifetime of your SAN fabric. When the time comes to upgrade, you will have the information you need to effectively justify, plan and architect future growth.
Other SAN solutions from Finisar can help address challenges in backup, storage consolidation, pre-production testing, remote replication and virtualization.
For more information please contact Finisar, representatives will be happy to discuss your SAN-based applications and your application strategy and issues, and to explore with you how NetWisdom products and services can help.
Solution Brief: Application Performance
