What is Storage Analyzer KM?

The Storage Analyzer KM provides unified monitoring of multi-vendor storage environments in BMC Helix Operations Management. It supports enterprise disk arrays, SAN and NAS systems, software-defined storage from leading storage vendors^[1].

The Storage Analyzer KM monitors the health, capacity, and performance of storage systems and their components^[2] such as controllers, pools, volumes, file systems, ports, and physical disks. By tracking capacity utilization, response times, I/O activity, throughput, and component status, it helps detect capacity shortfalls, latency spikes, I/O bottlenecks, and unbalanced workloads before they disrupt applications and services.

By standardizing monitoring across vendors, it eliminates fragmented views, accelerates root-cause analysis, and reduces resolution time.

Product Overview

The Storage Analyzer KM includes the following components:

• Storage Analyzer KM for PATROL, which:
  • runs on Linux, UNIX, and Windows
  • can be deployed and configured through BMC Helix policies
  • can be configured through the Monitoring Studio X Web interface.
• Storage Intelligence Library, a collection of platform-specific Storage Intelligence Adapters (.si files). Each adapter contains the instructions, commands, queries, and scripts required to discover and collect metrics from a supported storage platform.For details, see Supported Storage Platforms^[1].

How Does Storage Analyzer KM Works?

The Storage Analyzer KM uses standard management protocols and vendor-specific interfaces, including REST APIs, SSH, SNMP, WBEM, WMI, and manufacturer-specific agents, to connect to and monitor storage systems.

After you install and deploy Storage Analyzer KM on a PATROL Agent, you can configure storage endpoints through a BMC Helix policy or the Monitoring Studio X Web interface. An endpoint configuration identifies the storage system to monitor and typically includes its address, credentials, and Storage Intelligence Adapter.

For each configured endpoint, the Storage Analyzer KM performs the following operations:

1. The Storage Intelligence Adapter connects to the endpoint and discovers its storage resources.
2. The KM creates monitor instances for the discovered components, such as controllers, storage pools, volumes, file systems, ports, and physical disks.
3. At regular intervals, the adapter collects health, capacity, and performance data. The KM processes values when necessary to provide meaningful and consistent metrics across storage vendors.
4. The PATROL Agent sends the collected metrics and events to BMC Helix Operations Management, where they are available for visualization, analysis, and alerting. The data is also available in Monitoring Studio X.
5. When a collected value breaches a configured threshold, the Storage Analyzer KM changes the status of the corresponding monitor and generates an event. Detailed component and metric information helps you identify the source and potential impact of the problem.