Tweaking SIM for optimal performance

[johnvegas]

Hello Everyone,

I would like some help as to exactly the best way to tweak the data collection of SIM 5.0. I monitor about 100 servers spread across 8 locations. I have discovery set to poll everyday at 4:00 am.

Does SIM connect out to the server (causing network traffic), or does the managed server just report back to SIM. If so, I would like to know how where to set the interval it uses. I really only need it to hit each server every hour or 30 minutes or so.

Are there any other performance tweaks or a white paper as to how to optimize performance of the server running SIM 5.0?

[Rob Buxton]

Depends
Data collection is done by the Data Collection task and is a scheduled job. see under scheduled jobs.
I also add a Historical data collection task.

Polling to see if a server is okay is also a scheduled task, typically every 5 minutes, but the interval can be changed.

SNMP traps in the event an HP Agent detects a fault or threshold exceeded is the only information generated from the client servers to HPSIM.

So yes, there is some network traffic as HPSIM polls the servers to check they're still reachable.

[David Claypool]

With 100 servers, it is doubtful that any 'tweak' would result in any appreciable performance change that would be noticeable to a user.

To your other questions, you have inter-mixed many different processes.

First, it's important to understand that the only communication initiated by a target device is an SNMP trap event. All other communication is initiated by the HP SIM server.

"Auto Discovery" is a scheduled process that is designed to ping one or more subnets or subsets of subnets for the purpose of discovering devices that have appeared on the network that HP SIM does not know about yet or to locate devices that are already known but may have changed IP address and/or DNS name. The frequency of this task is set under Options --> Discovery and should be set to some level based on the rate of change on your network. This is a judgment call. If you add a system on average once a month to your network and your systems are all static IP addresses, you might determine that running Auto Discovery daily is excessive.

"Data Collection" is a process that gathers configuration information (typically around 2KB of data per device) as part of the sequence of events kicked off when Auto Discovery finds a new device and also by default runs every 2 weeks to pick up configuration changes. It can have its schedule customized from Tasks & Logs --> All Scheduled Tasks.

Ideally, when a device experiences a failure, it will initiate an SNMP event to communicate back to the HP SIM server, effectively calling for help. However, SNMP traffic is not guaranteed delivery and there are other conditions that may make the generation of an event undeliverable--the LAN connection may not be up, the server may be locked, etc. So HP SIM uses status polling as a backup method to detect and flag servers that may need attention. By default, this runs every 5 minutes for servers. This also can be customized in Tasks & Logs --> All Scheduled Tasks.

Rather than just changing that value, since you mention you have 8 locations, you might consider creating collections describing the servers at each of your locations and creating separate tasks for polling each of them, potentially with different intervals depending on your sensitivity to the speed of your link and how important the systems are at that location.

[johnvegas]

rob and david,

Your well thought-out and descriptive replies are very much appreciated. I will assume that with only 100 servers I shouldn't worry too much. I'm turning off auto-discovery every day (unfortuantely my company has made the poor decision to move toward Dells). I will also go back and modify some other entries/tasks that david mentioned.

[David Claypool]

Unfortunate is right. Check out "How to manage non-HP servers with HP SIM" from http://www.hp.com/go/hpsim --> Information Library so you at least can maintain some semblance of dignity... ;)

[Rob Buxton]

Unfortunately the benefits of the ease of management the HPSIM suite and associated agents present is not always quantifiable in terms of dollars.
But there are some interesting figures that compare purchase cost to on-going management and maintenance and the purchase cost is just a small fraction. So, typically you have a short term gain and some long term pain and expense.

[johnvegas]

Well Rob, I was in services as a field tech (proliant side) for 5 years in Tampa (4 with Compaq pre-merger), so you dont have to sell me on the benefits of running industry standard servers versus the cheaper solution (yes..that was a dig on Dell), but I'm not a decision maker.

I did try the DEll MIB to see the rest of our environment, but the decision was made to run a separate ITASSIST server (Dell's copy of SIM). Some reps from them even told me that had a great new product that phoned home when hardware failed. I raised my hand in front of our whole organization and asked them if they'd ever heard of ISEE and they looked confused...enough said!