What is Auto Balance Aggregate?
Applies to
- ONTAP 9
- Clustered Data ONTAP 8.3
Questions & Answers
What is Auto Balance Aggregate?
Clustered Data ONTAP provides non-disruptive volume move through CLI, as well as ZAPI.
Volume move is intended to be used by admins to move volumes around, in a non-disruptive manner, for a number of reasons, including when an aggregate starts to run out of space.
Traditionally, monitoring and reacting to low space conditions has been the responsibility of the system administrator.
The Auto Balance Aggregate (ABA) feature from Data ONTAP 8.3 and later takes first steps in an effort to automate this workflow by notifying the system administrator when it is time to move the volumes between the aggregates.
When enabled, the Balancer will continuously monitor the free space of aggregates and take action when it crosses a configurable threshold.
In the current shipping releases starting with Data ONTAP 8.3:
- By default, the ABA will be disabled.
- By default, all aggregates will be opted out.
Customers will have to opt-in aggregates to be monitored by the balancer. - When enabled, it will default to a recommendation mode. It will not initiate moves; instead, it will generate a list of recommended moves.
- It is recommended to use only the 'recommend' mode in the current shipping releases for ABA.
- All of the information stored by the Balancer will be in-core and not persistent. After any reset of the management gateway process, the Balancer will need to reconstruct and initialize any data it had been using.
Aggregate and Volume Selection Rules:
All healthy SFO aggregates and their Flexible volumes are eligible for autobalance aggregate.
An Aggregate will not be selected if one or more of the following conditions are true:
- The Aggregate is unhealthy
- The Aggregate is partitioned
- The Aggregate is in mirror relationship
- The Aggregate is a CFO aggregate
A Flexible Volume will not be selected if one or more of the following conditions are true:
- It is involved in a SnapMirror relationship
- It is either a clone or has clones
- Has been moved within the last 48 hours
- Has exceeded a threshold of 100 IOPS (diag option
volume-activity-threshold) - Has exceeded the above IOPS threshold in the last 24 hours (diag option
volume-inactive-delay-threshold) - Is Cserver Metadata volume
Note: When you enable the autobalance feature on an aggregate, the feature will automatically be enabled for all volumes residing on it. The user can disable the feature on a per-volume basis by running the following command:
cluster_name::*> vol modify -volume <volume_name> -is-autobalance-eligible false
Note: Infinite volumes are excluded as they can be balanced using the Auto Balance Volume feature.
How to enable the aggregate autobalance:
cluster-us1::> set advanced
Warning: These advanced commands are potentially dangerous; use them only when
directed to do so by NetApp personnel.
Do you want to continue? {y|n}: y
cluster-us1::*>
cluster-us1::*> autobalance aggregate config modify -is-enabled true -aggregate-unbalanced-threshold-percent 70 -aggregate-available-threshold-percent 40
cluster-us1::*>
cluster-us1::*> autobalance aggregate config show
Is the Auto Balance Aggregate Feature Enabled: true
Threshold When Aggregate Is Considered Unbalanced (%): 70
Threshold When Aggregate Is Considered Balanced (%): 40
cluster-us1::*>
How to create an aggregate with autobalance enabled:
cluster-us1::*> aggr create -aggregate adb_aggr1 -diskcount 12 -is-autobalance-eligible true -node cluster-us1-01
How to enable autobalance on an already existing aggregate:
cluster-us1::*> aggr modify -aggregate adb_aggr3 -is-autobalance-eligible true
How to check the autobalance state of the aggregates:
cluster-us1::*> autobalance aggregate show-aggregate-state
Aggregate: aggr0
Total Size: 753.2GB
Used Size: 718.5GB
Outgoing Size: 0B
Incoming Size: 0B
Aggregate Used Space Threshold: 527.2GB
RAID Type: raid_dp
Home Cluster ID: b6044cc9-71e4-11e5-b2a3-00a09873b152
Attributes: CFO
Excluded
Mroot
Aggregate: adb_aggr1
Total Size: 224.1GB
Used Size: 147.GB
Outgoing Size: 0B
Incoming Size: 0B
Aggregate Used Space Threshold: 156.9GB
RAID Type: raid_dp
Home Cluster ID: b6044cc9-71e4-11e5-b2a3-00a09873b152
Attributes: Balancer Eligible
Target For Balancing
Aggregate: adb_aggr3
Total Size: 224.1GB
Used Size: 160GB
Outgoing Size: 0B
Incoming Size: 0B
Aggregate Used Space Threshold: 156.9GB
RAID Type: raid_dp
Home Cluster ID: b6044cc9-71e4-11e5-b2a3-00a09873b152
Attributes: Balancer Eligible
Target For Balancing
3 entries were displayed.
cluster-us1::*>
How to check the volume move recommendations:
The console message will be sent out when an aggregate has reached the pre-configured threshold. An EMS message similar to the following will be reported under the EMS log:
Fri Oct 16 11:39:27 UTC [cluster-us1: mgwd: mgmt.aba.move.unbalanced:info]: Auto Balance Aggregate has detected that aggregate adb_aggr1 has exceeded the threshold of 118325182509056. The aggregate currently shows a usage of 109960713981952.
Additionally, run the following commands to verify it manually:
cluster-us1::*> volume move recommend show
(volume move recommend show)
Source Src% Destination Dst %
Vserver Volume Time Stamp Aggregate After Aggregate After
----------- ----------- ----------------- ----------- ----- ----------- -----
vs0 volA 3/2/2013 21:11:00 adb_aggr1 35 adb_aggr3 35
1 entries were displayed.
cluster-us1::*> autobalance aggregate show-unbalanced-volume-state
Last Checked On: 9/29/2015 15:40:20
Volume: volA
Footprint: 20.20MB
Last Time Over IOPS Threshold: -
Last Placed: 9/28/2015 14:18:15
Attributes: Ready
Volume: test
Footprint: 20.20MB
Last Time Over IOPS Threshold: 9/12/2015 16:20:18
Last Placed: 9/11/2015 10:16:42
Attributes: Over IOPS Threshold
In Mirror
Stabilizing
cluster-us1::*>
Additional Information
Related Link:
ONTAP 9.x: autobalance aggregate config commands