Brocade SAN Health Tutorial
// December 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Technical Know-It-All
As promised before, I will try to explain in detail how to work Brocade SAN Health. Just a recap, Brocade SH is an exceptionally informative tool that allows you to capture performance, and configuration data from Brocade and McData SAN fabrics. It will then take this data and churn out a very useful Visio diagram and an Excel file.
Alright, let’s start!
1. Firstly, you would need to download the tool from the Brocade website. Once downloaded, the install takes like 3 secs. Fire up the tool and you will see a screen like above.
2. Click on “New”, and it will prompt you to fill up all your contact details. Fill it in accordingly.
3. Click on the “Report Return” tab, and fill in the your email address. It is “IMPORTANT” to get your email address right here because ultimately, this is where your report is going to be sent to.
4. Click on the “SAN Details” tab next, and give your audited SAN a name.
5. Next click on “Add Switches”. Input the IP addresses and login details of the switches. Usually, you would only require 1 switch from each fabric. Once it successfully logs in to the first switch, the rest is discovered in-band.
6. Click on “Fabric Details”. Here fill up fabric name, vendor details, and the duration of this audit.
7. Verify that all the “Green Smiley” faces are there. If not click on each of those and make sure they are green. When that’s done, you are ready to do a preflight check! Go to the “Start Audit” tab and run “Pre-Flight Check”. If pre-flight is good, the “Start Audit” button will be available.
8. It will then start running. Depending on how long you want it to capture, you can probably minimise the window and let it run in the background. I usually recommend 24 hours just so you get a complete trending of the peaks and lows.
9. Once complete, it will encrypt the file (so it is safe to be sent across the Internet). Keep clicking “Next” and read the on-screen instructions.
10. The last screen will tell you where the <filename>.BSH ( Brocade San Health) file is saved. You will then need to forward the *.BSH file to SHUpload@brocade.com. This file will then get processed in the backend by Brocade server’s and then you should receive a reply in 24 hours (more often than not, you will get it in 4-5 hrs). In the event that you don’t hear from them in that time frame, email SHAdmin@brocade.com and let them know the filename of the *.BSH file, they will let you know if it’s in the queue.
That is it! Simple!
Many of my customers swear on this, and they do it on a weekly basis just to keep their SAN environments in check. So give it a go. Things that are FREE are rarely this good & usefull….
P/S : You cannot capture performance data from McData fabrics and there are no roadmaps for this.
