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Blackout KM for PATROL is a tool intended for BMC Software® PATROL® administrators. It helps them dramatically reduce the number of triggered alerts. It simply makes PATROL enter into maintenance mode during backups and other maintenance operations (upgrades, etc.). The Blackout KM prevents PATROL from raising alerts that are directly or indirectly caused by such maintenance operations (stopped processes, high disk usage, etc.).
The Blackout KM by Sentry Software is the most powerful and comprehensive blackout solution available on the market: easy-to-use graphical interface in PATROL, seamless integration with existing backup scripts, etc. Please read below to see how the Blackout KM will greatly improve the efficiency of your monitoring architecture!
Key features
| • | Temporarily black out a whole KM or a single object |
| • | Plan periodic blackouts to handle backup operations: daily, weekly or monthly |
| • | Plan "one shot" blackouts to handle maintenance operations |
| • | Trigger a blackout upon the start/stop of a process, service, or file presence |
| • | Near real-time precision! (including for files and processes events) |
| • | Completely disable monitoring or only disable alert thresholds |
| • | Control blackouts from an external scheduler or from your backup scripts |
Key benefits
| • | Avoid false alerts triggered by maintenance operations (backups, upgrades, etc.) |
| • | Help your operators stop wasting their time sorting out real problems from false alerts. |
| • | Improve the efficiency of your monitoring solution and have more time to fix real problems. |
| • | Maximize the availability of your IT infrastructure by improving the accuracy of your PATROL®-based monitoring solution. |
Your challenge – Our solution
Following your IT infrastructure’s day-to-day life - Your IT infrastructure has become a critical component for your business. That’s why you actively monitor it to ensure its full availability. You also backup your databases, files, e-mails and configurations, while upgrading the software components as necessary.
This kind of maintenance activity (backups and software upgrades) often implies taking various IT components offline and triggering high system resource usage. While these maintenance operations are part of normal IT day-to-day life, if they are not properly handled by your monitoring solution, this raises alerts each time a server is backed-up or upgraded!
False alerts caused by maintenance operations - Assuming that your IT infrastructure is well designed and properly doing its job, the false alerts due to maintenance operations (backups, upgrades, etc.) may represent up to 100% of the daily alerts sent by PATROL to operators and administrators.
False alerts impact - Ask your operators: every morning they face hundreds of alerts simply because of backup operations! Each time an administrator works on a server (software upgrades, configuration changes, etc.), he basically lights up the Christmas tree in terms of operator consoles. As a result, operators are up to their sleeves in false alerts and they can’t see the real problems that have occurred during the night.
OUR SOLUTION - Sentry Software has developed the Blackout KM for PATROL as a standard certified BMC Software® MarketZone product. It allows you to have your favorite monitoring tool enter maintenance mode, preventing it from raising hundreds of false alerts about a planned backup that is running just fine! With Blackout KM for PATROL by Sentry Software, you dramatically reduce the number of false alerts that your operators have to process and that prevent them from treating real problems!
PATROL environment
Blackout KM for PATROL is "BMC Software MarketZone Product" certified. It supports and is supported by the following components in the PATROL framework:
Monitoring:
| • | PATROL Agent (required) - 3.4.11, 3.5, 3.6 |
Viewing:
| • | PATROL Classic Console - 3.4.11, 3.5, 3.6 |
| • | PATROL Central - Windows Edition - 7.2+ |
| • | PATROL Central - Web Edition - 7.2+ |
PATROL Infrastructure:
| • | Installation Utility (Thorium) - 7.4.60, 7.5.20 and greater |
| • | PATROL Distribution Server |
| • | PATROL Configuration Manager - 1.4+ |
Monitoring consolidation:
| • | PATROL Enterprise ManagerBMC Enterprise Manager |
| • | any solution supporting the PATROL API |
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