Chapter 9 Archiving

Archives are files of data stored for later use. The type of data Performance Manager monitors can be saved in an archive file, then later graphed. Thus, archives allow you to capture all data on one or more nodes without having to monitor them. Should performance problems develop later, you can retrieve the archive and examine the data to see when the problem began.

Performance Manager includes scripts that store the metric data you choose in an archive file. These scripts allow you to capture all metric data on one or more nodes without having to monitor the nodes. The archived data can be replayed using Microsoft® Excel or any other graphing tool you create an interface for. The information needed to archive metrics includes:

Later, you can graph an archive file to look at the metric data recorded.

Archive Recording

When you record an archive, Performance Manager collects all data from one or more of the nodes selected in the session and writes it to one or more files.

Archive files can become quite large. Each sample for a single-CPU, single-disk node requires 2.2 kilobytes. The total size of the file depends on the sampling interval, the number of nodes monitored, and the number of disks and CPUs on each node.

This version of Performance Manager includes sample archiving scripts for recording the metrics that Performance Manager monitors: pm_archiver, pm_delta_archiver, and rc_archiver. These archiver scripts are located in the /var/opt/pm/SMScripts directory, along with Readme files explaining their functionality.

These scripts can be executed from the command line. The pm_archiver script can also be executed from the Performance Manager GUI by selecting SystemManagement from the main window's Execute menu, then selecting the PMArchiver item.

These archiver scripts archive metrics from the snmpd, pmgrd, advfsd, and clu_mib daemons. The archiver assumes the ports for the daemons are: 161, 1161, 1163, and 1165 respectively. If your daemons run on different ports, modify the scripts accordingly.

Archive Playing

Playing an archive is like watching a recorded television show since you can skip the parts you are not interested in.

The data output files from the archiving scripts can be opened directly in Microsoft Excel.

Excel will chart the data from any of the archiver scripts. When given an output file, it will allow you to choose the object that you want to plot and chart the data for all nodes. It can also plot all instances of a chosen object against time.
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