Getting Started with Nastel AutoPilot Business Views and Policies - a Tutorial

AutoPilot Business Views
Getting Started: Tutorial

What is a Business View?
 Why use Business Views?
 Problem centric views of the managed environment
 Share management information across the organization via the Web
 Improves speed of problem resolution and recovery
 Improves visibility into IT problem areas
 Provides visibility and impact on business processes
 Increases overall productivity of maintaining complex IT infrastructure
 Cuts the cost of maintaining IT environment
 Important Features:
 User defined representation of the managed environment
 Wizard that allows users to define rules/alerts/automation very easily
 Quickly share your views on the web
 Send alerts to when problems occur
 Collect historical information and record into any SQL database
 False alarm detection and suppression
 Create recovery procedures that can be executed automatically
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(C) NASTEL TECHNOLOGIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS
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What is a Sensor?
 Sensor is a building block of every business view
 Monitors one or more application metrics (facts)
 Contains rules with user-defined thresholds and conditions
 Executes user-defined scripts and actions
 Triggers e-mail and user-defined notifications
 Conditionally logs metrics into SQL database
 Sensor maintains 3 measurements about each metric
 Severity – indicated by a colored icon as well as severity number
 Value – indicates the actual value of the measured metrics
 Health – a value from 0.0 to 1.0 indicate the health status based on weighted average of child sensors
 Sensor is event based
 Sensor severity, value and health change based on changes in metrics (facts)
 Facts change based on agent/expert sampling periods or application event
 Changes in sensor severity and health are governed by user-defined rules
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Business View Example: AutoPilot Health
 Below is a built-in business view for monitoring AutoPilot system health
 This view can be found at ds://AutoPilot_IT/AutoPilot_Health.bsv
Sensors: Business View is a collection of user-defined rules
organized as hierarchy.
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Business View Example: IBM MQ
 Below is a built-in business view for monitoring WebSphere MQ infrastructure.
 This view can be found at ds://IBM_MQ/MQE2_Qmgrs.bsv
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Overview: Building Business Views
 Create a hierarchical structure of the environment
 Break down the problem into small logical pieces
 Each piece is a “sensor” in a business view
 Define elements that need to be monitored
 Such as CPU idle time , queue depth etc
 Each such element is published by an Expert/Agent
 Define rules that evaluate given elements
 Assign rules that evaluate chosen elements
 Rules produce a single result  {Value,Severity,Health,Action-Alert}
 Understand business view deployment model
 Central repository for all business views
 Deployed as policies that perform automated actions and alerts
 Access is based on role based security
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Guidelines: Building Business Views
 Understand your audience
 Business views are designed to solve user’s problems
 Know what is important to the target audience
 Avoid hard-coded names and values
 Make use of business view environment variables
 Make use of global environment variables (java, managed node)
 Focus on modularity and reuse
 Build in layers – from simple to more complex
 Each business view is like a template that can be reused
 Avoid content duplication across multiple business views
 Link business views rather then copy/paste
 Use sensors to evaluate results from other business views
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Before you begin
 Please review Chapter 2 of AutoPilot/M6 Installation Guide
 It is recommended that you review AutoPilot Online Library
 Understand AutoPilot/M6 terms and concepts AutoPilot/M6 Concepts
 Managed Nodes
 Managers and Experts
 Business Views and Policies
 Facts
 The following steps presume that you’ve already:
 Installed and configured AutoPilot for Middleware (former MQControl, AutoPilot/WMQ)
 AutoPilot/M6 with WebSphere MQ plug-in
 Configured and enabled WebSphere MQ experts
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Business Views by Example
Problem Statement
 Determine whether queue ‘ABC.TESTING.QL’ is being drained
 Alert appropriate administrator only if the condition persists for 15 continuous
minutes.
 Do not send alerts on weekends
 Maintain historical information
 Share the operational view with web users
Define what and how
 Monitor an IBM MQ queue named ‘ABC.TESTING.QL’ for a current depth of 25 or
more messages, and the number of IPPROCS (Input Open Count) is 0 (determine
whether the queue is being drained)
For this example:
 Make sure Workgroup Server Expert WGS is configured and running.
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Open a Blank Business View
 Open a blank business view by clicking on “Business View” button or
“Tools” > “Business View”.
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Create a new Sensor
11 (C) NASTEL TECHNOLOGIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS
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 Right-click on “Untitled” sensor, select “Properties”, type
in a new “Name”
 The name is arbitrary and should reflect the logical meaning of
the view
 Description is a free flow text (HTML tags are allowed)

Customizing using the Wizard
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 Create a sensor named “Monitor ABC.TESTING.QL”.
 Type in the “Description”
 Set the “Initial Severity” to “Success”
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Select or type facts to Include
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 Drill down to the WGS expert, until you see
 WGSMQMYOURNODEQMGRQueuesLocalABC.TESTING.QLCURQDEPTH
 Select the variable and click “Include” button

Select Facts to Monitor
 Drill down to the WGS Expert, until you see
WGSMQMYOURNODEQMGRQueuesLocalABC.TESTING.QLIPPROCS
 Select the variable and click “Include” button.
Include all the required facts and click Next
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Define Evaluation Rules
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 Define logical rules on both variables as shown below.
 Click “+” sign to create more logical rules.
 %f0:Value represents CURDEPTH and %f1:Value represents IPPROCS
 Select Next.

