The Power of Predictive Analytics, Actionable Insights & Proactive Optimization
DataCore Insight Services (DIS) changes your storage management paradigm from reactive to proactive and predictive. Rather than reacting to access issues or slowed application speeds, you’re able to predict problems before they occur and take steps to ensure they don’t. Harnessing the power of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud-based DIS continuously monitors your storage infrastructure while comparing it to our vast database of known issues and best practices.
When DIS detects potential issues or opportunities for improvement, it delivers actionable insights including detailed configuration information with prescriptive remediation steps. DIS also monitors and tracks KPIs in your environment such as capacity and I/O performance. Based on historical trends, DIS predicts pending issues such as when a host will run out of capacity, enabling you to proactively add capacity or migrate workloads before performance is impacted or downtime occurs.
Tightly integrated with the on-premises DataCore Web Console, DIS delivers a a global view of your storage infrastructure in a cloud-based single pane of glass, switching seamlessly from the cloud to on-prem management to make changes based on the actionable insights delivered by the DIS predictive analytics engine. Leverage DIS to take control of your storage infrastructure and benefit from intuitive analytics to pre-emptively resolve business-impacting storage issues.
Benefits of Predictive Analytics and Actionable Insights
Avoid Foreseeable Problems
- Detect early warning signs to resolve issues before they start
- Reduce support calls by executing actionable insights
- Optimize environment with proactive/prescriptive remediation steps
Save Time
- Prioritize corrective measures with task list based on severity/impact
- Move intuitively to resolution through guided, single-click steps
- Receive insights in advance to make necessary configuration changes
Effective Management
- Centrally monitor and control SANsymphony environment across multiple sites
- Focus attention on what’s important by automating remedial tasks
- Eliminate guesswork by following proven issue resolution steps
Your Entire Storage Infrastructure in a Single View
- OPEN INSIGHTS DASHBOARD
Quickly view the collective number of health and optimization insights across your storage infrastructure to immediately know where to focus your attention. - PRIORITIZED ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
Use the real-time, prioritized task list to focus on what is important. DIS actionable insights allow you to immediately take prescriptive remediation steps. - HEALTH & OPTIMIZATION STATUS
DIS monitors your environment all day, every day from the cloud generating predictive insights to avoid downtime and ensure optimal configuration. - CAPACITY & PERFORMANCE TRENDS
Get an overview on historical capacity and performance trends to proactively add capacity or migrate workloads based on predictive insights before performance is impacted or you run out of capacity.
Key Capabilities of DataCore Insight Services
Actionable Insights
Get actionable data for intelligent storage management such as:
- Configuration details and error conditions
- Volumes that can benefit from better data protection
- Prescriptive resolution steps
- Performance and operational analytics
Predictive Analytics
Identify and prioritize potential issues before they disrupt operations by:
- Comparing against known issues, best practices, and historical trends
- Leveraging knowledge base compiled from thousands of similar environments
- Determining severity level and remediation steps through artificial intelligence and machine learning
Proactive Optimization
Ensure best use of resources with:
- Real-time, ongoing prioritized task list for storage administrators
- Storage health and performance scores for an at-a-glance status of your SANsymphony environment
- Historical and projected capacity consumption to anticipate potential storage deficiencies and performance issues
Single Pane of Glass
Leverage cloud-based analytics for:
- Unified visibility and centralized management, even across multiple data centers
- Converged view across the diverse storage manufacturers and technologies
- Real-time health and performance dashboard for monitoring, analytics, and taking action
Types of Actionable Insights
DIS is built on the concept of delivering insights that are not simply alert-based, but actionable and prioritized by severity and type. Severity levels are determined by the potential impact to uptime and performance of your storage infrastructure. The types of actionable insights DIS delivers include predictive, known issues, and best practices. Predictive insights provide a forward-looking view of critical configuration metrics such as when capacity limits will be reached based on historical usage trends.
Known issues insights deliver predictive failure or performance degradation issues based on comparison of your environment against the 20+ years of aggregate data in our customer support database. Similarly, best practices insights will alert you when there are specific configurations within your environment that would yield better results if modified. DIS insights are all actionable, meaning they are delivered in an easy-to-use format, with clickable buttons to immediately take prescriptive remediation steps.
10 Examples of Actionable Insights
Here are some examples of actionable insights provided by DIS. New insights are constantly being developed and are automatically updated into DIS on a regular basis.
| Insight | What It Does | What Does It Mean For You |
|---|---|---|
| Insight:Replication is Stuck | What It Does:Detects when data for a vDisk is not being replicated | What Does It Mean For You:Re-enable replication so that you will be protected again in case of a disaster |
| Insight:Failed Snapshot | What It Does:Detects when a snapshot for a vDisk has failed | What Does It Mean For You:This point-in-time copy of your data can not be used and you should make a new snapshot |
| Insight:Pool Capacity Threshold | What It Does:Alerts when pool capacity has reached a certain level | What Does It Mean For You:Encourages physical capacity expansion before you run out of storage space |
| Insight:Mixed Versions | What It Does:Detects when SANsymphony servers in the same server group have different versions | What Does It Mean For You:Helps ensure smooth business operations by fulfilling mandatory configuration requirements |
| Insight:One Role per Port | What It Does:Alerts if more than one role is configured for a server port | What Does It Mean For You:Achieve optimal performance by following the best practice of dedicating server ports to a single role (you may need to review your server port configuration) |
| Insight:Unmapped vDisks | What It Does:Alerts when unmapped vDisks are found | What Does It Mean For You:Free up capacity by reclaiming unused storage space |
| Insight:Licensed Capacity Limit | What It Does:Predicts when licensed capacity limit will be reached | What Does It Mean For You:Prepare to purchase additional licenses before you run out of capacity |
| Insight:Multiple Controllers | What It Does:Alerts if more than one server is acting as a controller | What Does It Mean For You:Request assistance to ensure business continuity by avoiding conflicting masters |
| Insight:Disk Pool Latency | What It Does:Alerts if I/O latency of disk pool has reached a certain level also available on vDisk and physical disk level | What Does It Mean For You:Applications may experience slower performance until root cause is corrected (align your performance with your business requirements) |
| Insight:Fiber Channel Port Error | What It Does:Alerts if there are excessive link errors on a server port | What Does It Mean For You:Review server ports to proactively resolve any FC component issue before performance is impacted |
We recommend that you grant access to your DataCore partner so they have visibility into the same insights that you see. This allows partners to work as a trusted advisor through close collaboration to avoid foreseeable problems, save time for both of you and ensure that your environment is always optimized.
Prerequisites
DIS is an integrated capability of DataCore SANsymphony. They are only available on subscription licensing, require DataCore SANsymphony V10 PSP9 or later and a secure internet connection from the DataCore instances.
