Typical Scenarios of Remote Monitoring

By design and by default, Hardware Sentry KM monitors the hardware of the server it is running on, excluding any external parts that the system may see (like a disk in an external disk array). However, the KM can be configured to monitor a component that needs to be accessed through the network, or an external device like a storage array. Here are several typical scenarios where this mechanism will prove to be useful:

The licensing terms remain unchanged as to whether systems and devices are monitored locally or remotely. For a server that you need to monitor both in-band and out-of-band to get a complete monitoring of its hardware components, you still count the actual CPUs of the monitored server, and you do not need to count twice because of the two instances of Hardware Sentry KM monitoring it. If you choose to monitor another server remotely, you will have to count the number of CPUs in both the local and remote systems. For storage devices, please refer to the storage monitoring licensing guide or ask a BMC Software representative.

Monitoring a blade chassis

Blade servers are small-factor servers that share the same enclosure which provides the powering and cooling for all the blade servers inside the chassis. Most popular blade systems are:

All these blade chassis are fully supported by Hardware Sentry KM.

Each blade server can be considered as a true physical server whose hardware components need to be monitored. A PATROL Agent and a Hardware Sentry KM must be installed on each blade server to monitor the various parts of the blade: processors, memory modules, internal temperature, internal disks, etc.

Additionally, it is important to monitor the different components of the shared enclosure: power supplies and fans notably. Blade enclosures are generally equipped with a management card (the name can vary depending on the manufacturer: management module for the IBM BladeCenter, management blade for the Fujitsu-Siemens Blade BX, iLO or On-board Administrator for the HP BladeSystem, DRAC-MC for the Dell Modular Chassis).

In addition to the monitoring of the blade server it is running on, you can configure Hardware Sentry KM to connect to the management interface of the enclosure and monitor its hardware parts. Use the Add a Remote System or an External Device wizard to specify the name and IP address of the management interface. Specify that the element is a “Blade Chassis or Out-of-band Management Card”. Choose the appropriate connector corresponding to the type of the chassis and then provide the wizard with the credential to connect to the management interface (SNMP community or username and password if it’s a telnet/SSH-based interface).

In the PATROL Console, you obtain two separate main Hardware icons:

Under the shared chassis, an icon is also created for each blade server in the enclosure with an overall status for the blade (when available).

No additional license capacity is required to monitor the shared blade enclosure in addition to the CPUs present in the blade servers.

Monitoring a server through its out-of-band management card

For most servers, Hardware Sentry KM relies on an instrumentation layer running on the operating itself (an SNMP agent, a WBEM provider, or some system commands). However, for some types of servers (mostly UNIX systems), the information available in-band is not sufficient and does not provide any data regarding environment sensors, power supplies, etc. For these systems, Hardware Sentry KM offers the ability to get additional information about the server through its out-of-band management card (if any):

By default, Hardware Sentry KM monitors the hardware components in-band only. Use the Add a Remote System or an External Device wizard to make Hardware Sentry KM connect to the out-of-band management card and retrieve the additional information available. In the wizard, enter the name of the out-of-band management card and its IP address. Select “Blade Chassis or Out-of-band Management Card” as the system type. Choose the appropriate connector corresponding to the management card in the system and then enter the credentials to connect to it.

In the PATROL Console, an additional icon is created:

No additional license capacity is required when monitoring a system from both in-band and out-of-band.

Monitoring a SAN switch

As the importance of the external storage grows with the implementation of blade servers and virtualization, monitoring the center piece of the SAN, i.e. the fiber switch, has become more critical than ever. Hardware Sentry KM is able to monitor SAN switches from Cisco, Brocade and McData: their internal hardware components, fiber ports, temperature, power supplies, fans, as well as the traffic on each port. This greatly helps SAN administrators understand the performance issues in the environment: which servers are very demanding, which array is under pressure, backups impact, etc.

As a PATROL Agent cannot be installed on a SAN switch, you will need to install the KM on a regular system and then configure Hardware Sentry KM to connect to the SAN switch and monitor it. Use the Add a Remote System or an External Device wizard to specify the name and IP address of the SAN switch. Select the appropriate connector:

A “Hardware on <switch name>” icon is created representing all of the monitored components of the switch:

Additionally, SAN administrators can use the Ethernet/Fiber Port Traffic Report tool in Hardware Sentry KM to visualize the amount of data that are processed by each port of the switch on an hourly or daily basis.

