Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager. Best Practices and Reference Architecture

Transcription

1 Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager Best Practices and Reference Architecture

2 WHITE PAPER Table of Contents Introduction Why monitor PlateSpin Protect servers? What to monitor Service Aspect Knowledge Script Name Purpose... 2 Where to get the Knowledge Scripts How to install the Knowledge Scripts Using the scripts without AppManager Where to get help Appendix A: Knowledge Script Detail Discovery_PlateSpinProtect Protect_ServiceDown Protect_WebInterfaceStatus... 7 Protect_WorkloadStatus... 8 Protect_WorkloadProtectionLevel Protect_ContainerSpace Protect_LicenseUsage Protect_LastTestFailover Appendix B: Event Log Types Appendix C: Typical AppManager Server Specifications About NetIQ WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager

3 Introduction This document describes how organizations can use NetIQ AppManager to proactively monitor the availability, capacity, health and quality of a business continuity solution built with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect. Although this document will refer to PlateSpin Protect throughout, it is equally relevant for PlateSpin Forge, the hardware appliance version of PlateSpin Protect. PlateSpin Protect is NetIQ s software-based disaster recovery product. It uses a VMware-based virtual infrastructure as the target platform for replication of one or more source workloads that need protection against disasters or power outages. These source servers may be physical or virtual Windows and Linux systems. Once the protection has been configured, the systems are replicated into warm stand-by virtual machines (VMs) in the VMware virtual infrastructure. In case of a disaster, the warm stand-by VMs are booted to ensure business service continuity. Once the source servers have been rebuilt, the contents of the warm stand-by VMs can be replicated back to these original servers. NetIQ AppManager is an IT operations management tool designed for IT operations teams who need rapid time to value and the flexibility to support the diverse needs of multiple business units. It provides broader and deeper technology support than competing products, enables greater IT process automation to reduce monitoring gaps, and delivers more relevant events so you can troubleshoot IT problems faster. For more information on these solutions, visit Why monitor PlateSpin Protect Servers? Organizations that deploy PlateSpin Protect recognize its importance in providing business continuity for essential business services. Because a disaster recovery service could be called upon at any time, it makes sense to verify its availability, capacity, health and quality in order to provide reassurance that it is capable of meeting business expectations at all times. The importance of monitoring the disaster recovery service becomes ever greater as the service grows and protects an increasing number of essential workloads. Furthermore, although PlateSpin Protect has some in-built capabilities to notify individuals of certain issues that might impact the disaster recovery service, these capabilities were not designed to cover all aspects of its operation; nor are they an alternative to the monitoring capabilities of a dedicated systems management solution. WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 1

4 What to monitor A number of monitoring scripts have been developed for NetIQ AppManager to provide comprehensive insight into the health, availability, capacity and quality of a number of PlateSpin Protect servers; these are known as Knowledge Scripts (KS). Each KS focuses on a particular aspect of the PlateSpin Protect service. Service Aspect Knowledge Script Name Purpose Availability & health Availability & health Availability & health Availability & health Capacity Capacity Quality Service Down Web Interface Status Workload Status Workload Protection Level Container Space License Usage Last Test Failover Monitors status (up or down) of Windows services related to PlateSpin Protect, such as the Management Service and Microsoft SQL Server services. An Event is raised if any service is not running or cannot be restarted. Monitors the availability of the Protect Web Interface. An Event is raised if the web site does not load successfully or times out. Monitors the Windows Application Event Log for entries relating to the status of protected workloads such as missed or failed replications. Refer to Appendix B or the Protect documentation for further details. Note that this KS requires PlateSpin Protect version 11.1 or later. Monitors the number of workloads by Protection Level Monitors the utilization and available space of Protect Containers Monitors the utilization and available PlateSpin Protect licenses Monitors the age of the last test failover performed on each protected workload There is also a Discovery Knowledge Script that retrieves details of each PlateSpin Protect implementation and represents them within the AppManager console. For additional details on each script, see Appendix A. In addition to these application-specific Knowledge Scripts, NetIQ recommends deploying general monitoring in order to monitor the Windows operating system of each Protect server. Examples of components you should monitor include the processor, memory, disk and network utilization, the up/down status of the OS and Windows services, and physical disk queue length. Doing so will highlight any underlying OS issues that could impact the PlateSpin Protect application. Where to get the Knowledge Scripts The Knowledge Scripts are available in the AppManager Community Package. This is a set of scripts and utilities developed by staff, customers and partners that is shared as-is with other AppManager users. The Community Package is updated periodically and is available to download on the AppManager module updates page, on the NetIQ website. Please note that the AppManager Community Package is provided on an as-is, as-available basis without any warranty of any kind. WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 2

