Operations and Performance Management of NonStop Systems

Transcription

1 Technical white paper Operations and Performance Management of NonStop Systems Products and Usage Table of contents Abstract... 2 Major operations and performance management products... 2 Web ViewPoint... 2 ASAP (Availability, Statistics, and Performance)... 3 HP Operations Agent for NonStop (OVNM)... 5 HP Performance Agent for NonStop (OVNPM)... 6 HP NonStop Cluster Essentials... 7 HP NonStop Cluster Performance Essentials... 9 HP NonStop I/O Essentials... 9 Summary For more information... 11

2 Abstract For years, customers have selected NonStop systems for their most mission-critical applications applications that had to be available on a 24x7 basis without interruption. While the provision of NonStop hardware and software goes a long way towards achieving this objective, the efficient and effective management of the operations environment is also an important factor. Identifying and correcting operational and performance problems before they can have a negative impact on the overall systems environment is a critical requirement. For the management of NonStop systems, HP offers a wide range of products that support the entire range of operations and performance management functions. In fact, sometimes, it becomes difficult for a customer to decide what product or product set might be the best to manage their particular environment. The purpose of this white paper is to provide an overview of the major products that can be used for operations and performance management of NonStop systems, and to suggest which products might be the most appropriate for specific types of customer environments. This paper does not discuss basic tools that are provided for functions, such as software installation and basic operations management, but rather focuses on several major products that are designed to manage the entire systems environment. This paper also does not include a discussion of non-hp (third-party) products, but focuses on the products offered by HP. The operations and performance management product suite that supports NonStop systems has evolved from a basic set of tools and utilities to a broad set of products that provide integrated operations and performance management across multiple systems of same or different types. This evolution is following the evolution of customer operational environments from isolated islands (silos) that supported different types of unique systems, to operational environments which support heterogeneous types of systems in an integrated environment. The traditional silo approach to systems management required specific and in-depth knowledge of the characteristics and operational parameters associated with each individual platform. While this type of operation produced high skill levels, it had the unfortunate effect of requiring high levels of specialization and drove up the total cost of ownership (TCO); thus, the shift to integrated management solutions for multiple hardware platforms and operating systems. Another type of evolution that has taken place in operational environments, due to very high scale, is the shift towards dashboard presentation services, which present high-level views of the operations environment and raise alerts when user-set thresholds are passed. This results in an approach referred to as exception-based monitoring, where the drill-down is needed only when there is a problem that needs to be fixed or a particular management task needs to be executed. Another evolutionary step is the integration of NonStop with higher-level operations environments. An integral part of HP s Adaptive Infrastructure (AI) initiative is management of various hardware platforms (servers, clients, storage, printers, network devices and so on) from a single-pane-of-glass. The product that provides the basis for this multi-system management approach is HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM). Similarly, AI includes an integrated way to manage application environment and monitor how the infrastructure has affected the service levels. HP BTO (Business Technology Optimization) products, including HP Operations products, play an important part in this area. Major operations and performance management products As discussed before, HP offers a wide range of products for operations and performance management of NonStop systems. Following is an overview of the major products and where they fit in within the range of HP NonStop operations and performance management products. Web ViewPoint Web ViewPoint is a browser-based live performance monitor and operations management software product for HP NonStop systems. It combines extensive EMS (Event Management System) event monitoring capabilities, with light and active performance monitoring features, along with a set of practical and easy-to-use operations commands. Event management The standout feature of Web ViewPoint is its extensive capabilities in the area of event management. Among its major capabilities in this area, Web ViewPoint can be used to: Monitor real-time EMS events from one or more EMS collectors running on one or more NonStop systems and view all events in one window or multiple windows side by side Configure the system to support multiple systems and particular collectors to achieve a single-point interface to EMS messages Define alert notifications and user subscriptions, including routing options to HP Operations software or HP SIM, mobile phones, and Use multiple filter files and/or selection criteria to discard unwanted events 2

