Dell PowerScale Data Source Plugin for Grafana

Description

The Dell PowerScale DataSource Plugin is a Grafana backend datasource plugin that enables on-demand querying and visualization of Dell PowerScale cluster metrics, storage statistics, and system events inside Grafana panels.

Dell PowerScale is a scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) platform that provides high-performance, scalable storage for unstructured data. The plugin connects to the OneFS API to retrieve real-time and historical metrics including cluster health, node performance, protocol statistics, storage capacity, quotas, NFS exports, and system events.

Features

• Query and visualize PowerScale cluster metrics directly within Grafana
• Support for multiple data categories:
  • Statistics: Real-time and historical cluster, node, and protocol performance metrics
  • Cluster Configuration: Cluster name, OneFS version, and system settings
  • Storage Pools: Tier capacity, usage, and protection status
  • Node Pools: Per-node-pool capacity and disk allocation
  • Quotas: Per-path quota usage, limits, and enforcement status
  • NFS Exports: Export configurations and mount paths
  • Events: System alerts and event groups filtered by severity
  • Licenses: Installed feature licenses and expiration status
  • Workload Summary: Per-workload CPU, throughput, latency, and I/O statistics
• Time-series support for historical statistics with configurable intervals
• Node-specific filtering for detailed per-node metrics
• Built-in retry logic with exponential backoff for transient failures
• TLS support with optional CA certificate verification
• Automatic session management with the OneFS API

Compatibility

Component	Version / Detail
Grafana	>= 12.0.0
OneFS API	Latest (auto-detected)
Authentication	Session Auth

Visuals

Onboarding

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Query Examples

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Added Dashbords

Installation

Requirements

• Grafana >= 12.0.0
• A Dell PowerScale cluster with API access enabled
• OneFS credentials (username and password)
• Network connectivity to the PowerScale cluster management interface

Obtain OneFS Credentials

1. Login to the PowerScale Web UI or CLI.
2. Navigate to Access > Membership & Roles (or use the CLI).
3. Create or identify a user with appropriate permissions for the Platform API.
4. Ensure the user has access to at least the following services: platform.

Install the Plugin

Install the plugin from the Grafana Plugin Catalog or using the Grafana CLI:

grafana cli plugins install crestdata-dellemcpowerscale-datasource

After installation, restart the Grafana server for the plugin to be loaded.

Configure the Data Source

1. In Grafana, navigate to Connections > Data Sources > Add data source.
2. Search for Dell PowerScale and select it.
3. Fill in the required configuration fields:

Name	Type	Required	Description
URL	String	Yes	The PowerScale cluster URL (e.g., https://cluster.example.com)
Port	Number	No	The OneFS API port (default: 8080)
Username	String	Yes	The OneFS username for authentication
Password	Secure String	Yes	The OneFS password for authentication
TLS Skip Verify	Boolean	No	Skip TLS certificate verification (not recommended for production)
CA Certificate	Secure String	No	Custom CA certificate PEM content (required if TLS Skip Verify is false)

1. Click Save & Test. The health check will validate your credentials against the PowerScale API.

TLS Configuration

For secure production environments:

1. TLS with CA Certificate (Recommended): Leave "TLS Skip Verify" unchecked and provide a valid CA certificate in the "CA Certificate" field.
2. TLS Skip Verify: Only enable this for trusted environments. This skips TLS certificate validation.

Usage

Query Editor

Once the data source is configured, you can create panels using the query editor with the following parameters:

Parameter	Type	Options	Default	Description
Resource	Dropdown	Statistics, Workload Summary, Cluster Config, Storage Pools, Node Pools, Quota Summary, Quotas, NFS Exports, NFS Export Stats, Events, Licenses	Statistics	Select the data category to query
Metric Type	Dropdown	Cluster, Node, Protocol	Cluster	Select metric aggregation level (for Statistics resource)
Metric Keys	Multi-select	Depends on metric type	Varies	Specific metrics to retrieve (e.g., CPU, Network, Storage)
Use Time Series	Boolean	true, false	false	Enable historical time-series data (Statistics only)
Interval	Number	Seconds	120	Sampling interval for time-series data (seconds)
Node ID	String	Node numbers (comma-separated)	All nodes	Filter to specific nodes (Node/Protocol metric types only)
Export ID	Number	Export ID	-	NFS Export ID (for NFS Export Stats resource)
Severity Filter	Multi-select	Emergency, Critical, Error, Warning, Notice, Information	All	Filter events by severity (Events resource only)

Available Metric Categories

Cluster Metrics

• CPU: User/system utilization, idle time
• Network: Bytes/packets in/out rates
• Storage: IFS filesystem capacity, usage, SSD statistics
• Health: Node count (total, up, down)

Node Metrics

• CPU: Per-node CPU utilization
• Network: Per-node network throughput and errors
• Storage: Per-node capacity
• Memory: RAM usage
• Cache: L2 (SSD) and L3 (RAM) cache hits/misses
• Disk: Access latency, busy percentage, queue depth, transfer rates

Protocol Metrics

• NFS: NFSv3, NFSv4, NFS RDMA operations
• SMB: SMB1, SMB2/SMB3 operations
• Other: NLM, FTP, HTTP, SyncIQ, PAPI, HDFS, S3 operations
• Client Stats: Active and connected client counts

Time Series Handling

The Statistics resource supports time-series queries for historical data:

• Enable Use Time Series to retrieve historical metrics
• Configure the Interval parameter (in seconds) to control data granularity
• Default interval is 120 seconds
• Time range is automatically passed from the Grafana time picker

Error Handling and Retry Strategy

Retries are performed only for transient failures:

• HTTP 429 (rate limited)
• HTTP 5xx responses (500–599)
• Network/connection-level errors
• Errors while reading the response body
• Session authentication failures (with automatic re-authentication)

Max retry attempts: 3, with exponential backoff (base delay: 3 seconds).

Non-retryable: HTTP 4xx errors (e.g., 401, 403) are returned immediately.

Resources Reference

Resource	Description	Supports Time Series
Statistics	Real-time and historical cluster, node, and protocol metrics	Yes
Workload Summary	Per-workload CPU, throughput, latency, and I/O statistics	No
Cluster Config	Cluster name, OneFS version, timezone settings	No
Storage Pools	Tier capacity, usage, and protection status	No
Node Pools	Per-node-pool capacity and disk allocation	No
Quota Summary	Quota counts grouped by type	No
Quotas	Per-path quota usage, limits, and enforcement	No
NFS Exports	Export IDs and mount paths	No
NFS Export Stats	Detailed NFS export configuration by Export ID	No
Events	System alerts filtered by severity	No
Licenses	Installed feature licenses and expiration	No

Limitations and Recommendations

API Considerations:

• The plugin uses the OneFS Platform API (auto-detects latest version)
• Session authentication is maintained and automatically refreshed

Performance tips:

• Use higher interval values (e.g., 300s or more) for long time ranges
• Use Node ID filtering to reduce data volume for large clusters

Support

For issues, questions, or feature requests, please reach out to grafanalabs.integrations@crestdata.ai

Authors and Acknowledgment

Developed by Crest Data.

License

This plugin is distributed under EULA License. See the LICENSE file for details.

References

• Dell PowerScale Product Page
• Dell OneFS API Reference
• Grafana Plugin Development
• Grafana Plugin Publishing Best Practices