RapidWatcher

In the last post, we've looked at how we can simply extend the ICIM model by adding new properties to existing classes. In this post, we'll go one step further and look at what we can do to take advantage of the events functionality and generate notifications in Smarts.

The objective

Monitor applications with synthetic transactions and depending on the response time, create a notification that states either the application is slow (degraded) or down.

The model changes
We will extend the ICIM_LogicalElement class since it seems to be appropriate for an application. There may be a more appropriate class but this one will do. First, the properties we need to use in monitoring:  read more »

We have been releasing solutions that we use in the field as open source tools available for the community. Last couple of weeks we have released Smarts Trap Processing Monitor and Smarts Discovery Reporter. Both of these solutions were built on top of RapidWatcher independently, hence had conflicts (Thanks for the heads up Karl!)

The latest release of RapidWatcher includes the necessary files for both these solutions as part of the RapidWatcher package. Discovery Reporter is active but Trap processing Monitor is inactive by default. Of course, you can turn on Smarts Trap Monitor by following the directions in the previous post about it.  read more »

Discovery process is one of the routine Smarts administration tasks. Smarts Availability Manager (AM) Discovery can be initiated ad-hoc from the Smarts Domain Manager Administration Console (requires administrator level access) or can be scheduled to run periodically, off hours, etc. when the network is less utilized.

To analyze the results of the discovery can be a time consuming task for administrators (and not feasible without administrative access) since it requires checking verbose log files, discovery pending list, notifications, etc.

Smarts Discovery Reporter has been developed to help interested parties to easily access and analyze the results of the Smarts discovery process without requiring admin level access to the Smarts system. Smarts Discovery Reporter is implemented on top of the RapidWatcher and mainly does the following:

• Monitors the Smarts AM servers and detects when Smarts discovery is run.  read more »

If you have already checked out our RapidWatcher product (you should! :), you are already familiar with how it can help you monitor various systems and take actions accordingly. You should also be familiar with RapidWatcher's status updates in the form of an RSS feed.
In this post, I will explain how an RSS feed from RapidWatcher can be used to create notifications in the Smarts server with the help of a simple RapidConnector adapter. The example can be modified to feeds other than RapidWatcher.

Building the solution

Once you have your RapidWatcher up and running, you can get the status information on managed systems by accessing the RSS feed URL (http://localhost:9191/RapidWatcher/ManagedObject/rssFeed) using a feed reader or browser. To see how a feed looks like, you can take a look at the RSS feed from the RapidWatcher demo.More...
RSS feed is of course an alternative to getting the same information via the web based user interface or the web services API.Here is a sample RSS feed from RapidWatcher.
 read more »

Application level monitoring refers to monitoring of the actual functionality of the applications rather than just whether the application is running or not. It is not uncommon for an application to be up and running yet not working as it should do to variety of reasons. Application level monitoring requires simulation of the common activities an application performs to ensure the application is working as expected, rather than relying on more typical methods of checking whether the process runs or the port is active.

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How do you monitor your management solution? How do you ensure that the monitoring solution is working as expected? As this is a commonly repeated activity, there should be some best practices. What works in the field? Any thoughts on how to monitor the Smarts solution and related components are appreciated.

In the projects I’ve involved in, typically a collection of scripts are often developed as part of the implementation project or later by the administrators of the solution. I personally have not witnessed use of system/application management tools such as Tivoli/Patrol/NetIQ, etc. to monitor the monitoring solution probably because of financial/organizational reasons.  read more »