Importing EMC SAN data to vCenter Operations

I recently began testing vCenter Operations, and once I got it setup I quickly grew bored. Not because its not a good product, but the normalizing period takes several days/weeks, so there isn’t much of an immediate WOW factor.

While waiting, I remembered hearing that EMC was releasing a Storage Analytics pack for vCOps. The solution isnt released yet, but there are several examples of using PowerShell to gather performance data and import it in. A few posts on EMC’s community pages (https://community.emc.com/thread/126637, https://community.emc.com/thread/130486) give sample scripts to gather information from EMC SANs an import them.


I have a few notes to add here: First off, make sure you are using vCOps Enterprise. The enterprise version allows you to create a custom dashboard (https://vcopsAddr/vcops-custom), which is required to use non-VMware data sources. 
Second, for an EMC SAN there are 2 scripts you run – 1 for gathering perf data, and 1 for creating parent/child relationships of the SP/RG/LUN/Disk. The first script will gather and import the performance data continuously. Once it has posted data once, you need to stop it and run the second script. Once the second script is complete, restart the first.
Third, the relationships associate the discreet SAN components, but not the SAN as a whole. To group all the disks as part of the same SAN, you have to create an application Environment | Applications Overview | Add new application. Then you create the Tiers and associate the resources  in the tiers. A slightly more manual process than it should be, but it works.
Fourth, you have to create your own dashboards. There are so many options available, and their operations/interactions are unique so it takes a bit to understand what you are getting.


So far I have been running the scripts as-is for a few days and am fairly impressed with vCOps handling of them. I am still trying to fully understand the product and understand what I am seeing represented, but so far it looks good.