3 Acknowledge any event with a single-click, and use the option key to enter and save notes Receive detailed information for any event, including complete token dumps and excerpts of NonStop Operator Messages manual that describe the cause, effect, and recovery of the event Gain single-click access to the complete NonStop Operator Messages manual in a context-sensitive HTML format Define custom templates that can be used to display live and historical events Save events to log files Compress log files easily with a graphical user interface (GUI) View Virtual Hometerm Subsystem (VHS) log files and send replies Performance monitoring, event notification, and operations management Web ViewPoint offers practical first level live performance monitoring features covering CPU, process, disk, file, TMF (Transaction Management Facility), and network activities. Active links offer quick drill-down to view related detailed information. Web ViewPoint includes an event notification system that utilizes or SMS text to communicate with cell phones, pop-up display and message forwarding to enterprise management applications, such as HP Operations or HP SIM. Web ViewPoint offers a graphical user interface to manage disks, files, processes, and spooler entries. This includes the majority of commands to interact with these components (for example, edit files, view disk capacity, run TACL macros, print spooler entries, and the like). Architecture Web ViewPoint includes a browser-based interface. There are no client components to install. All product features can be accessed from on-site or from a securely-connected remote PC. Web ViewPoint utilizes a point-to-point connection to the cluster of NonStop systems. This means faster response time, while at the same time, lowering and distributing the load on NonStop systems. This also means that the loss of any one system does not affect the functionality for any of the other systems. Web ViewPoint incorporates all of the above functionality in an integrated environment and offers expansion tools where HP, third-party vendors, and customers can develop and integrate new plug-ins to run within the Web ViewPoint infrastructure. Following plug-ins are currently available: Pathway (HP) management and monitoring of Pathway applications ASAP (HP) a light-weight alternative to ASAP s PC-based client component Remote Analyst (Idelji) automated post-performance analysis Secure FTP/J6530 (comforte) secure connectivity, secure FTP, and terminal emulation Security pack (CAIL) secure connectivity and terminal emulation Summary and usage Web ViewPoint provides Web-based operations and performance management with a heavy emphasis on event monitoring and management. Its point-to-point approach to connect to NonStop systems provides rapid response times while reducing system overhead. It can be extended through the use of other HP and third-party products and can interface to higher-level HP management applications, such as HP Operations and HP SIM. In a NonStop-only environment that does not need in-depth performance analysis and management capabilities, Web ViewPoint is a great fit for operations management and performance management. It is a very easy-to-use, light-weight product, which can be used standalone or in conjunction with other HP or third-party management applications. ASAP (Availability, Statistics, and Performance) NonStop ASAP allows the user to monitor both the status and the performance of all key system resources on a network-wide basis. The ASAP client runs on workstations running Microsoft Windows operating system. The ASAP server runs on the NonStop system. ASAP provides object status reporting as well as detailed performance information for critical resources, such as applications, CPUs, communication lines, disks, Expand line handlers, files, subvolumes, processes, RDF (Remote Database Facility), spoolers, tape drives, and TMF (Transaction Management Facility). ASAP provides the following key features and benefits: Online monitoring of resource status and performance 3

