Managing OpenVMS

[Peter Brooks_5]

I need to manage some servers running OpenVMS using OpenView. They are also running Oracle and Forte.

Has anybody managed this? Is there any agent for OVO [there is no supported agent, I wondered if there was an unsupported agent]? Is there a MIB that can be used for NNM? Are there MIBs/Agents for Oracle/Forte and other applications on OpenVMS?

What is usually used for Network or Application management on OpenVMS?

[Mic V.]

We use a program called "HITMAN". It lets you disconnect idle users and that type of thing. Try:

Saiga Systems Software Inc.
#215, 801 - 6th Street SW
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2P 3V8
Voice: 1-800-561-8876
Telephone(403) 263-1151
Fax(403) 263-0744
Internet support@saiga.com
WWW http://www.saiga.com/

For SNMP/NNM, check out:

http://www.comtekservices.com/vms.htm

HTH,
Mic

[Keith Cayemberg · Accepted solution]

The AppMind OpenVMS Agent is a client for
OpenView, Tivoli and Patrol.

http://www.appmind.com/

[Rob Buxton]

To manage from a remote GUI, the HP Availability Manager does a good job.

For Alpha, you can download and use Agents for Insight Manager, which will then integrate with Openview.

Both the Agents and Insight Manager are free. The latest incarnation, HP Systems Insight Manager is a bit more geared up for a mixed (HP Only) environment.

[Mike Naime]

We use BMC Patrol for monitoring the Oracle DB, and other items on the OS side of our backend servers (AIX and VMS). This is in conjunction with HP Openview. This sends alarm traps to Openview.

There is a BMC console as well as a VMS agent. Patrol has what they call KVM's for the agent side. This is similar in function to the MIB concept.

[Willem Grooters]

I've worked with Cockpit Manager to manage a 2-site, 4-node cluster with SAN, the site used both Oracle and RDB. I don;t know if there is a connection with OpenView, check with HP (CM is a HP product)

[Ian Miller.]

CockpitMgr http://www.hp.be/CockpitMgr is a fine product which should be more widely used. I have tested a couple of versions and its gets better each time. Unfourtunally I've not had the chance to use it on a live system for real yet :-)

[Martin Johnson]

We have the console port hooked up to a terminal server, which is then connected to a HP-UX system which takes the output of the console and places it into a file.

We then have an ITO template monitor the file and generate alerts on various conditions.

HTH
Marty

[Jonas Thorin]

To day the systems agent is used most in mission critical environments like exchanges (BrokerTec, Sydney Futures Exchange, Nord Pool....) but since 2003 several other industries with high demands have chosen the AppMind agent. You can manage AppMind from both the Unix and Win32 OVO console.

AppMind is not only a system agent but also an Application Surveillance agent that easaly could be integrated to your in-house application. From OVO you can monitor and manage them in real time.

There is more information at,
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/news/appmind_cert.html
http://devresource.hp.com/drc/topics/OpenView.jsp#downloads

[Mike Naime]

Peter:

I really think that you need to make the distinction between Monitoring, and Managing the systems and applications.

For Managing the VMS OS and hardware, Consoleworks and AMDS are my primary tools!

For Monitoring:
- HP Openview looks at the Network Ports.

- BMC Patrol (Now owned by HP) monitors the Oracle DB, the Application, Printer Queue's Disk devices(% full), and other things that you can get from MONITOR.

- T4 pulls and stores data from the OS native MONITOR utility that allows us to chart historical performance statistics. (after the fact, not real time)

- AMDS gives us a "control panel" that allows us to look at groups of systems (We have too many for one screen) and also allows us to remotely kill processes on a system that they have run out of free process entry slots.

- Consoleworks monitors the Console ports and notifys us by E-mail and Pager of system crashes and other events. Some of these HP Openview may not report for several minutes, or even be aware of. (Depends on its scan cycle)

Note: Consoleworks also monitors our HSG80 storage controllers so that I am notified of a disk/controller failure/replacement that HP Openview would have no way of knowing about.



Martin: what you describe is similar to what Cockpit Manager and other console managers would do for you.

We use a program called ConsoleWorks by TDI systems out of Texas. I have been told that this used to be the old polycenter software years ago. We use it for monitoring/accessing serial ports in our data center. We are connected to AIX and VMS consoles, and the HSGxx storage controllers.

While cockpit manager will provide a lot of the functionality that Consoleworks does, it will not allow several users to simultaneously access the same console. (Dueling Keyboards) There have been several nights that I am VPN'ed into work and looking at the console that is bugchecking at the same time as our OPS lead and other system engineers.

Sometimes I will start a task at work. (Example:non-prod VMS upgrade) Shutdown my laptop and go home. I then re-connect at home to finish the task.

Your milage may vary...etc. :-)

Mike Naime

[Teijo Forsell]

Excuse me Mike, but could You elaborate this statement a little bit perhaps?:

"- BMC Patrol (Now owned by HP)"

I would surely like to know if we have bought Patrol. Would this perhaps be related to this announcement about the new OpenVMS native agent for Openview Operations?:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/system_management_ovo.html


Regards,
Teijo

[Mike Naime]

Teijo:

I followed the link. I am not sure about this, but I do not think that it is the same as the BMC patrol software. While it sounds similar in function, I did see in the sales presentation that they called BMC on of the competitors. I will have to check with our Openview/Tools guy to see what he knows.

We are in the process of getting HP to install all of the modules/add-ons to Openview that we are even remotely interested in . I think that they want another testimonial out of this. :-)

We started with BMC patrol a couple of years ago. They have upgraded versions at least once that I am aware of. We even had BMC FTE's working at our site for at least a year. I'm not sure if they are still sitting back in operations or not. I know that we run several BMC consoles back in OPS due to the number of systems that we are monitoring. (Some local, some remote)

[Jens Mårtensson]

BMC Patrol is a competitor to HP (HP have not acquired Patrol).

If you have a homogeneous environment (read OpenVMS 7.3.1 and later 7.3.2) you could use the HP Native agent. If you have heterogeneous environment (OpenVMS 6 and above on VAX, Alpha and Itanuim) you could use AppMind that is an OpenView certified agent. During a transition phase from Patrol to OpenView you preferably use AppMind as it also supports Patrol.

Also, if you look at performance metrics, the native agent doen't do this and the Appmind agent does.

Regards,
Jens - In transition phase :o)

[Mike Naime]

I stand corrected. I was remembering a discussion some time back about a merger and hearing our tools guy talking about the 2 (Openview and Patrol) becoming a common toolset after that. I guess that it never happened.

[Mobeen_1]

If you are looking at remote management of your VMS systems, i would recommend that you use a product called "Unicenter Console Management for openVMS" from CA (Computer Associates). The details of this can be had at
http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=1210

This product is no different from the old Polycenter Console Manager that most of us are used to :-)

If you are looking for some new product that would help you monitor, alert, perform recovery actions proactively for your OpenVMS systems as well as Oracle etc, then i would advise that you look at BMC Patrol. I have used this for quite some time and its good.

For monitoring OpenVMS systems running Oracle you basically need to run 2 agents/KM (referred to as knowledge modules) from BMC, the details of which are as follows
1. Patrol Agent for OpenVMS
2. Patrol Agent for Oracle

You can review the product list at http://www.bmc.com

regards
Mobeen