Integrating Hardware Sentry

An integration component for BMC Performance Manager Portal is released along with the KM: BMC-PM-PATROL-Hardware-Sentry-1.5.xx.par.

This integration component is valid on BMC Performance Manager Portal v2.3 upwards.

This integration component for the BMC Performance Manager Portal environment is in the form of a PAR file. It enables visualization of parameter data of all objects monitored by the KM, in the BMC Performance Manager Portal environment.

The Hardware Sentry package is to be installed using the BMC Software Installation Utility. Hardware Sentry is a knowledge module (KM) for BMC Software PATROL. Therefore it must be installed on the following components of the PATROL framework:

Hardware Sentry Installation Wizard – Integrating Hardware Sentry

Like any other KM, the active part of Hardware Sentry resides on the PATROL Agent. A PATROL Agent must be installed on each server whose hardware is to be monitored, and Hardware Sentry must be installed on each PATROL Agent. Once Hardware Sentry is integrated within the PATROL framework, the hardware information and status of the monitored servers will be available in the PATROL interface.
Please refer to the Installation Guide for details on the installation procedure.

The need for manufacturer-specific hardware monitoring software

Often, the standard operating system layer is not a sufficient hardware information source and most computers require an additional manufacturer-specific agent for Hardware Sentry to function properly. In most cases, server vendors provide the required hardware monitoring agent for their server models. Depending on the platform, a single agent could monitor the temperatures, fans, voltages, power supplies and RAID systems, or, the platform may require separate agents for environment and disk monitoring. For example: The IBM Director Agent monitors and provides information about temperatures, fans, voltages, power supplies and the ServeRAID disks for IBM xSeries and Netfinity servers. On the other hand, the Siemens ServerView Agent only monitors the sensors on the motherboard of the server (temperatures, voltages, fans and power supplies) and so the Mylex GAM Server is required to monitor the Mylex RAID controller of the server.

Please refer to the Installation Guide and the Platform-specific guides for further details.

Using Hardware Sentry to monitor hardware

Once Hardware Sentry is installed and integrated into the PATROL framework and the hardware information sources are available, the hardware information of the monitored computers are displayed in the PATROL Consoles (PATROL® Classic Consoles and PATROL® Central). The operators and administrators just have to look at the PATROL Consoles to see the hardware health of their monitored servers in exactly the same way they see the operating system or database health. Under each server icon, a tree represents all the monitored hardware for this server.