Five preventative maintenance tasks for your EMC Isilon cluster

131704545The last thing you want is for your cluster to go down because of an issue that could have been avoided. Performing routine cluster maintenance is important for keeping your EMC® Isilon® cluster up-and-running.

Five simple cluster maintenance tasks are highlighted in the new video, “How to Keep Your EMC Isilon Cluster Running Smoothly.” You can also find these tasks and more in the Isilon Cluster Preventative Maintenance Checklist (login to the EMC Online Support site is required).

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Here’s a summary of the five tasks covered in the video:

  1. Subscribe to Isilon product advisories and updates in the EMC Online Support site. After you subscribe, regular Isilon documentation updates, EMC Technical Advisories, and more will be delivered directly to your email inbox.
  2. Check your cluster’s physical environment. Check the temperature, humidity, and power distribution unit (PDU) of your data center on a regular basis. You can also consult the Isilon Site Preparation and Planning Guide for environmental thresholds and requirements to protect your hardware from physical damage.
  3. Review the status of data protection jobs each month. Whether you’re using Isilon SnapshotIQ™, SyncIQ™, or NDMP for data replication or backups, it’s important to check the reports in the OneFS web administration interface or the log files of these tools to make sure your data is constantly protected. By routinely checking for any failed jobs, you have time to address them before you find yourself in a scenario where you need to recover data.
  4. Monitor cluster capacity daily. One of the most important things you can do to ensure that your cluster runs smoothly is to prevent it from reaching capacity. There are several best practices you can follow to maintain enough free space, which are summarized in an ISI Knowledge blog post, and the file system section of the Isilon Cluster Preventative Maintenance Checklist. The video below demonstrates how to monitor cluster usage by either checking the dashboard in the OneFS web administration interface or running performance reports using Isilon InsightIQ™.
  5. Check for cluster software and firmware every six months. Specifically, look for and install maintenance releases (MRs) and firmware updates when they become available. You’ll be notified of new MRs and firmware updates through Isilon product updates that you subscribed to in step one. You can also check the Current Isilon Software Releases document for a list of latest and recommended updates.

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Have a question or feedback about Isilon content? Visit the online EMC Isilon Community to start a discussion. If you have questions or feedback about this blog, send an email to isi.knowledge@emc.com. To provide documentation feedback or request new content, send an email to isicontent@emc.com.

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About the Author: Kirsten Gantenbein