Servers

Server level management is a concept which involves lot of manual intervention, human resources, and administrative tasks to be performed. Applications Manager provides a server-level monitoring functionality to achieve such goals and to ease the process of configuration management of hosts.

The different type of servers that are supported by Applications Manager are:

• Windows 2000, 2003, 2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, XP, NT, Vista, 7, 8 and 10

• Linux

• Sun OS

• IBM AIX

• IBM AS400 / iSeries

• HP Unix

• Tru64 Unix

• FreeBSD

• Mac OS

• Novell

• Windows Clusters 2008, 2008 R2

To create any of the above server monitors, follow the steps given below:

1. Click New Monitor. Choose Server.

2. Enter the IP Address or hostname of the host.

3. Enter the SubNetMask of the network.

4. Enter the polling interval time in minutes.

5. If you are adding a new monitor from an Admin Server, select a Managed Server.

6. Provide the monitor specific authentication information: Choose the OS type Windows ((2000, 2003, 2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, XP, NT, Vista, 7, 8 and 10), Linux, Sun OS, IBM AIX, IBM AS400 / iSeries, HP Unix, Tru64 Unix, FreeBSD, Mac OS, Novell, Windows Clusters 2008, 2008 R2) . Based on the type of OS, the 'Mode of Monitoring' information changes.

Windows :

1. Select the Mode of Monitoring (SNMP or WMI).

2. If SNMP, provide the port at which it is running (default is 161) and SNMP Community String (default is 'public'). This requires no user name and password information.

3. If WMI, provide user name and password information of the server.
   

Linux/Sun OS/IBM AIX/HP Unix/Tru64 Unix/FreeBSD/Mac OS/Novell:

1. Select the Mode of Monitoring (Telnet, SSH or SNMP). For IBM AIX, HP Unix, Tru64 Unix, only Telnet and SSH are supported. For Novell, only SNMP is supported.

2. If Telnet, provide the port number (default is 23) and user name and password information of the server.

3. If SSH, provide the port number (default is 22) and user name and password information of the server. You have an option to give Public Key Authentication (User name and Private Key). You can also give a Passphrase if the private key is protected with one.
   
   Note: To identify the Public/Private key, go to command prompt, type cd.SSH/ then from the list, open the files <id_dsa.pub>/<id_rsa.pub> [Public] or <id_dsa>/<id_rsa>[Private] to get the keys.

4. If SNMP, provide the port at which it is running (default is 161) and SNMP Community String (default is 'public'). This requires no user name and password information.

For Telnet/SSH mode of monitoring, specify the command prompt value, which is the last character in your command prompt. Default value is $ and possible values are >, #, etc.

Note: In the server which you are trying to monitor through SSH, the PasswordAuthentication variable should be set as 'yes' for the data collection to happen. To ensure this, access the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config and verify the value of PasswordAuthentication variable. If it is set as 'no', modify it to 'yes' and restart the SSH Daemon using the command /etc/rc.d/sshd restart.

6. Choose the Monitor Group from the combo box to which you want to associate the Monitor (optional).

7. Click Add Monitor(s). This discovers the host or server from the network and starts monitoring them.

IBM AS400 / iSeries:

1. Click on New Monitor link.

2. Select AS400/iSeries.

3. Enter the Host Name / IP Address of AS400/iSeries server.

4. Provide Subnet Mask and set Polling interval for the monitor.

5. If you are adding a new monitor from an Admin Server, select a Managed Server.

6. Enter Username and Password for authentication.

7. Choose the Monitor Group from the combo box with which you want to associate AS400/iSeries Monitor (optional). You can choose multiple groups to associate your monitor.

8. Click Add Monitor(s). This discovers AS400/iSeries from the network and starts monitoring them.

See also: Performance Metrics for AS400 / iSeries

If you have added Monitors and not associated them with a Monitor Group, you can do this manually anytime. For information on associating a Monitor with a Monitor Group, refer to Associating Monitor with Monitor Groups topic.

There are situations where the host gets automatically discovered with the Monitor running in the host. To disable the default option, disable it using Global Settings.

It is important to note that if Applications Manager server is running in Windows machine, then it can monitor any type of host but if the server is running in Linux, then it can monitor Windows only if an SNMP agent is running in it. Also, any type of user can be used to log into Linux, whereas only Admin users can log into Windows.

Mode of Monitoring - SSH/Telnet vs SNMP

We recommend Telnet or SSH mode of monitoring because the following attributes are not available through SNMP:

• Disk I/O Stats

• Process Monitoring - CPU Utilization

• Swap Memory Utilization

Please check this link for more details.

System administrators generally prefer to check system resources with commands and will prefer to compare it with the SSH/telnet mode output, rather than running SNMP walk to compare. Also, having the connection to the Linux boxes over SSH will make it easier for you to configure the same for script monitors or 'execute program' actions if required.

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Windows Cluster

Follow the steps given below to create a new Windows Cluster monitor in Applications Manager:

1. Click on New Monitor link.

2. Select Windows Cluster under the Servers category.

3. Specify the Display Name of the Windows Cluster.

4. Enter the Cluster Name or the IP Address of the cluster

5. Select the Version of the Windows Server from the drop-down menu.

6. You can either use your Cluster Domain Administrator username and password, or select credentials from the Credential Manager drop-down menu. To use your Cluster Domain Administrator credentials, make sure the user account has permission to excute WMI queries on 'root\mscluster' namespace in cluster server nodes.

7. Select the Node Discovery option. The available options are Do not Discover Nodes and Discover and Monitor Nodes

   Do not Discover Nodes - Selecting this option will not discover the cluster server nodes as a Windows Server. If the node already added as windows server, it will be associated internally for collecting the event logs specific to cluster.

   Discover and Monitor Nodes - Selecting this option will discover the cluster server nodes as a Windows Server and monitor availability and performance. If the node already added as windows server , it will not be discovered again and the existing server will be associated internally for collecting the event logs specific to cluster.

8. Select the Enable Event Log Monitoring option:

   • Checked - This will enable the eventlog monitoring in all the cluster server nodes. The events generated from the configured eventlog rules will be propagated to cluster. During the eventlog collection of servers, it will collect the events for cluster as well and add them to database without generating the alert. Then, during the data collection of cluster, it will take the cluster events from database from all the nodes and then generate the alert for the configured Eventlog rule.
   • Unchecked - This will disable the eventlog monitoring in the Cluster.
     • Cluster Add : While adding the cluster, selecting this option will not enable eventlog monitoring in the nodes discovered. If a node already exists, this option will leave the current event log status in the server as it is.
     • Cluster Update : If this option is selected while updating the cluster, it will disable event log monitoring in the all the servers & cluster. Also it will clear the eventlog related Alarms and Events from database for all the servers & cluster. Hence use this option only when it is necessary.

9. Enter the polling interval time in minutes.

10. Choose the Monitor Group from the combo box to which you want to associate the Monitor (optional).

11. Click Add Monitor(s).

Please refer Windows Cluster Parameters to know more about the attributes monitored.

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See Also

Monitor Information - Server | Create Other New Monitors