Network Storage Monitoring Software

Network storage describes devices or locations used to retain data across local area network (LAN) connections. Network storage is essential to an organization because it backs up critical files to a centralized location, where users can then easily access the data. Effective network storage systems can save time, ensure data security, and help users conduct business more efficiently.

Because of the LAN connection, devices must be connected to the network to access the stored data. If the network is down or slow, connected users won't be able to access their files. Storage capacity can also impact performance. Network storage devices monitoring helps ensure optimal storage performance.

There are two standard types, Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN).

NAS is a file-based, shared storage for a LAN that uses a standard Ethernet connection. A NAS server will typically contain multiple hard drives and provide a large amount of centralized storage space, which means individual connected devices can access the same data. Common for both organizations and home networks, NAS does not require extensive maintenance aside from regular network attached storage monitoring. It is a flexible choice for organizations, as businesses can scale up the NAS system quickly when adding new users and devices.

NAS is mainly used for:

• File sharing
• Data backup/disaster recovery
• Network printing
• Multimedia file sharing
• Media server

NAS supports RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5, which helps make your data safer. Proper network attached storage monitoring will help prevent this scenario, but if data stored on one drive becomes compromised, it can be recovered from another drive. NAS devices also cost less than normal servers and have low energy consumption.

More complex and costly than NAS, a SAN is a type of LAN that can handle large data transfers and bulk storage. Typically used on business networks, a SAN uses high-end servers and high-capacity disk arrays and requires dedicated cabling like Fiber Channel or Ethernet-based iSCSI. As a result, SAN is best suited for high-performance applications like:

• Databases (MS SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.)
• Media libraries
• High usage file servers
• Email servers
• Backup archives
• Remote vaulting and mirroring
• Heterogeneous platform support
• Storage-level replication
• Storage-level backups

Due to its complexity and need for high network speed, SAN requires a specialized IT skillset and careful network storage device monitoring. However, it’s highly scalable as servers and storage devices may be added independently of one another.

Network storage monitoring offers insights network admins can use to maintain overall network disk storage health, which in turn helps ensure users and devices can retain, access, and use the data they need. Typically, using network storage monitoring software offers the best results.

Organizations heavily rely on network storage to make data available for use. If storage performance issues were to happen, it can negatively impact the end-user experience by causing data loss, network slowdowns, and network failure. It’s extremely important to conduct regular network storage monitoring to keep tabs on network disk storage health of NAS and SAN storage devices. Monitoring provides insight into critical metrics so admins can analyze storage health and make necessary changes before issues occur.

Another reason for storage monitoring is more accurate and adaptive capacity planning based on current and historical usage trends. Network admins need to know whether their network is or will soon be under-provisioned in terms of storage resources. With storage capacity insights, it’s possible to plan ahead and scale up storage ahead of time, to prevent slowdowns and other problems.

Monitoring network devices storage is multi-faceted but relies on a comprehensive, contextual approach to performance metrics, insight into hardware metrics, and an understanding of storage capacity.

To monitor network devices storage, you’ll need to have real-time visibility into relevant metrics that allow you to understand performance. This can include server volumes, NAS volumes, LUN or RAID group capacity, and more. For instance, LUN monitoring should be done regularly to ensure RAIDS are adequately allocated and used to their full potential, which is especially important for larger enterprise setups.

You can examine both current and historical storage metrics for a more complete understanding of the environment and its functionality. For a more effective approach, it also makes sense to view storage in the context of complete infrastructure health, including applications, virtualization, and servers.

A potential component of network storage monitoring is tracking hardware health metrics, which can provide ongoing visibility into the status of various hardware sensors. This information can be displayed in a dashboard or used to create threshold-based alerts.

Depending on your network, you might gain insight into multiple arrays and sensors. For instance, SolarWinds SRM supports Dell Compellent and EqualLogic PS Series, EMC Data Domain, Isilon, Unity, VMAX3, and more. Relevant sensors may include batteries, Ethernet ports, cache cards, disks, fans, power supplies, power consumption temperature, I/O modules, and more.

A significant part of monitoring network storage is understanding current and future capacity, as these insights can help you avoid failures and better forecast future needs. By understanding how storage capacity is scaling up, you can invest in resources ahead of time to prevent slowdowns and other problems. It’s possible to automate this process to some extent—software algorithms based on current usage data can provide projections for when capacity may run out on storage objects.

With the right storage monitoring solution, you can take advantage of tools that offer a more streamlined and effective monitoring process. Software can track metrics for you, display them in a dashboard, and use them to generate relevant alerts and reports. For larger networks, a tool that helps automate the monitoring and capacity planning process is indispensable for ensuring performance.

SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor (SRM) serves as a comprehensive network storage devices monitoring solution for both your physical and virtual storage environments, including network-attached storage monitoring, allowing you to access storage metrics across multiple vendors from one single view.

SRM’s unified visibility for all layers of your storage allows you to pinpoint and troubleshoot network disk storage health problems throughout your infrastructure. Get the SAN and NAS performance metrics you need—as well as storage hardware metrics—to manage storage issues more proactively.

SRM offers a centralized and customizable alerting system. Set up threshold-based alerts based on key metrics for faster insight into potential problems. You can also create predefined and custom reports to see trends in your storage environment. With SRM as your network storage monitoring software, you can automate capacity planning to help improve your ability to provision network resources ahead of time.