Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage System: How to configure Analytics for dataset retention policies

Asset ID:	1-71-1461959.1
Update Date:	2018-05-24
Keywords:

Solution Type Technical Instruction Sure

Solution 1461959.1 : Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage System: How to configure Analytics for dataset retention policies

Applies to:

Sun Storage 7110 Unified Storage System - Version All Versions and later
Oracle ZFS Storage ZS3-BA - Version All Versions and later
Sun Storage 7210 Unified Storage System - Version All Versions and later
Sun Storage 7310 Unified Storage System - Version All Versions and later
Sun ZFS Storage 7120 - Version All Versions and later
7000 Appliance OS (Fishworks)

Goal

Following 2011.1.3.0 release code of the ZFS Unified Storage Appliance Kit, a new enhancement has been made available in the form of a new Analytics section designed to allow system administrators to configure retention policies on Analytics dataset.

This document is intended to provide an overview of this new facility.

Additional details for 2011.1.3.0 release can be accessed here

Solution

Please note: From Appliance Firmware Release 2013.1.6.0 (AK8.6) there are now analytics retention policy defaults:

Default Retention Policy of Analytic Data

Previously, the appliance did not enforce a retention limit to collection of analytic data, keeping all information indefinitely.
To avoid issues with extremely large datasets, or disk usage, the appliance now enforces a default policy for retaining analytic data.

This policy will by default retain the following:

Per-second: 7 days
Per-minute: 14 days
Per-hour: 90 days

The retention values can be modified and, additionally, the policy is only enforced if no custom policy already exists.

Configuring the retention rules for Analytics datasets can be completed using the following approach:

Analytics Settings

A full description on the rule set and how they can be configured is also readily available in the Help section of the Appliance Kit BUI

Retention Policies

Example of how to set the retention settings using the CLI:

    NAS:analytics settings> ls
    Properties:
                retain_second_data = 12 hours
                retain_minute_data = 12 hours
                  retain_hour_data = 12 hours

    NAS:analytics settings> set retain_second_data=168
                retain_second_data = 1 weeks (uncommitted)
    NAS:analytics settings> set retain_minute_data=336
                retain_minute_data = 2 weeks (uncommitted)
    NAS:analytics settings> set retain_hour_data=2016
                  retain_hour_data = 3 months (uncommitted)
    NAS:analytics settings> commit

    NAS:analytics settings> ls
    Properties:
                retain_second_data = 1 weeks
                retain_minute_data = 2 weeks
                  retain_hour_data = 3 months

Collecting 'excessive' amounts of Analytics data can cause performance, kernel memory and/or zpool capacity issues.

Individually the impact of any statistic is negligible, but collectively, these statistics can have a performance impact in a production environment and should be used judiciously.

Suggested Analytics data retention settings:

                retain_second_data = 1 week
                retain_minute_data = 2 weeks
                retain_hour_data = 90 days

Please note: The values above are only suggested values.

Please configure the Analytics retention settings to retain sufficient data for review over a reasonable timeframe. Please see Document ID 2103699.1 for other general Analytics Best Practices.

Generally, in a troubleshooting situation, a week's worth of data is more than enough, however, if memory or capacity is an issue, often 24 hours is probably all that is required and analytics can be configured to retain even less data such as:

                retain_second_data = 1 day
                retain_minute_data = 1 week
                retain_hour_data = 1 month

If you are doing capacity trending, and management, then using another tool (like Enterprise Manager) may be more useful.

NOTE: Setting a retention policy to restrict the amount of Analytics data collected will probably cause any existing dataset sizes to be reduced.

*** Checked for Relevance - 04-DEC-2105 ***
*** Checked for Relevance - 24-MAY-2018 ***

References

<NOTE:2019842.1> - Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance: Potential Performance Impact using Analytics

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