Release Notes v1.2.00

What's New

•	Improved compatibility with BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management.

•	The KM now fully supports version 9.0.00 of the PATROL Agent.

•	Full support for instance-to-device mapping in version 8.6.02 of BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management. The integration of the KM in BPPM now properly creates devices dynamically corresponding to the systems monitored remotely.

•	Full support of Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V (USP-V).

•	With the implementation as a separate component of a collection hub shared by several modules, it is now possible to configure several aspects of this collection hub separately. Separate options for the debug mode, for example, are now available.

Changes and Enhancements

•	Overall performance has been dramatically improved for the discovery and collection.

•	The engine performing WBEM Queries has been greatly optimized.

Java Settings

•	The product can now be installed with an embedded Java Runtime Environment, thus preventing failures of the KM when a compatible version of Java could not be found.

•	A username and a password can now be specified to execute java instead of using the PATROL default account.

•	The Java.exe has been relocated. Therefore, the JavaPath configuration variable needs to be updated by restarting the PATROL Agent.

Thresholds Management

In order to optimize the discovery process and improve the scalability of the solution, several important changes have been implemented in the way alert thresholds are managed by the KM.

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Default thresholds are set in the agent’s configuration, only once, the first time the KM runs. In previous versions, the KM would set default alert thresholds during each discovery (every hour by default) according to its internal policy, thus overwriting any changes that were made manually by the administrators. Administrators can now customize the default thresholds using the Event Management KM or PCM (PATROL Configuration Manager) and do not need to use the KM’s interface to make sure these customization are overwritten by the discovery of the KM.

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Thresholds are set globally at the class level (or at least for a group of instances). In previous versions, the KM would set alert thresholds for each and every instance of each class, leading to extremely large configuration files (which could cause PCM to crash in some occasions). A limited set of parameters still require alert thresholds to be set at the instance level. This results in a much smaller agent configuration file and vastly improved performance.

▪	The “Modify Thresholds” KM Commands has been removed from most classes, as the thresholds can now be managed by PATROL administrators in a standard way through the Event Management KM and PCM (or any other method used in their environment).

▪	The “Alert After N Times” KM Command has been removed, as this setting can now be managed by PATROL administrators in a standard way through the Event Management KM and PCM.

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To reset the alert thresholds to their default values (as when the KM first runs), the administrator can either use the “Reinitialize KM” KM Command with the “Reset alert thresholds” option enabled or use the Event Management KM or PCM to delete the corresponding configuration variables. The KM resets the threshold configuration variables to their default values when such variables do not exist.

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The “Thresholds Mechanism Selection” KM Command configures the location of the default alert thresholds configuration variables that are set during the first initialization of the KM: either in the /AS or in the /___tuning___ configuration tree. It is recommended to leave this setting to “Automatic” to make sure the thresholds configuration variables are stored in the proper location and avoid instability in the threshold settings.

During the upgrade from an earlier version, the KM will remove all of the instance-specific thresholds configuration variables. These numerous identical instance-specific thresholds are replaced with global thresholds at the class level. Thresholds that had been manually customized through the KM interface remain in place.

Fixed Issues

•	Usage Reports for Storage Pools and Controllers were displaying graphs with wrong units.

•	Traffic Reports were not generated if at least one of the selected parameters was offline.

•	Parameters for thin-provisioned pools were not properly collected.

•	On version 9.0.00 of the PATROL Agent on Windows systems with the default account configured with a domain account, "Invalid username/password" error messages were displayed in the System Output Windows of the PATROL Console.

Known Issue