What are the basic and important works to be followed by system admin to have 100% availability

[senthil_kumar_1]

Hi All,

I would like to know "What are the basic and important works to be followed by system admin to have 100% availability of server and how to automate that".

For example,

1)Checking disk space and sending mails if it exceeds.

2)Log rotation.

3)Checking CPU and memory usage and sending mails.

What others and how to make that automated.

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

It's all about establishing and documenting your baseline performance. Get a clear and accurate picture of your system when it is running right and then look for the deviations. Your list is a good start, but I would go a bit further.

I send disk utilization emails every day and have my email client set up to capture the first of the month email into a separate folder so I can go back and look at historical usages.

In addition I run Glance continuously so that I have a good feel for what the system looks like in a healthy state. When complaints start coming in, I can usually tell at a "glance" what to focus on.

HP's diagnostic tools can give you a "heads up" when something is amiss with the hardware but it's your responsibility to set up the redundancy that allows the system to keep on running while the hardware is being repaired/replaced.

The list could go on and on, but the main idea is to have a good idea of what your system should look like and check for deviations.


Pete

[P Muralidhar Kini]

Hi Senthil,

>> 100% availability of server
This is a heavy word and means a lot of things ranging from desinging your
entire operating environement to you day to day activities.

Some things to consider -
* HP Serviceguard Solutions for HP-UX 11i: Serviceguard
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/w1/en/os/hpux11i-serviceguard-solutions-serviceguard.html

* HP-UX 11i Availability Features
http://www.nasi.com/hp-ux_availability.php

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Murali

[Bhadresh]

Hi Senthil,

There are various tools which can help you in different system administration activities.
Following link discusses about various system administration tools:
http://docs.hp.com/en/5992-6573/ch04.html

Glance Tool can be used for Checking CPU and memory usage.

To know more about glance tool issue following command on HP-UX:
# man glance

Regards,
Bhadresh

[Torsten.]

IMHO 100% availability is not possible today (did you hear about the "five nines"?).

[Ishwar_1]

Senthil,

The basic jobs which we follow:-

1) Make Backup Copy of your System Image.
2) Copy all the important files. like passwd,fstab,vg etc on your local system. Incase if you are taking System Image Backup Once Month.
3) Configure Sudo on the System. For the limited access and to the requirement of the user.
4) You can Automate all the process by writing scripts.
5) Write a monitoring Script with threshold limit, which diagnose files,memory,cpu,event incase if anything goes abnormal it will send E-mail Notification to the required people.
6) Like everyone mentioned you can also use Glance to find the bottleneck.

Regards
Ishwar Venugopal

[Taifur]

Hi,

>>>>>What are the basic and important works to be followed by system admin to have 100% availability

1.U have to check server health regularly
2.check disk space, IO activity
by using sar command

#sar -d 5 5

check man pages of sar

3.take backup of system by make_tape_recovery

4.take ignite backup by make_net_recovery

5.backup of syslog and check it regulary , if there is any error or not
6.take nickel

7.check storage health

8.Check cluster performance by using cmviewcl -v

9. check ioscan , like
ioscan -funC disk
ioscan

10.check bdf for disk space.

11. Take file system bakcp regularly by data protector software
I think , it will help u for system admin level

Cheers/
Taifur

[Basheer_2]

Hello enthil,

Many people have already recommended many options.

From the hardware availability, we have set up

SIM - Inventory, auto e-mail
for Proactive monitoring we have configured
RSP ( Now IRS) - This will auto e-mail any problems to HP-Customer-Support.

[AnthonySN]

as torsten mentioned above 100% is not an achievable target, but yes with servers like nonstop HP gaurantees 99.999999 uptime

[chris huys_4]

Hi,

Good trained and competent system admins, who can say no to managers and customers alike, if the situation arises, and who control the action from beginning to end. All the rest is secundary.

Greetz,
Chris