Cross platform server monitoring

[jON Sads]

Hi there,

We have a policy of using HP servers (over 15 years) and love the management and notification features available.

However, increasingly we are struggling with monitoring servers that do not have HP driver support for the OS.

Case in point, today at one of our data centres a Debian Linux server has a failed PSU. I already worked out how to use HPACUCLI or similar to send a cron email alert if there is an issue with the RAID but thats as far as I have been able to go.

This cab has 7 servers in it, all HP.

I would like to be able to monitor in a single place all significant alerts ... anything that makes the server show up an orange alert on the chassis to my email address as we do with the SMNP traps in Windows.

Can someone advise, can I do this with Insight Manager ... if I install on one of my servers can I get this to give me a single point of monitor and alert for all issues in my Rack without having to go to the data centre?

I am just after a pointer in the right direction ... once I know what I _should_ be using I can then get the docs and have a read.

thanks all,

jON

P.S. This thread has been moved from ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL) to ITRC HP Systems Insight Manager Forum. - Hp Forum Moderator

[Andrew_Haak · Accepted solution]

Hello Jon,

Sure you can use HP SIM for just that task. The first thing you need to have management agents installed on al of your servers. You need at least the System Management agent, Hp-snmp-agents and a snmp package to monitor the servers. You do not need to install all SPP / PSP packages. The agents mentioned above would be for a Linux server, there are also packages for Windows any version.

When you've installed the agents on all or a selection of your servers you can use one of your servers to install HP SIM on. The software is available in a Windows or Linux version.

Then you need a SQL or Oracle database to connect HP SIM to. Once you have that setup configure a trust from HP SIM to your servers and set snmp or wbem traps to the HP SIM server. Once you get your snmp or wbem events you can setup email notification to any adres you want to send your alarms to.

Hope this helps, i could go into details if you want, this is just a pointer what you could/should do.

Kind regards,

Andrew

[jON Sads]

Thanks Andrew, thats the sort of thing I was looking for. (apologies for the slow reply, I was expecting replies to be emailed to me but that feature wasnt turned on in my profile)

Is there a k/b article that you can point me to for full instructions?

I don't mind doing some studying but all these abbreviations, acronyms etc are confusing and I simply don't know where to start. I have found a website on HP Sim, I don't suppose you know of a "quick start" online do you? I can't see one.

thanks again.

jON

[Andrew_Haak]

Hello Jon,

depending on the operating system you are going to install your SIM server on you need the Windows or Linux version of SIM. The Windows version is more mainstream. You can use either version just wich you prefer. You also need a SQL server of Oracle, again the SQL is the mainstream version. SIM also has a light version packed with the SIM windows version.

you can try using the light SQL version depending on how much servers you plan to monitor. The more you put in SIM the slower it gets, mostly because of the memory and disk I/O. Once installed you can logon with the credentials you used for the installation. Watch out for diskspace the minimal diskspace for the sim + SQL should be at least 15 Gb free space and depending on the number of objects in the database and software packages in the VCRM even more...

Once installed you will need sign-in, snmp and/or wbem credentials, then you will need to run discovery using a list of hosts, ip adresses or subnets. When you get there we can give you more pointers if you need them...

Kind regards,

Andrew