Understanding Uptime Infrastructure Monitor

The Uptime Infrastructure Monitor tool bar provides quick access to the following:

Dashboards

SysList

The system list (Syslist) is a popup window that contains the following information:

• the display names in Uptime Infrastructure Monitor and the host names of systems in your environment, arranged in alphabetical order
• the name of the group to which, if any, the system belongs
• OS and architecture details

The Syslist is also a tool for quick navigation within the Uptime Infrastructure Monitor Web interface. Each display name is a hyperlink. Click a display name to view the information about the system in the System Information subpanel.

Search

As you enter text in the search field, designated by the magnifying glass icon, Uptime Infrastructure Monitor configuration actions, as well as the display names of Elements, are displayed.

For example, initially entering the string “serv” displays the Add Service Monitor and Add Service Group commands. The string could also display Element names such as "QA Server 1" and "Active Directory". In the latter example, the match would occur if the Element’s host name were "AD-Server".

For all Elements, the string entered is compared with the Element’s host name, display name, architecture, and custom fields.

Users

The Users panel enables you manage all users, user groups, Notification Groups and their associated permissions. You can view, create, edit, and delete the following:

• users
• user groups
• notification groups
• user roles

For more information about using the Users panel, see User Management.

Understanding Reports

Reports enable you to visually analyze how individual critical resources-- such as memory, CPU, and disk resources--are consumed over a specific period of time.

For detailed information about reports, see Using Reports.

If you need to regularly run certain reports, you can save them to the My Portal panel. See Scheduling Reports for more information.

Understanding Graphs

You can graph performance information when you need to view the most common or pertinent performance information for servers in your environment. For example, you can use a graph to determine CPU usage or the available capacity on a file system. Graphs give you a fine level of performance detail.

You can view graphs using the Java graphing tool on any platform (e.g., in Firefox, running on Linux). For more information about graphing, see Using Graphs.

Understanding Major and Minor Versions

When you install Uptime Infrastructure Monitor, you install a Monitoring Station and one or more Uptime Infrastructure Monitor agents. You could have different versions of Monitoring Stations and agents. For example, you could have different platforms and different Uptime Infrastructure Monitor agent versions running on each system.

• Major version

Regardless of operating system platform, the major version is the number to the left of the decimal. In the diagram above the major number of the Windows agent is 3; the major number of the UNIX agent is 3; the major number of the LINUX agent is 4.0.

• Minor version

Minor version numbers follow the major version number. These numbers are used to distinguish each minor version of a major version.

On UNIX and Linux, the minor version is the first number to the right of the decimal. In the diagram above, the minor version number of the UNIX agent is 8 and the minor version number of the Linux agent is 0.

On Windows, the minor version is the last set of numbers in the complete version. In the diagram above, the minor version number of the Windows agent is 1061.

For major version 4 and later for Windows, the minor version number is the number immediately after the decimal that follows the major number. For example, for Windows agent version 4.0, the minor number is 0.

Connecting to the DataStore Using ODBC

You can extract data from the DataStore for use in custom reporting or data warehousing by connecting to the DataStore using an ODBC connection. Once the connection is established, you can import the contents of the DataStore into such tools as MySQL Query Browser, Microsoft Excel and Crystal Reports.

Before you can connect to the DataStore using ODBC, the client system that is accessing the database must have the MySQL ODBC driver installed. The ODBC driver enables the client system to communicate with the DataStore.

For detailed information on installing and configuring the MySQL ODBC driver, see the Uptime Knowledge Base article “Connecting to the Uptime Infrastructure Monitor DataStore via ODBC.”

Understanding Database Monitors

There are two types of monitors for MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server databases:

• Basic Checks

These monitors determine whether the database is running and listening on the expected port. You can also run queries against the databases using scripts.

• Advanced Metrics

These monitors collect detailed information about database processes, which you can later use for reporting and graphing.

Understanding Agentless Monitors Using Net-SNMP

Net-SNMP suite of command line and graphical applications that interact with SNMP agents that are installed on hosts. Net-SNMP presents a set of SNMP MIBs (Management Information Base, which is a listing that defines variables needed by the SNMP protocol to monitor and control network equipment). The MIBs are used to collect system performance information for use by the Uptime Infrastructure Monitor Monitoring Station.

The Net-SNMP monitor uses the HOST-RESOURCES MIB to collect the following data:

• Configuration
  
  • System name.
  • Number of CPUs.
  • The size of the system memory.
  • The network interfaces on the system, as well as their MTU, speed, and physical address.

  The HOST-RESOURCES MIB can collect other configuration data, but the Monitoring Station does not use this information.

• Performance Data
  • CPU
    
    • CPU user time
    • CPU system time
    • CPU wait I/O time
  • Memory
    
    • the amount of free memory
    • the amount of free swap space
  • Processes
    
    • the name of a process
    • the ID of a process (PID)
    • the amount of memory used by a process
    • process run time (in centi-seconds on the CPU)
    • the number of running processes
  • Network
    
    • the name of the network interface
    • the number of kilobytes flowing into the interface per second
    • the number of kilobytes flowing out of the interface per second
    • the number of inbound errors
    • the number of outbound errors
  • File System
    
    • the name of the file system
    • the size of the file system
    • the amount of the file system that is used
  • User
    
    • the number of users who are logged into the system

For more information on SNMP and Net-SNMP, see SNMP-Based Systems .

Understanding Service Groups

Service groups are service monitor templates that enable you to simultaneously apply a common service check to one or more hosts. Defining and using service groups greatly simplifies the task of initially setting up and maintaining common service checks that you wish to perform across many hosts in an identical manner.

For example, you can create a service group called CPU Performance Check that is associated with 50 different servers. You can apply a common performance monitor check to 50 servers.

With service groups, you save time by not having to manually re-create an individual service monitor with the exact same service check and Alert Profile for each server you want to monitor. There is no practical limit to the number or complexity of your service groups and the underlying service monitors associated with them.

Service groups can be created for both physical infrastructure assets that are monitored by Uptime Infrastructure Monitor, as well as virtual assets managed by Hyper-V and VMware vSphere. Although they are functionally identical to physical asset service groups, virtual service groups are automatically applied to newfound ESX hosts, VMs, and other virtual objects that are discovered through the Sync (Hyper-V) and vSync (VMware) process.

See Virtual System Monitoring Concepts for information on synchronization, and Service Groups for information on creating service groups.