5 How to install the Knowledge Scripts If you have already deployed NetIQ AppManager in your environment, start by installing the AppManager for Windows agent on each PlateSpin Protect Server. If you have not already deployed NetIQ AppManager, you need a dedicated Windows server; the suggested hardware and software specifications are described in Appendix C. AppManager may be installed and evaluated for 30 days, after which it will require licensing to continue operating. To license AppManager appropriately for Protect, one AppManager for Windows license is required for each Protect Server to be monitored, plus an additional license for the AppManager server itself. The software can be downloaded from The Knowledge Scripts are installed into AppManager as follows: 1. Copy and extract the Protect zip file onto a machine where an AppManager console is installed. 2. Open a command prompt in the location of the extracted files and enter the following command: prompt> typeutil checkin <sql instance>:<repository name>:: ProtectObjType.xml For example, if the AppManager repository database is installed in a default SQL Server instance on LONNQAM01 and is named QDB, then the command would be: prompt> typeutil checkin LONNQAM01:QDB:: ProtectObjType.xml 3. Open the AppManager Control Center Console and navigate to the Knowledge Scripts view of the Master Management Group. Then right-click and select the menu option Check In Knowledge Script. Navigate to the folder where you extracted the files and select all QML files. 4. From the Discovery category of the Knowledge Scripts view of the Master Management Group, deploy the Knowledge Script Discovery_Protect to run once on each PlateSpin Protect server on which an AppManager agent has already been installed (and the Windows module has been discovered). The details of each Protect server should now be visible in the console, and the Knowledge Scripts described previously can now be deployed to monitor the various aspects of the application. It is recommended that you deploy these Knowledge Scripts using Monitoring Policy by creating a Management Group containing PlateSpin Protect resources and an associated monitoring standard defined in a Knowledge Script Group. Should you require any assistance for these activities, refer to the AppManager user guides, which are included with the source files. WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 3

6 Using the scripts without AppManager This monitoring solution was designed for NetIQ AppManager, and NetIQ recommends that you install AppManager to implement it. However, if you prefer to use another systems management tool, it might be possible to port the Knowledge Scripts. All of the PlateSpin Protect Knowledge Scripts are written in VBScript; as such, it might be possible to port them to another systems management solution that supports the same scripting language and that takes a similar monitoring approach. However, this approach requires some recoding to substitute AppManager-specific activities such as creating Events, collecting Data and debug logging. All of the Knowledge Scripts also use information provided by discovery for tasks such as presenting Events and Data in the appropriate part of the resource tree; these references would also need to be replaced. The scripts are written in a way that makes it easy to convert to VBS format. Two of the Knowledge Scripts, namely Workload Status and Service Down, use AppManager-specific components; as such, they cannot be directly ported to another platform. However, scanning Event Logs and checking Windows Services are capabilities typically available in many systems management tools and should be relatively simple to substitute. You are welcome to develop your own monitoring solution for PlateSpin Protect in any systems management tool, using concepts taken from this white paper. Where to get help More detailed information on this solution is available in the appendices. If you need general assistance with AppManager, you can use regular channels such as the customer forum, your account manager or Technical Support. If you have questions that relate specifically to these Knowledge Scripts, you can contact their author, Alain Salesse, at alain.salesse@microfocus.com. WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 4

