SSMC Customer Feedback

[IvanIannaccone]

...and one more thing I stumbled on:

SSMC marks some hosts as "degraded", because "Host is not visible on partner port".

This (IMHO wrong) request to have a host zoned to a port's partner port for "Persistent Ports" to work once was even included in the documentation, but was removed shortly after as far as I know.

Or is there something else behind this? IMC doesn't care at all about this on hosts-side.

SSMC does some compliance checks that IMC does not do. I believe you are using Host Explorer, we found a bug in HE in the way it reports the paths and this is being fixed in the next release of HE.

[IvanIannaccone]

I know I am a broken record on this, but the extra clicking to do daily tasks is frustrating. Here is an example, why when creating a volume do I have to click the "advanced settings" button to see the Copy CPG,. This is a problem, because some people in a rush will forget to click it and not see that the pre-selected Copy CPG is not the one you likely want. Also the "Copy CPG" and "Default CPG" under advanced settings is very confusing as it seems to get pre-filled with the same CPG as the User CPG, IMC used to leave Copy CPG blank which would be my preferred behavior especially if you are not going to show the Copy CPG by default.

How often do you create CPGs? This is really not a common task and as a matter of fact the majority of deployments use the default CPG. The behavior is intended and aligned with the best practices and will be completed only if you have a virtual copy license. This allows a non expert user to be able to create a CPG and be able to do snaps without having to know a Copy CPG has to be selected. I don't see any downsides with this implementation.

[IvanIannaccone]

When viewing VVs under actions there is no "Create Similar" like in IMC, that was very useful. I would add that there should be something like "create similar" that pre-fills everything including the name, often we are adding another volume that will have the same name with a small difference in prefeix of suffix, but have to retype it all in again.

In 2.2

[IvanIannaccone]

Do I really need to check a box absolving HP of my own stupidity? Is it not enough to put up the warning and have the Yes, Unexport or Cancel option?

Unfortunately we have learned from experience it is not enough. We measure the overall system quality by taking into consideration ever occurrence that contributes in an active host losing access to the storage array, including a user that clicks next next next and does not read the message and causes an outage. Hence the extra action that provides and extra safety net and allows the user the pause and internalize the action he is about to commit.

[3ParDude_1]

Posted my thoughts in latest blog post http://wp.me/p4wKu7-iz

In summary:

1 Main menu – I can’t think of another application where to bring up the main navigation point you need to click. This creates delay in the form of the click plus in the time it then takes you to look at and process the menu. There needs to be an anchor point from which menus are accessed always visible.

2 List Pane – Once you have selected a screen the list pane exposes some values but not enough for most circumstances and you are forced to expand it which then compromises the detail pane. The list pane is a compromise at the moment neither just a simple list of devices nor a fully-fledged area of information. To remediate this the list pane needs to stripped back to its most basic function to list out the objects you have selected. The information that is currently exposed by expanding the list pane could be accessed by adding a root container at the top of the list of objects you were listing. For example if you clicked on a top level object should called virtual volumes and then the table view you currently see in the list pane would be exposed in the detail pane.

I would also like to see a hierarchy introduced in the list pane so you can for example expand a disk shelf to see what disk it has in it.

3 Common actions – When you do highlight an object there needs to be a common tasks menu appear or the ability to right click and access it. Having to move over to the actions menu each occasion is time consuming

4 Customisation - There needs to be the ability to add and remove and rearrange columns from views

[IvanIannaccone]

Posted my thoughts in latest blog post http://wp.me/p4wKu7-iz

In summary:

1 Main menu – I can’t think of another application where to bring up the main navigation point you need to click. This creates delay in the form of the click plus in the time it then takes you to look at and process the menu. There needs to be an anchor point from which menus are accessed always visible.

2 List Pane – Once you have selected a screen the list pane exposes some values but not enough for most circumstances and you are forced to expand it which then compromises the detail pane. The list pane is a compromise at the moment neither just a simple list of devices nor a fully-fledged area of information. To remediate this the list pane needs to stripped back to its most basic function to list out the objects you have selected. The information that is currently exposed by expanding the list pane could be accessed by adding a root container at the top of the list of objects you were listing. For example if you clicked on a top level object should called virtual volumes and then the table view you currently see in the list pane would be exposed in the detail pane.

I would also like to see a hierarchy introduced in the list pane so you can for example expand a disk shelf to see what disk it has in it.

3 Common actions – When you do highlight an object there needs to be a common tasks menu appear or the ability to right click and access it. Having to move over to the actions menu each occasion is time consuming

4 Customisation - There needs to be the ability to add and remove and rearrange columns from views

thanks for taking the time, this is really good feedback and I will be reviewing this with the team.

[apol]

I believe you are using Host Explorer, we found a bug in HE in the way it reports the paths and this is being fixed in the next release of HE.

No, we don't use HE here.

We created logical "Port groups", and every host is zoned to one complete port group. The way we divided the array, every port group contains a port and his partner port on node 0/1 and the same on nodes 2/3. But there is one exception (for "historical" reasons) where two port groups are defined "mixed", and ports <--> partner ports are not in the same group. The hosts marked as "degraded" are all those that are using this two port groups.

Edit: typos

[hdtvguy]

I know I am a broken record on this, but the extra clicking to do daily tasks is frustrating. Here is an example, why when creating a volume do I have to click the "advanced settings" button to see the Copy CPG,. This is a problem, because some people in a rush will forget to click it and not see that the pre-selected Copy CPG is not the one you likely want. Also the "Copy CPG" and "Default CPG" under advanced settings is very confusing as it seems to get pre-filled with the same CPG as the User CPG, IMC used to leave Copy CPG blank which would be my preferred behavior especially if you are not going to show the Copy CPG by default.

How often do you create CPGs? This is really not a common task and as a matter of fact the majority of deployments use the default CPG. The behavior is intended and aligned with the best practices and will be completed only if you have a virtual copy license. This allows a non expert user to be able to create a CPG and be able to do snaps without having to know a Copy CPG has to be selected. I don't see any downsides with this implementation.

We have several CPGs and there si no default for Copy_CPG so it creates extra work, we dont; create CPGs all the time, but we create volumes all the time so the extra clicking is an easy oversight causing the copies to go to the wrong CPG since it seems to just pick any CPG, probably based on sort. Why hide this, it was there in IMC and should be visible if for no other reason as for affirmation to the user that they know what CPGs the volumes will be using.

[hdtvguy]

In IMC you can multi-select various RC Groups and then do SOP/START in SSMC there does not seem to be this option, that is painful for us as we do massive stops during DR testing, thus we have to default to IMC for RC work.

[IvanIannaccone]

We have several CPGs and there si no default for Copy_CPG so it creates extra work, we dont; create CPGs all the time, but we create volumes all the time so the extra clicking is an easy oversight causing the copies to go to the wrong CPG since it seems to just pick any CPG, probably based on sort. Why hide this, it was there in IMC and should be visible if for no other reason as for affirmation to the user that they know what CPGs the volumes will be using.

so the feedback is on the VV panel not the CPG creation. I think the suggestion makes sense and we should expose the Copy section in the main section. Thanks