4 Alerting of down resources and performance bottlenecks Easy definition of goals and automated actions, if goals are not met Historical reporting of resource status and performance Detailed drill-down on busiest CPUs, disks, files, and openers Simplified monitoring using a graphical user interface (GUI) Availability objectives monitoring Interfaces to Open Enterprise Management (OEM) gateway Entity Definition Language (EDL) Goal definition A key feature of the ASAP product is the ability for users to customize specific goals, alerts, actions, and history for all the resources it monitors. ASAP can be told that in one customer environment, a CPU running 30 percent busy is a problem, while in another customer environment, a CPU running 90 percent busy is not a problem. Similarly, ASAP can be configured such that a CPU running 30 percent busy is not a problem and a CPU running 90 percent busy is a problem. Once goals have been set, which match the operating profile of the applications on the NonStop system, the operators running the system do not have to analyze the performance characteristics of CPUs when they see a CPU busy display. ASAP does the analysis and alerts the operator when the characteristics do not match what they should be, and/or it can automatically adjust the performance characteristics of the system to meet specified goals. Finally, ASAP can store historical data so that a user can go back in time to see what happened at some point in the past. Users can set goals on every important characteristic of the NonStop system. There are literally thousands of attributes on which goals can be set. Goals can be set on how full a file can be; how long a transaction can run; what a CPU s queue length should be; how busy a disk volume can be; and so on. Alert configuration At its most basic level, a NonStop system alerts the user of a problem by creating an EMS (Event Management System) event, which can be displayed using various different tools. ASAP, at its most basic level, also issues EMS events as its method of alerting users to problems. This means a user never has to look at an ASAP user interface, such as the ASAP client (GUI). ASAP can run totally in the background on a NonStop system and issue EMS events when problems occur. For example, ASAP can be told that when the Remote Database Facility (RDF) gets more than 3 minutes behind in its data replication activity to a backup system, an alert should be created as an EMS event. Since users can use literally dozens of tools to display EMS events on the NonStop system, ASAP provides an extensive level of co-existence with these tools. Alerts can also be viewed through any of ASAP s many user interfaces, such as its command interpreter (CI), ASAP Client (GUI), WebASAP plug-in to Web ViewPoint, HP Operations, HP SIM, and so on. These interfaces all provide more sophisticated ways to view alert information. ASAP client also allows users to issue alerts to their pager or , or continually post information to a website. Automated actions Another major feature of ASAP is the ability to take automated actions to correct problems as they occur, thus providing self-healing and self-recovery. ASAP can be configured to execute a simple command or complex action macro or program when a problem occurs. For example, when a CPU fails, ASAP can automatically restart it; when a file fills up, ASAP can allocate more space; when a user connects to the server from an unauthorized IP address, ASAP can terminate the connection; and so on. The user can define a simple or complex action for every attribute that ASAP monitors on a NonStop system. ASAP also provides the user with the ability to make a record of the information, for as long as the user needs the information. ASAP can store a history of performance, availability and alerts for any length of time a user needs to keep it, for each type of data. For example, a user can choose to store 10 years worth of performance and alert data for CPUs, and 10 days worth of performance and alert data for spoolers. The history that ASAP can store and let a user analyze in the future provides invaluable information about growth, capacity, and problem resolution. Other than being integrated with WebASAP (a component of Web ViewPoint), HP Operations, HP SIM, and many other EMS event monitoring tools, ASAP is also expandable through its companion products. ASAP s companion products, HP NonStop ASAP Extension (ASAPX) and ASAP Hybrid (ASAPH) provide an application program interface (API) to allow monitoring the availability and performance of application domains on both NonStop and Linux systems in an integrated manner. The API allows application domain statistics to become fully integrated with ASAP client/server functions. 4

5 Summary and usage ASAP provides very detailed status and performance monitoring capabilities. It is extremely configurable, based on individual customer s environment. It provides multiple choices of user interfaces and alert configurations. User can configure the automated actions to be taken when a performance or availability bottleneck is observed. It can be integrated with many different management applications. It can also be used to monitor application performance on both NonStop and Linux systems. ASAP is a great fit in an environment consisting of a large number of NonStop systems, with a need to perform exception-based monitoring, but also to drill down to find out the details when needed. It is also a good fit where automated actions can be configured for the system to automatically recover from the performance and availability bottlenecks. Another environment where ASAP is a good fit is one in which application performance monitoring needs to be done across NonStop and Linux systems. ASAP can be used standalone or in conjunction with other HP or third-party management applications. HP Operations Agent for NonStop (OVNM) Many NonStop systems operate within larger enterprise environments, and HP provides a manageability suite that encompasses a variety of system platforms: the HP Operations Center (formerly known as HP OpenView). This manageability suite offers a comprehensive business-driven solution to monitor, control, report on, and automate corrective actions for the health of all parts of an enterprise infrastructure. The HP Operations Agent for NonStop, formerly known as OpenView NonStop Server Management and still referred to as OVNM, offers an out-of-the-box solution for seamless integration of NonStop systems with HP Operations software running on management servers using Microsoft Windows or the UNIX operating systems. A natural extension of HP Operations software, OVNM provides true end-to-end enterprise management for the NonStop system. The combination of HP Operations products and HP Operations Agent for NonStop eases management of large, cross-platform enterprise solutions. OVNM includes the NonStop Agent to monitor the status and health of the NonStop system and several management server components. These components provide options for managing NonStop systems from a variety of enterprise management consoles. However, it is important to note that OVNM does not require HP Operations for its functionality. Beyond integrating into HP Operations, OVNM provides: Its own management console, which can run on Microsoft Windows XP/Vista workstations. An SNMP Adapter to generate traps for all OVNM-monitored events, and enable any enterprise management server that supports SNMP v1 and v2 to receive NonStop system events. An optional product, the NonStop Tivoli Adapter, to interface with Tivoli Management Servers. OVNM provides the following key features: Selective filtering of critical NonStop system and application events to larger enterprise management servers Object management, with quick set up through automatic discovery of NonStop system resources (CPUs, disks, files, processes, spoolers, communication lines, and NonStop subsystems) User-defined service views and thresholds for managed resources (provided to HP Operations service views and message browsers) Both manual and automatic commands performed from HP Operations and Tivoli Failover recovery that takes full advantage of NonStop fault tolerance: processes recover automatically when a primary process fails, with alternate paths for delivery of alerts over TCP/IP Easy installation and configuration of NonStop system alerts sent to the HP Operations Manager: configuring OVNM requires very little knowledge of supported enterprise management servers EMS event burst suppression to further refine automated command execution, or send or event messages to enterprise management servers Creation of, and changes to, NonStop resource thresholds across multiple systems Plug-ins for ACI BASE24, HP OpenCall Intelligent Network Server (INS) and Home Location Register (HLR), and the complementary HP Performance Agent for NonStop Business views When working with either HP Operations Manager or the OVNM Console, users can create specific business views for supported enterprise management solutions. These views not only enable operations staff to detect business function problems quickly, they also help isolate root causes of problems and associate those with related services so that the business impact of infrastructure problems can be identified. 5