The monitoring of a SAN switch requires the purchase of an additional “Sentry Software Monitoring for BMC Performance Manager - Storage Monitoring” license.

Monitoring an external disk array

SAN administrators often struggle to consolidate the monitoring and reporting of the various disk arrays from different vendors that are under their responsibility. Hardware Sentry KM is able to monitor a wide range of disk arrays: IBM DS, HP EVA, EMC, etc. By relying on their SMI-S standard instrumentation, or on their specific administration tools otherwise, Hardware Sentry KM monitors the health of the various internal components: the disks, the different levels of allocated volumes, the fiber ports, the environment and the controllers.

Depending on the disk array and the way it is instrumented, the configuration of Hardware Sentry KM is slightly different.

First case: The disk array is SMI-S compliant itself, i.e. it can be interrogated directly by using the SMI-S protocol (WBEM-based), like the IBM DS6000 or DS8000 and the EMC Symmetrix disk arrays. Use the Add a Remote System or an External Device wizard to specify the name and IP address of the disk array. Select the “SMI-S Compliant Disk Array” connector and enter the credentials to connect to the disk array.

Second case: The disk array requires the installation of a management software tool on a separate server or workstation, like the EMC Clariion and HP EVA disk arrays. The disk array management tool acts as a “proxy” with the disk array itself. You need to install the PATROL Agent and Hardware Sentry KM on the server or workstation where the disk array management tool is running. By default, Hardware Sentry KM will monitor the hardware components of the server or workstation it is running on. Use the Add a Remote System or an External Device wizard to make Hardware Sentry also monitor the disk array through the management “proxy”. Enter the name of the disk array and specify “localhost” as the IP address. This will make Hardware Sentry KM send its SMI-S/WBEM queries to the local management software tool.

Third case: IBM DS3000 and IBM DS4000 disk arrays require the installation of the SMCli tool on a server or workstation. You need to install the PATROL Agent and Hardware Sentry KM on the server or workstation where SMCli has been installed. Use the Add a Remote System or an External Device wizard to make Hardware Sentry KM use the SMCli tool to connect to the IBM disk array. Enter the name of the disk array and its IP address (note that you don’t specify “localhost” as in the previous case, SMICli is not a “proxy” interface). Select the “IBM DS (LSI) Disk Array (smcli)” connector and enter the credentials to connect to the disk array.

Fourth case: NetApp filers are monitored remotely through their native SNMP Agent. Use the Add a Remote System or an External Device wizard to make Hardware Sentry KM monitor the internal hardware components of the NetApp filer: enter the name and IP address of the disk array, select the “NetApp Filer SNMP Agent” connector and enter the SNMP community string. Filers have a much broader feature set than pure disk arrays. Sentry Software provides an additional KM that focuses on the performance and statistics metrics of the filer itself (filesystems, backups, I/O, etc.): NetApp Filers KM for PATROL. Both KMs (Hardware Sentry KM and NetApp Filers KM) are required to obtain a full monitoring coverage of a NetApp filer. Hardware Sentry KM shows the pure disk array part and NetApp Filers KM shows what is sometimes called the “NAS head”.

The monitoring of an external disk array requires the purchase of an additional “Sentry Software Monitoring for BMC Performance Manager – Storage Monitoring” license.

Monitoring a tape library

As backups are now often centralized on tape libraries, it is important to ensure that these devices are available to backup software products. Hardware Sentry KM is able to monitor the health of the various internal components of a tape library, including the tape drives and the media changers. Please note that Hardware Sentry KM does not monitor the backup software products in charge of copying the data to the tapes. It will not report whether a backup operation couldn’t complete or when a backup set is not up to date.

Most tape libraries are instrumented through SNMP. While bearing different vendor names, most tape libraries are OEM’d from StorageTek or Quantum/ADIC. Use the Add a Remote System or an External Device wizard to make Hardware Sentry KM monitor a tape library. Specify the name of the library and its IP address. Select the appropriate connector (most probably, simply corresponding to the real manufacturer of the library: IBM, Quantum/ADIC or StorageTek). Enter the SNMP community.

The monitoring of a tape library requires the purchase of an additional “Sentry Software Monitoring for BMC Performance Manager – Storage Monitoring” license.