General Error Trend Analysis

Find trends in errors to better analyze your library system.

• View Error Messages From a Specific Time

• View Trends in Critical Drive and Media Errors

• View Trends in Exchange Errors

View Error Messages From a Specific Time

Check for error messages during a specific time period to help you answer questions such as "What critical errors were reported to STA last month?".

1. In the left navigation, expand Tape System Activity, select All Messages Overview.

2. Add a filter to narrow down the data to just traps that involved errors:

   1. Click Filter Data .

   2. Select Match ALL entered criteria.

   3. Add the following criteria:

      • Severity | Is | Error

      • Date SNMP trap recv'd (Dates) | Is After | select starting date

      • Date SNMP trap recv'd (Dates) | Is Before | select ending date

   4. Click Apply.

      
      

3. Review the errors during the time period.

View Trends in Critical Drive and Media Errors

Drive and media errors result from exchanges. Therefore, use the Exchanges Overview screen for a consolidated view of errors to answer the question "Is the total number of errors trending up, down, or staying stable?".

1. In the left navigation, select Tape System Activity, select Exchanges Overview.

2. In the Templates menu, select the "STA-Exchanges-Alerts-All" (or "STA-Exchanges-Alerts-Errors" for a smaller subset).

3. The template includes several columns that indicate different types of errors. Review the errors listed.

4. If there are enough errors to indicate possible trends, add graphs of interest to the Graph Area:

   1. Restore the Graph Area.

   2. Click Add Graph . STA displays a new graph with the attribute MB Read.

      
      

   3. Within the graph's toolbar, click Change Graphed Attribute and select an attribute of interest.

      
      

   4. Repeat to add multiple graphs (such as Write Efficiency, Read Margin, and R/W Rate MB/sec).

5. Use an external spreadsheet application to calculate total errors by error type.

   1. Click the Export and select Exchange.xls (see Export Table Data to a Spreadsheet or Document for more information).

   2. Save the file to a location on your local computer.

   3. Use a spreadsheet application to open the file and summarize the data.

View Trends in Exchange Errors

View exchange errors for the last week to address the questions: "Which drives have had the most errors this week? Have their error rates gone up?"

1. In the left navigation, expand Tape System Activity, select Exchanges Overview.

2. In the Templates menu, apply the "STA-Exchange-Alerts-Errors" template.

3. In the Drive Serial Number column, click Sort Ascending or Sort Descending.

   
   

4. To focus on specific errors, move columns around and remove empty columns (see Reorder Columns and Hide and Reveal Columns).

5. Add a filter to display just this week's data:

   1. Click Filter Data .

   2. In the Filter Matching field, select Match ALL entered criteria.

   3. Add the criteria: Exchange Start (No. Days) |Less than # days ago | 7

   4. Click Apply.