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pascal Guest
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2003 3:45 am Post subject: check hardware servers |
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Are there also tests to check the hardware of servers, diskdrives, tapedrives ...... |
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Guest
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2003 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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There are no common built-in methods in HostMonitor. I think everything depends on developer of the server and hardware. If they provide some standard interface (e.g. SNMP), its good. If not...
Regards
Alex |
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SABIC-EPC
Joined: 25 Aug 2003 Posts: 1 Location: Netherlands
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2003 1:41 am Post subject: |
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Alex,
We provide some standard interface (e.g. SNMP), now we use also Compaq Insight Manager, this works also with SNMP traps.
But I don't want to use it anymore ( CIM )
I want to use Hostmonitor to check hardware if it's posible.
Regards,
Pascal |
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hmo
Joined: 14 Feb 2003 Posts: 81 Location: Denmark
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2003 4:17 am Post subject: |
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Hostmonitor is not hardware specific in any way - ie. you can use what ever you like, to monitor snmp compatible units. In Hostmonitor you can drag snmp values and have a very secure way of monitoring any hardware device you want. Like Compaq's insigt manager IBM also has it's own - Netfinity etc. If Hostmonitor should contain all this GUI-work it would (imho) loose all it advantages. Monitoring should be quick, simple and very secure. Try to look-up any snmp-enabling for your servers (hardware). You'll be supprised of what you can see!
Regards,
Hans Mosegaard |
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Marcus
Joined: 18 Nov 2002 Posts: 367
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:45 am Post subject: |
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Quote: | But I don't want to use it anymore ( CIM ) |
This is not a good idea. Insight manager not only sends traps to the remote device to collect data, it also receives traps when the remote insight manager agents see a problem.
It is this latest function that is not available with HostMonitor. SNMP traps sent to insight manager would be lost! Unless you have some other meganisme to capture the snmp traps sent from the remote machine, you should not stop using insight manager. |
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hmo
Joined: 14 Feb 2003 Posts: 81 Location: Denmark
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:59 am Post subject: |
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If we're talking about Compaq hardware - only - I would agree. In our datacenter we have multible vendors, so it would we a nightmare to work with different specific "insigt managers" etc. I dont know if you only has Compaq-units... but if you dont, then a 3'rd. part SNMP-trapper would also do the job... from here You can - in Hostmonitor - collect all kinda data you want.
Cheers,
Hans Mosegaard |
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Marcus
Joined: 18 Nov 2002 Posts: 367
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2003 8:20 am Post subject: |
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We have IBM, Dell and Compaq / HP and use the vendor's monitoring tools (besides Openview). It just has a lot of advantages to use the vendor tools. I can't imagine you will create your own snmp jobs to collect all data from the servers.
But then again, that's why I wrote you must have another mechanism to collect the traps |
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gdvl
Joined: 04 Apr 2002 Posts: 103 Location: Belgium
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:55 am Post subject: |
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Hi Marcus en co,
Can you tell me how you use / position CIM, OpenView and Hostmonitor ?
My boss want to use a big one as OpenView or MOM or Argent Guardian or ... . He will have a central collection of ALL events, alerts, history, ... in one big database.
Now we have Hostmonitor, and I'm very satisfied with it as monitoring and alerting tool. Hostmonitor is much much better than the monitoring capabilities of the 'big' ones.
Can you tell me how you use these different parts together ? And what's your experience with them ? (especially conceptual, not only technical)
PS: I think we better mail about this.
Regards,
Gert De Vleeschouwer
mailto:gdvl@concentra.be |
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Marcus
Joined: 18 Nov 2002 Posts: 367
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 4:50 am Post subject: |
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SNMP traps are sent to two locations:
Vendor Hardware tool + Openview
Vendor tools wil forward all events to Openview, this wil result in duplicate messages in openview (which is no problem if you collect the duplicates).
