Re: [nv-l] servmon and itmquery in NV 7.1.4

Sorry but I think the NetView for Unix 7.1.4 Admin Guide, P177 sets adefinite expectation that I get service icons at the interface level:

"Service objects are represented at the interface level of the node. Thelabel assignedto a service object is the Service Label Name field from thecorresponding servmonconfiguration file entry. The status of each service is checked at theintervalspecified by the corresponding servmon configuration file entry toupdate the

service objects."

This is the new Admin Guide, FOR UNIX! I really don't have the heart toraise a documentation PMR to request that they undocument the functionthat several of us have really been waiting for!!!!!

OK - so service icons at the interface level is broken as (not-yet)designed. Getting back to my original questions, what HAVE we actuallygot in 7.1.4? servmon entries to test for ITM-monitored services (whereonly DB2, WAS and MQ are actually supported), but these servmon entriesactually only do one discovery test, using some sort of java "blackbox", undocumented program, that seems to use itmquery to test that anITM Resource Model exists (but isn't necessarily active) on Tivoliendpoints????. No periodic status checking. SmartSet creation activelyprevented for this sort of service discovery. I take Leslie's pointthat you can get a <node>:<service>.CF object in the NetView objectdatabase, PROVIDED I manually create the service smartset, but nothingseems to use that.....

This doesn't sound like the sort of full-function NetView solution thatwould have been at the top of many NetView customers' wish lists!!!!

Then there's some new events to TEC that can be generated, to do withservices. However, it doesn't seem to be NetView that generates these,it's a TEC State Correlation Gateway adapter that I am guessing issomehow the backend of nvserverd (but there's no documentation and noarchitecture diagram.......). There's a bucket load of new rules in TEC3.9 that work with these SCE-generated events but - guess what? Sincethey are generated by the SCE, NetView users don't get to see them atall! And presumably this wonderful hierarchy of correlated rulesdepends on this one discovery test done by servmon at some stage?????(I can't work out whether a non-functioning ITM monitor can ever bedetected as such by servmon; since there seems to be NO status pollingbecause we don't have SmartSets by default, I suspect not).

Please - can someone fill in some of the blanks! I've seen lots ofmarketing presentations talking about the new NetView / TEC / ITMintegration - there has to be more to it than I have found??? And fromthe ITM point-of-view, there really is almost diddly-squat for the pureNetView user!


Cheers,
Jane

Leslie Clark wrote:

Where we disagree is in the expectation that the function would bethere. We were never told that it would be there. I'm sorry you hadthat expectation. Unmet expectation leads to dissatisfaction. I didnot have that expectation. I am however developing an expectation forCounter64 support. Now if that doesn't show up soon I will be feelingsome dissatisfaction! :{
Cordially,

Leslie A. Clark
IBM Global Services - Systems Mgmt & Networking
Detroit



        *"Barr, Scott" <Scott_Barr AT csgsystems DOT com>*
Sent by: owner-nv-l AT lists.us.ibm DOT com

12/05/2003 03:24 PM
Please respond to nv-l
To: <nv-l AT lists.us.ibm DOT com>cc:Subject: RE: [nv-l] servmon and itmquery in NV 7.1.4
I don't disagree with you at all.
That's not the point. The point is no one who bought NetView v7.1.4would have assumed these "limitations" were part of the plan. As Istated in my response, I could build the necessary support for thisbut I don't feel like I should have to spend the time when the productis supposed to do it already. Instead of using the functionality Icomitted to using to our Event Management Executive Council (no,really, we have one) I have told them it will have to wait until I canwrite the automation package.Sorry if I seem upset about this. Again, no reflection on Leslie orJames or Level 2 support. You guys are all superb in your support.Developers on the other hand.....

I am having another go at these new NV 7.1.4 features and I am reallystruggling. Before I start raising calls with support, I wouldappreciate any input or clarification from anyone else working withthem....

servmon can be used a s a straight replacement for nvsniffer and, as aport sniffer, I have no issues on a Windows platform. SmartSets getcreated and populated; object fields get created and set; service iconsare created at the interface level for each node that supports theservice - business as usual. On Unix NetView (tested AIX and Linux sofar), everything works other than service icons at the interface level.

From the documentation, I believe that thisservice-icons-at-interface-level stuff should also work on Unix, but itdoesn't. I believe Scott Barr has already opened PMR13988 to cover this- anyone else have comments?

It is where servmon and itmquery are used together that things seem verystrange. I can cope with the itm_servers.conf file, though I feel moredocumentation is required as to what exactly the userid and password areused for? I am guessing that this is for authentication as a TivoliAdministrator???The itm_attributes.conf file has 2 fields - the first is a userspecified product name; the second is a pattern matching field. Myunderstanding is that either servmon or the itmquery command then talksto the Managed Nodes that are running ITM, that you have configured initm_servers.conf, using the userid and password configured, andpresumably does something like a wdmlseng to find out what ITM ResourceModels (RMs) are distributed to what Endpoints (not sure that these RMsactually have to be active or anything....). I have added a line initm_attributes.conf with:

Standard_ITM| ^DMX.*$

This picks up any standard Unix resource models and itmquery shows thatthe appropriate endpoints are indeed running the appropriate RMs.

The last part of the comments in itm_attributes.conf is where I reallylose it! It says that if you want to take the next step and haveservmon automatically set a capability...... set up a line likethis..... I have added a line in servmon.conf to match myitm_attributes.conf:

isStandard_ITM|Standard_ITM|Standard_ITM|Standard_ITM_Label|/usr/OV/jars/nv_itm.jar
 AT com.tivoli.netview DOT itm.servmon.DiscoveryMonitor||*|0

This sample line in itm_attributes.conf, which is pretty well aduplicate of the lines provided for WAS, DB2 and MQ in servmon.conf,ONLY creates an attribute field and runs a discovery Java script. NoSmartSet is created; no status checking is done. The comments initm_attributes.conf rather coyly say that servmon does NOT automaticallycreate a smartset for service attributes. My experience having tried anentry that DOES specify a Smartset and SmartSet label is that creationof such a smartset is actively prevented!! If you do manually create aSmartSet using the SmartSet editor in Unix, based onisStandard_ITM=TRUE, then you get a SmartSet but you certainly don't geta service icon at the interface level. So far, I have totally failed tomanually create such a SmartSet with my NetView on Windows!

What is the point of this thing if you cannot create SmartSets and youcannot do periodic status monitoring??????

There is no documantation (that I have found) for these Java scriptsthat servmon uses for discovery - I hate "black box" stuff with noinformation!


Anyone else got more information????

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