FC Conversations
Note
The hardware SAN Performance Probe (ProbeFC) must be installed in your environment to discover and collect data for FC Conversation entities.
Contact Virtana Sales for more information.
Fibre Channel conversations are communications between Initiators, Targets, and LUNs (ITLs):
Initiator (HBA Port)
Target (Storage Port)
LUN (Logical Unit Number)
As conversations occur and are discovered by ProbeFC, the metrics are captured and stored, and the FC Conversation entities are named with an initiator:target:lun convention. These entities can be modified like any other discovered entity, with a Name and Description. The FC Conversation entity type is available in the following areas of IO:
Entity list
Entity editing (name, description)
Alarms (Exchange Performance only)
Reports (all types)
Analytics (Trend Matcher, Event Advisor)
When you discover FC Conversations, you must apply filter criteria. Otherwise, depending on the size of your network, an unmanageably large number might be displayed. Narrow the choices by filtering:
Application
Initiator - Host, HBA Card, HBA Port
Target - Storage Array, Storage Controller, Storage I/O Module, Storage Port
An initiator (typically a host) negotiates with a target (typically a storage device) to connect to a LUN (a disk partition, or one or more disk drives).
FC Conversations cannot be searched by name from the FC Conversation page. After filtering, you can sort by the Name column and manually scan the results.
Representation | Description |
|---|---|
ITL | Initiator-side port, target storage port, and LUN |
IT* | Initiator-side port, target storage port, and any LUN |
I** | Initiator-side entity, wildcard for target, LUN(s) (replaced by Devices) |
*TL | Target storage port (WWN) and LUN |
If you specify a wildcard (*), the performance probe fills in the entity information based on the conversations it observes. Applications configured this way must have a performance probe monitoring the traffic.
You can configure an application entity by choosing a port entity, such as a target port or host port. When a port type is the starting point in the entity creation process, you have the option to select the exact target port and LUN. You could also allow the system to discover the conversations by selecting I**.
When you configure an application entity by choosing a configured entity type such as a host or storage processor, IO uses only discovered conversations. For example, if you start configuring an application entity with a host entity (consisting of ports), IO doesn't allow you to then specify the target entity. The configuration wizard uses only the * notation.
A target port can be discovered if a ProbeFC monitors the traffic or zoning is configured.