Hostmonitor wil send an snmp trap on every bad status found to the openview server. It wil send a one time only snmp trap to openview when the status changes back to normal.
This results in a single monitoring interface: Openview (we use the javagui).
And the tools from the 'big-ones' are not less, they are not default included |
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hmo
Joined: 14 Feb 2003 Posts: 81 Location: Denmark
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Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2003 11:24 am Post subject: |
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Marcus wrote: | We have IBM, Dell and Compaq / HP and use the vendor's monitoring tools (besides Openview). It just has a lot of advantages to use the vendor tools. I can't imagine you will create your own snmp jobs to collect all data from the servers. But then again, that's why I wrote you must have another mechanism to collect the traps |
Vendor monitoring tools? Advantages? Can You be more specific? Like airflow within your server, or perhaps raid warnings?
Okay.. vendor tools can - in fact - tell you even more, but do you really need it? How keen are you on those numbers? I'm not keen on knowing what car is driving on the road... I just want to know if trafic goes well. I dont care less if cars is black, blue og green... as long I know they can move on the road. (dont misunderstand this picture!)
Cheers,
Hans Mosegaard |
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Marcus
Joined: 18 Nov 2002 Posts: 367
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2003 2:18 am Post subject: |
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-Well, knowing the serials is fine when hardware support is needed. Knowing the exact model is even finer. And knowing this when the remote server is offline is a blessing
-Replacing a cpu because it is slowly failing, is nice.
-Replacing a disk when it fails from your array is nice (you don't need an array if you can't see the problem).
-Timing problems or failing memory cards is nice to see.
-A power fan not running, is nice to see.
-Tempatures rising inside the server, is nice to see.
All above did actually happen. If I had to create my own snmp queries, I would have missed them for sure.
Most traps wil reach your management server (if you have one), but when using the vendor tools, all traps are translated to human understandable messages. Looking up or implementing your own (imported) mib translations is a hell of a job. Since you don't actually need a full blown server to implement the vendor tools, costs should not be the bottleneck...... |
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hmo
Joined: 14 Feb 2003 Posts: 81 Location: Denmark
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2003 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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Right on Marcus. We're talking about vendor specific information piped into hostmonitor- or not? Sure I like to know when "anything" is wrong on any of our servers, but I like to approach this by KISS method - ie. do the basic test "you can" with Hostmonitor. On top of that - do run any vendor specific software you like locally on a given server. We primary use IBM and Fujitsu-Siemens servers, and all of them will flash a yellow or red light on the front when anything goes wrong. In that case... we do inspect our servers a couple of times each day... if needed we'll bring up the current vendor-tool to have a closer look - and like you - solve the problem based on "human error-codes". What I dont like is to build up a huge christmas-tree based on many different systems - and link those together in a scarry way (who to trust?).
What I'm talking about is to take a pragmatic approach into the easy lane. I wont say that "your way" is wrong...neither is my way... we just gain the same result in different ways!
Ohh... I would'nt miss my day-walk through our zones... just the sight of "that many" servers flashing (mostly green) is a dream-tour!
Cheers,
Hans Mosegaard |
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Marcus
Joined: 18 Nov 2002 Posts: 367
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2003 2:18 am Post subject: |
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Quote: | We're talking about vendor specific information piped into hostmonitor- or not? |
No, please don't. If people want this information, use the vendor tools.
I don't think HostMonitor must be able to collect snmp traps. Other tools are available (and build) for that purpose. Besides, it would be a crime to keep up to date with all vendors (not just yours or mine). HostMonitor must do what it does best of all: Check the OS / services remotely.
Quote: | and all of them will flash a yellow or red light on the front when anything goes wrong. In that case... we do inspect our servers a couple of times each day |
This would be nice if we could see the servers. We perform remote administration, on different locations in different countries and on those locations local people are not able / allowed to physically check the servers.
Vendor tools are our 'eyes' to the servers. Since we can not 'KISS' our servers, we embrase them |
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