7 Appendix A: Knowledge Script Detail This section describes the parameters associated with each Knowledge Script and a sample screenshot of its output. Discovery_PlateSpinProtect Purpose Schedule Discovers the resources associated with a PlateSpin Protect implementation and represents them within the AppManager console. This serves to control which Knowledge Scripts can be deployed and acts as a placeholder for representing alarms and metric data for charting and reporting. The default schedule is to run once. Parameters Raise Event for successful discovery Event Severity discovery okay Raise Event for unexpected error Event Severity unexpected error SQL User SQL Password View Name Check this box to generate an Event when PlateSpin Protect Discovery is successful. Event. Check this box to generate an Event when PlateSpin Protect Discovery fails or is partially successful. Event. The KS attempts to connect to the SQL Server instance that hosts the PlateSpin Protect database. If the account that runs the AppManager agent service has permission to access the SQL Instance, then leave this parameter blank to use Windows authentication; otherwise, specify an SQL Login that has access. If an SQL Login has been specified, enter its password here. Note, if PlateSpin Protect was used to install Microsoft SQL Server Express and SQL authentication is required, leave the password value as-is and specify sa in the SQL User parameter Specify the name of the discovery view. Upon successful discovery, application resources will be visible in the management console similar to this: Figure 1: PlateSpin Protect Discovery details (composite) WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 5

8 Protect_ServiceDown Purpose Schedule Monitors the status of Windows services associated with PlateSpin Protect. Optionally attempts to restart a service if it is not running. The default schedule is every 5 minutes. Parameters Monitor PlateSpin Protect Management Service? Monitor PlateSpin Operations Framework Controller? Monitor SQL Server Browser? Monitor SQL Server? Auto-start service? Event severity: auto-start failed Event severity: auto-start succeeded Event severity: service is down and auto-start is not enabled Collect data for service status Check this box to monitor the service if it was detected by discovery. Check this box to monitor the service if it was detected by discovery. Check this box to monitor the service if it was detected by discovery. Check this box to monitor the service if it was detected by discovery. Check this box to attempt to restart the above services if they are not running. Event when a service failed to restart Event when a service was not running but restarted successfully. Event when a service is not running and a restart was not attempted. Check this box to collect data for the up/down status of each service. A value of 100 is returned when the service is up, and 0 when it is down. Figure 2: AppManager Events summary view WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 6

9 Protect_WebInterfaceStatus Purpose Schedule Monitors the availability of the PlateSpin Protect Web Interface. An Event is raised if the web site does not load successfully or times out. The default schedule is every 15 minutes. Parameters Web Interface URL Page Timeout in Seconds Event Severity website unavailable Include HTML in Event The address for the PlateSpin Protect Web Interface. The default is Specify the maximum load time in seconds Event when the Web Interface does not load or times out. Check this box to include the raw HTML in the Event. Figure 3: Web Interface Status Event WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 7

10 Protect_WorkloadStatus Purpose Schedule Monitors the Windows application Event Log for entries relating to the status of workloads with a protection contract. Note that this KS requires PlateSpin Protect version 11.1 or later, and as such it will not execute if the discovered version is older. The default schedule is every hour. Parameters Monitor Error Events? Event Severity for Error Events Monitor Warning Events? Event Severity for Warning Events Monitor Info Events? Event Severity for Info Events Event Severity for unexpected error Maximum Entries to include in the Event Hours to scan Check this box to monitor events classified as Error. Refer to Appendix B for details. Event when Error entries are found. Check this box to monitor events classified as Warning. Refer to Appendix B for details. Event when Warning entries are found. Check this box to monitor events classified as Info. Refer to Appendix B for details. Event when Info entries are found. Event when an unexpected error is encountered. Define the maximum number of entries to be included in the Event. If the number of records found exceeds this, then the most recent ones will be shown. By default, the KS scans from the point it reached on its last execution. If a number greater than 0 is defined, the KS will scan that many hours back in the Event Log. If a value of -1 is defined, then the entire log will be scanned. Only whole numbers are accepted. This should be used for testing purposes only. Figure 4: Workload Status Event WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 8

