Published by Patrick Gebhardt
Last updated on March 03, 2022
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6 minute read
Spending on storage is usually done much too reactively. Some companies end up buying storage capacity at the last minute, which is unwise. A good storage capacity planning tool helps to make sure that just enough storage is purchased to meet the needs of users and applications. PRTG Network Monitor helps to estimate the utilized capacity and helps to better understand capacity needs for the future. You get automated reports on individual storage utilization, so you can plan your storage expenditures wisely.
This is part of a blog series about storage. Check out the first part on storage performance monitoring.
Storage capacity planning means the process of planning storage capacity to estimate future storage needs, forecasting as best as possible so that just enough storage is purchased to meet the needs of employees and various applications. Storage is a commodity with an associated cost, whereas the reverse, not having enough storage when you need it, would be downright devastating. Planning storage capacity is therefore a matter of individually juggling with circumstances that are subject to constant change.
The key to successful storage capacity planning is storage monitoring
A central monitoring solution shows the entire storage system and its performance, with all relevant elements and tools in a central overview. This solution, however, must meet some key requirements:
Storage system monitoring
Dell EMC, NetApp, Lenovo – an effective monitoring solution must provide out-of-the-box support for the most popular storage vendors and also be flexible enough to allow quick and easy custom integrations for other systems.
Cloud storage monitoring
Don't forget the increasingly important factor of cloud storage resources: storing data in the cloud is critical nowadays. A helpful monitoring solution should provide insights into the most popular cloud storage providers.
IT infrastructure and performance monitoring
Switches, firewalls, databases, servers, virtual hosts and many other IT components play an important role within the overall data storage process. A holistic monitoring solution should, among others, include these components.
PRTG and capacity planning
Among numerous other factors of an intelligent monitoring system, PRTG provides IT administrators with an understanding of utilization to help with capacity planning. This can support organizations to determine when to scale up (or down) with storage resources. Some relevant capabilities of PRTG include:
- Monitoring of all disk types including NAS, SAN, physical, logical, clustered disks, and others
- Additional access management control of files, folders and shares
- WMI, SNMP and SOAP for disk monitoring and more
- Linux/Unix disk monitoring functionality
- Vendor support includes: Dell storage devices, NetAPP, EMC, Synology, HP, IBM, Buffalo and many more
In addition to the features relevant for storage capacity planning, there are other features that make monitoring with PRTG so convenient and effective at the same time.
🤓 A sophisticated notification and alerting system
With PRTG you can define thresholds, within and outside of storage capacity planning, that warn you before a failure occurs or a critical value is reached. You decide how you want to receive such alerts: via email, SMS, push notification or otherwise. The notification feature provides tremendous value to smaller IT teams, as well as to staff on larger teams who are on-call – they can immediately see where the problem is and whether the problem has been confirmed by the responsible person.
🖥️ Easy way to install, automate and customize
The more complex a solution is, the less it will be used. Since it is essential that you and your team monitor the storage capacity and your remaining IT environment 24/7, the tool should be easy to use for your daily IT monitoring. This has always been our main focus when developing and designing PRTG and leads us directly to the next point.
📱 Dashboards and mobile apps
You see every detail in PRTG from port to disk. You get to the root cause with a detailed analysis and create individual maps for each member of your team and their tasks and responsibilities. All user interfaces allow SSL-secured local and remote access and can be used simultaneously.
👍 Any function in any license
PRTG can monitor the entire path that data takes from the source application to the final disk, folder or database where it is stored. All functions, from traffic monitoring to server, hardware, database or VMware monitoring, as well as monitoring of actual storage devices and their respective storage capacity, are included in every license of PRTG – without any add-ons or modules.
🚀 The best news of all: There's no risk in trying it
PRTG comes with a 30-day worry-free trial, a very un-annoying experience that doesn't deprive you of anything, but in fact gives you the full PRTG experience.
You there!
