Providing continuous context for operational information of a storage system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016285707-A1
Application number	US-201514667263-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 24, 2015
Priority date	Mar 24, 2015
Publication date	Sep 29, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A system management tool provides a comprehensive summary of operational information of a storage system. For example, the system management tool presents a digital dashboard (“dashboard”) in a graphical user interface. The system management tool also presents, via the dashboard, views that correspond to different dimensions of the storage system. In response to expansion of a selected view, the system management tool can automatically collapse the other views into a non-expanded views or move the other views to visible areas remaining after expansion of the selected view. Thus, all of the views remain continuously visible via the dashboard despite the modification to the appearance of the selected view.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for providing a comprehensive summary of operational information of a distributed storage system, the method comprising:
collecting operational information about the distributed storage system; presenting, in a graphical user interface, a digital dashboard for the distributed storage system, wherein the digital dashboard includes a plurality of views, wherein each of the plurality of views is associated with a different one of a plurality of dimensions of the distributed storage system, wherein each of the plurality of views is visible on the graphical user interface, wherein each of the plurality of views depicts the operational information for the dimension corresponding to the view at a level of detail defined for the view; for each of the plurality of dimensions, periodically collecting current operational information in accordance with a time period defined for the dimension; for each of the plurality of views, refreshing the view based, at least in part, on operational information for the dimension associated with the view in accordance with a refresh rate defined for the view, wherein at least two of the plurality of views have different refresh rates; and in response to a change to any one of the plurality of views, maintaining visibility of current operational information for all of the plurality of dimensions.

2 . The method of claim 1 further comprising:
determining that a value of the operational information for a first of plurality of views exceeds a threshold; and
presenting, in a second of the plurality of views, one or more indicators that the threshold was exceeded.

3 . The method of claim 1 further comprising:
determining that a value of the operational information for one of plurality of views exceeds a threshold;
presenting in the one of the plurality of views an indicator that specifies that the value of the operational information exceeded the threshold; and
causing the indicator to fade in intensity over a period of time, after the graphical indicator is presented, during which the threshold is not exceeded.

4 . The method of claim 1 further comprising:
modifying the refresh rate for the view proportional to a degree that a value of the operational information associated with view approaches a threshold.

5 . The method of claim 1 further comprising:
determining that a user role, associated with a user account for which the digital dashboard is presented, corresponds to a portion of the storage system; and
determining a portion of the operational information to present in the each of the plurality of the views based on the portion of the storage system associated with the user role.

6 . The method of claim 1 further comprising:
performing analytics on a portion of the operational information;
predicting a potential failure of a portion of the storage system based on the performing the analytics; and
presenting, in one of the plurality of views associated with the portion of the operational information, an indicator of the potential failure.

7 . The method of claim 1 further comprising:
detecting a trigger to expand a first of the plurality of views;
expanding the first of the plurality of views in response to the detecting the trigger;
collapsing all others of the plurality of views that are expanded in response to the expanding the first of the plurality of views; and
causing all of the plurality of the views to remain visible on the graphical user interface in response to the collapsing.

8 . The method of claim 1 further comprising:
presenting a portion of the operational information in one or more indicators included in the each of the plurality of views;
detecting an interaction with one of the indicators in one of the plurality of views; and
presenting an additional portion of the operational information without expanding a size of one of the plurality of views in response to the detecting the interaction with the one of the indicators.

9 . An apparatus comprising:
a processor unit; a network interface; and a machine-readable medium having program code stored thereon, the program code executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:
collect operational information about the distributed storage system;
present, in a graphical user interface, a digital dashboard for the distributed storage system, wherein the digital dashboard includes a plurality of views, wherein each of the plurality of views is associated with a different one of a plurality of dimensions of the distributed storage system, wherein each of the plurality of views is visible on the graphical user interface, wherein each of the plurality of views depicts the operational information for the dimension corresponding to the view at a level of detail defined for the view;
for each of the plurality of dimensions, periodically collect current operational information in accordance with a time period defined for the dimension;
for each of the plurality of views, refresh the view based, at least in part, on operational information for the dimension associated with the view in accordance with a refresh rate defined for the view, wherein at least two of the plurality of views have different refresh rates; and
in response to a change to any one of the plurality of views, maintain visibility of current operational information for all of the plurality of dimensions.

10 . The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the machine-readable medium further has stored therein program code executable by the processor unit to cause the apparatus to:
detect a trigger to expand a first of the plurality of views; expand the first of the plurality of views in response to detection of the trigger; collapse all others of the plurality of views that are expanded in response to the first of the plurality of views being expanded; and cause all of the plurality of the views to remain visible on the graphical user interface in response to the all others of the plurality of views that are expanded being collapsed.

11 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the machine-readable medium further has stored therein program code executable by the processor unit to cause the apparatus to update the current operational information in the each of the plurality of views in response to the first of the views being expanded.

12 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the machine-readable medium further has stored therein program code executable by the processor unit to cause the apparatus to move at least one of the all others of the plurality of views that are expanded to a portion of the graphical user interface outside of the digital dashboard.

13 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the machine-readable medium further has stored therein program code executable by the processor unit to cause the apparatus to:
maintain a layout position of the plurality of the views before and after the collapsing of the all others of the plurality of views that are expanded.

14 . The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the machine-readable medium further has stored therein program code executable by the processor unit to cause the apparatus to:
determine identifiers associated with each of the plurality of views; select, from an application program interface (API) call-set store, API call sets that correspond to the identifiers, wherein instructions from each of the API call sets call the level of detail of the operational information that corresponds to the each of the plurality of views; and execute the API call sets, wherein the API calls sets query an operating system for the operational info

Assignees

• Netapp Inc

Inventors

• Pawlowski Brian J
• Truong Daniel Nghia
• Hackworth Brian M
• Shi Jing
• Majumdar Mrinmoy

Classifications

• H04L43/045 Primary

  for graphical visualisation of monitoring data · CPC title

• G06F3/04847

  Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials · CPC title

• G06F3/04855

  Interaction with scrollbars · CPC title

• G06F3/04842

  Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements (G06F3/0482 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H04L67/1097

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title