Reclaiming Space of Unused LUNs

Identifying Unmapped (Orphans) LUNs

Over time, as servers connected to a SAN get decommissioned, administrators find an increasing number of unmapped logical drives that are no longer used by any server. These logical drives, while unused, still occupy disk space in the storage unit. Being able to identify such unmapped logical drives and reclaim the disk space uselessly consumed by these drives will help administrators avoid unnecessary upgrades and extensions of their storage unit.

To list the logical drives that are not mapped to any server and therefore safe to remove, right-click the Storage Unit icon > KM Commands > Reporting > LUNs Mapping Table... . Refer to the LUNs Mapping Table section for further details on this feature.

Whether a logical drive is actually mapped or not is also shown in the infobox of each volume instance.

IBOX_Volume

Volume Properties - Infobox tab

Identifying Unused LUNs

When a server is decommissioned or reconfigured, its associated LUNs can stay mapped preventing storage administrator from accurately identifying unused LUNs. Since the KM monitors permanently the traffic on each LUN, it becomes easy to detect LUNs for which the activity is null.

1.Create a PATROL Query in the PATROL Console to show the value of the TimeSinceLastActivity parameter of the SEN_I68_VOLUME class; In the main menu bar, click Action > New Query…

QUERY_Unused_LUNs

PATROL Query – General Tab

2.Enter the Query name (example: Unused LUNs)

3.Enter the Query description (optional)

4.In the Query Results Filter section, select Show Selected Objects and check the Parameters box

5.In the Additional Filtering, select the Application Class level filtering and the Enable Parameter level filtering options

6.Open the Application Class tab

QUERY_Unused_LUNs_Class

PATROL Query – Application Class Tab

7.In the Pattern Matching section, select Like and type SEN_I68_VOLUME

8.Open the Parameter tab

QUERY_Unused_LUNs_Param

PATROL Query – Parameter Tab

9.In the Pattern Matching section, select Like and type TimeSinceLastActivity

10.Click OK to display a list of the monitored LUNs and their respective number of days since when the KM has not recorded any activity.

The TimeSinceLastActivity parameter is evaluated from the date the KM was initially started.