Alert Details
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 Provide alert details such as e-mail and/or actions.
 Also you may set the “Trigger Delay” (900000 ms=15
min)
(do not send alert unless the problem persists for 15
continuous minutes).
 Optional: specify “User Action”, (e.g. MYAPPL.BAT) to
run the action on the machine that triggered the
condition (metric origin). By default the action is
executed on the machine running the business view.
 Click Next to complete.

Alert Details:User Action Variations
 User defined scripts and executable programs
 Must be in the path of the User running CEP Server or Domain Server business view is deployed OR
 Path must be specified within the “User Action” field of the “Alert Details”
 Invoking methods within AutoPilot services (experts, managers)
 Format: method:ServiceName.methodName(arg_list), where
ServiceName – name of registered AutoPilot service such as expert or manager
methodName – name of the public method implemented by the service
arg_list: type=value1,…,type=valueN
 Supported types: String, Integer, Long, Float, Double, Boolean
 Supported array types: String[], Integer[], Long[], Float[], Double[], Boolean[]
 Example: method:JMX_Monitor.invoke(String=Domain,String=MBeanName,String=mbean_method,String[]=null)
 Array value format: [‘val1’’val2’…’valN’]. Example: [‘This’’is’’a’’test’] – no spaced between values.
 Empty values can be specified as null
 No spaces allowed unless part of the value
 Parameters can be passed to user actions
 Environment variables can be specified using {env_var} format
 Example: MYAPPL.BAT {SERVER} param1 param2 … paramN
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Customize Options
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 Right-click on the sensor “Monitor ABC.TESTING.QL” and select “Properties” menu.

Define Alert Intervals
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 Select “Ignore” tab and check “Sunday”, “Saturday”
 Type 12:00 AM in the “Ignore From” field (Time Zone can be specified as well)
 Type 1440 min in the “Ignore Duration” field (24 hours)

Collecting History
 Select “Logging” tab to define where historical
information will be recorded.
 On the root sensor you can fill details of the SQL
database you want to log the sensor DB
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Save Your Business View
 You may now save the business view by clicking on the “Save” button at the top of the
business view.
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Deploy Business View as Policy
 To deploy the business view as a policy:
 Click on the “Deploy As Policy” button
 Select the target manager where the view will run
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Select Deployment Manager
 Select “Deploy” to move the business view from your local machine onto the server.
 Once deployed the “green” check mark will light up next to the target.
(c) Nastel Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.23

Enable Deployed Business View
 Using “>” Start button, enable the deployed business view
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Saving Deployment
 Once the changes are performed, save the managed node by right-clicking on the
managed node and selecting “Save Deployment” option:
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Business Views on the Web
 Once deployed, business views are automatically available to web users
(subject to security permissions).
 Follow steps below to browse web business views:
 Point your browser to http://localhost:8080/mconsole, where localhost should be
substituted for the value of <APWEB> server.
 Login as “Admin”, password “admin” (default settings)
 For more information on AutoPilot/Web refer to AutoPilot M6 User Admin
Guide
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Your Business View Online
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General Considerations
 AutoPilot Console should be used as an authoring tool to:
 Create/Deploy/Modify Experts, Managers, Business Views
 Test and verify business views
 Business Views:
 Deployed within AutoPilot Managers
 Use sound design methodology to create and maintain business views
 Use version control systems such as VSS
 Domain Server (DOMAIN_SERVER) needs to be highly available
 It does not relay traffic between Managed Nodes and Consoles
 Domain Server is only used as directory/lookup and security service
 AutoPilot Console will not be able to logon if Domain Server is not available
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Business Views:Best Practices
 Avoid hard-coded names – use environment variables
 Global environment variables
 Java variables
 Managed node variables (node.properties)
 Business view environment variables – using {env_var} convention
 Avoid duplication – promote modularity and reuse
 Define and enforce naming conventions
 Focus on creating modular reusable business views
 Create complex business views by combining simple ones
 KISS approach – keep it small, stupid and simple
 Build small and simple business views
 Link business views together – AVOID COPY/PASTE
 Referencing business views – reuse existing logic
 Complex Event Processing using Business views
 Business view is an event processor – use it as such
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Performance Considerations
 Managed node performance guidelines
 CPU utilization is proportional to
 # and scope of the business views deployed with the Managed Node
 Discovery intervals and scope of poll based experts (e.g. WebSphere MQ Experts)
 Memory utilization (memory_utilization) is proportional to
 # of Experts and Managers deployed
 # of facts published within the Managed Node (totalFacts should be less then
maxFacts)
 # and scope of the business views deployed with the Managed Node
Estimated total_memory~1000*totalFacts
 Example: Average memory utilization for a Managed Node
with 10-15 Experts and
50,000-75,000 facts may require 60-90 MB of virtual
memory.
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Congratulations
You have now created and deployed a business view.

Getting Started with Nastel AutoPilot Business Views and Policies - a Tutorial

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