11 Protect_WorkloadProtectionLevel Purpose Schedule Monitors the number of workloads by Protection Level and raises an Event if the number exceeds the threshold. The Protection Level is based on the workload status overview on the PlateSpin Protect Web Interface home page. The default schedule is every 24 hours. Parameters Monitor Protection Level Failed? Threshold for Protection Level Failed Event Severity for Protection Level Failed Collect data for Protection Level Failed Check this box to monitor the number of workloads whose Protection Level is failed. Enter a threshold for the maximum number of workloads whose Protection Level is failed. If the number exceeds the threshold, an Event will be generated. Event when the number of workloads whose Protection Level is failed exceeds the threshold. Check this box to collect data for the number of workloads whose Protection Level is failed. There are equivalent parameters to the above for each of the following protection levels: Under-protected Pending failed Unknown Expired Pending Protected Event Severity for unexpected error Event when an unexpected error is encountered. Note that these Protection Levels map to the workload status on the PlateSpin Protect home page as follows: Protected = Green, Failed = Red, everything else = Amber. Figure 5: Workload Protection Event WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 9

12 Protect_ContainerSpace Purpose Schedule Parameters Monitors the percentage utilization and free space on each PlateSpin Protect Container. The default schedule is every hour. Monitor Container Utilization? Maximum Utilization Severity for Utilization above Threshold Monitor Container Free Space? Minimum Free Space Severity for Free Space below Threshold Collect data for container utilization? Collect data for container space used? Event Severity for unexpected error SQL User SQL Password Check this box to monitor the percentage utilization of each container. Enter a value between 1 and 100 for the maximum utilization of a container. Event when container utilization exceeds the threshold. Check this box to monitor the free space available in each container. Enter the minimum free space in GB. Event when free space is below the threshold. Check this box to collect data for the percentage utilization of each container. Check this box to collect data for the space used in GB (that is, total free) of each container. Event when an unexpected error is encountered. If the account that runs the AppManager agent service has permission to access the SQL Instance, leave this parameter blank to use Windows authentication; otherwise specify an SQL Login that has access. If an SQL Login has been specified, enter its password here. Note: If PlateSpin Protect was used to install Microsoft SQL Server Express and SQL authentication is required, leave the password value as is and specify sa in the SQL User parameter. Figure 6: Container Space Event WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 10

13 Protect_LicenseUsage Purpose Schedule Monitors the percentage utilization and the number of available PlateSpin Protect licenses. The default schedule is every 24 hours. Parameters Monitor the number of licenses available? Minimum number of licenses available Severity for number of licenses low Monitor license utilization? Maximum license utilization Severity for license utilization high Collect data for licenses available? Collect data for license utilization? Check this box to monitor the number of workload licenses available on the PlateSpin Protect server. Enter the threshold for the minimum number of licenses available. Event when the number of available licenses is below the threshold. Check this box to monitor the percentage workload licenses used. Enter the threshold for the maximum license utilization. Event when the percentage of licenses used is too high. Check this box to collect data for the number of licenses available. Check this box to collect data for the percentage of licenses used. Figure 7: License Utilization Event WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 11

14 Protect_LastTestFailover Purpose Schedule Monitors the age of the last test failover of each protected workload. Raises an event if the age exceeds the threshold. The default schedule is weekly at 11:00 am on Monday. Parameters Maximum age of last test failover Unit for age of last test failover Event Severity for age threshold exceeded Event Severity for unexpected error Enter a value for the maximum age of the last test failover in days or weeks. Select Day or Week from the list as appropriate. Event when the last test failover is too old. Event when an unexpected error is encountered. Figure 8: Last Test Failover Event WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 12

15 Appendix B: Event Log Types PlateSpin Protect records information in the Windows Application Event Log relating to the status of protected workloads. This information is used by the Workload Status Knowledge Script. All entries share a source named PlateSpinEvents. Note that this capability was introduced in version 11.1, and the Knowledge Script checks the discovered version before it executes. If an earlier version of PlateSpin Protect has been updated to 11.1 or later, re-run the Discovery script before deploying the Workload Status KS. Event type Condition Remarks Warning Error Information Full replication missed Incremental replication missed Workload offline detected Failover failed Full replication failed Incremental replication failed Prepare failover failed Failover completed Full replication completed Incremental replication completed Prepare failover completed Test failover completed Workload online detected Similar to incremental replication missed. Generated when any of the following applies: A replication is manually paused while a scheduled incremental replication is due. The system attempts to carry out a scheduled incremental replication while a manually triggered replication is underway. The system determines that the target has insufficient free disk space. Generated when the system detects that a previously online workload is now offline. Applies to workloads whose protection contract s state is not Paused. Generated upon manually marking a Test Failover operation a success or a failure. Generated when the system detects that a previously offline workload is now online. Applies to workloads whose protection contract s state is not Paused. WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 13

16 Appendix C: Typical AppManager Server Specifications The following represent typical hardware and software specifications for an AppManager version 9.1 or later deployment. The server can be physical or virtual. Windows Server 2008R2, 2012 or 2012R2 1 or 2 processor cores 4GB RAM Microsoft SQL Server 2012, 2012R2 or 2014 Express, or a local or remote full edition Microsoft.Net Framework 3.5 SP1 Microsoft XML Parser 3.0 SP1 or later Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator service Microsoft Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) Microsoft IIS with IIS 6 backwards compatibility components ASP.NET with v Web Service Extension enabled WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 14

17 About NetIQ NetIQ is a global enterprise software company that meets the demands of hybrid IT with solutions for identity and access management, security and data center management. Using our solutions, customers and partners can capitalize on the opportunities in today s complex and ever-changing IT landscape. By aligning technologies and service delivery methods, our customers can properly secure, manage and measure the many computing services operating across its physical, virtual and cloud computing environments. By doing this, they are better able to provide strategic value at the speed of business. Learn more about our award-winning software solutions at This document could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are periodically made to the information herein. These changes may be incorporated in new editions of this document. NetIQ Corporation may make improvements in or changes to the software described in this document at any time. Copyright 2015 NetIQ Corporation and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved DS 09/15 Access Manager, ActiveAudit, ActiveView, Aegis, AppManager, Change Administrator, Change Guardian, Cloud Manager, Compliance Suite, the cube logo design, Directory and Resource Administrator, Directory Security Administrator, Domain Migration Administrator, Exchange Administrator, File Security Administrator, Group Policy Administrator, Group Policy Guardian, Group Policy Suite, IntelliPolicy, Knowledge Scripts, NetConnect, NetIQ, the NetIQ logo, PlateSpin, PlateSpin Recon, Privileged User Manager, PSAudit, PSDetect, PSPasswordManager, PSSecure, Secure Configuration Manager, Security Administration Suite, Security Manager, Server Consolidator, VigilEnt, and Vivinet are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetIQ Corporation or its affiliates in the USA. All other company and product names mentioned are used only for identification purposes and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Worldwide Headquarters For a complete list of our offices 515 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 1200 In North America, Europe, the Middle East Houston, Texas USA Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, Worldwide: please visit U.S. / Canada Toll Free: info@netiq.com WHITE PAPER: Optimizing Business Continuity Management with NetIQ PlateSpin Protect and AppManager 15