6 Automated actions OVNM encourages event integration in its policy and services template setup, and includes both manual and automated actions from HP Operations consoles. The software also offers automatic discovery and mapping of a NonStop system environment with an online graphic display of status of system resources. Thus, it rapidly and cost-effectively incorporates a NonStop environment into existing service delivery infrastructures. The product includes both a NonStop Agent and an enterprise management interface. The NonStop Agent monitors the status and health of its NonStop system host. The OVNM enterprise management interface can present NonStop system status to any supported enterprise management solution (Operations Center, Tivoli, BMC, and so on). In addition, OVNM also works in conjunction with the complementary product HP Performance Agent for NonStop (OVNPM). Summary and usage OVNM provides enterprise management integration for NonStop systems, while working in conjunction with enterprise management frameworks, such as HP Operations Center, IBM Tivoli, and BMC PATROL. Although it can be used standalone to perform system resource monitoring, its main advantage is realized when it is used to manage applications and how business is affected by the problems in the system infrastructure. OVNM is highly configurable providing user a choice of setting up their system views, thresholds, alerting mechanisms, and automated actions. It is highly scalable to manage a large enterprise consisting of many NonStop systems. OVNM is best suited for a large enterprise consisting of a large number of NonStop systems, especially in conjunction with other operating systems. With its configurability, it provides a great choice for exception-based monitoring of a large enterprise. Specially for the customers who have HP Operations Center, Tivoli, or BMC products as their enterprise management solutions, OVNM is the product to integrate NonStop into those enterprise management solutions. HP Performance Agent for NonStop (OVNPM) HP Performance Agent for NonStop, formerly called OpenView NonStop Server Performance Management and still known as OVNPM, offers out-of-the-box management of NonStop system performance and seamless integration with HP Operations software. A natural extension of the HP Operations software suite, this product provides true end-to-end enterprise management for NonStop systems. However, just like OVNM, it also delivers full functionality without dependency on HP Operations software. Performance Agent for NonStop provides real-time monitoring and trend reporting, with comprehensive, robust manageability features. It includes a Web interface for monitoring critical performance events and is highly flexible in measuring service-level standards and planning future business needs. The software includes components installed on both the NonStop system and the operations management server for Microsoft Windows or UNIX based systems. The NonStop component monitors the status and health of the system and interfaces with the Windows component using TCP/IP. Features Key OVNPM features and benefits are as follows: Real-time performance monitoring through two interfaces: a Web-browser and a Windows display agent Drill-down access to pinpoint performance bottlenecks due to system, database, or application problems Data organization by CPU, disk, communications lines, user ID groups, programs, process names, and applications (a defined group of processes) Menu-driven performance alerts, with exception conditions based on application or system performance metrics; alerts generated by either individual metric or combination of metrics and defined using thresholds and duration Historical trend analysis and capacity planning: view data using histograms or generate detailed profiles. Histograms display information for day, month, or year. Profiles present average day s performance based on metric values for a month or year, and also show peaks in resource consumption Business applications and function monitoring: define application groups consisting of processes, data files, and other resources, which together perform a specific business function Automated performance event correlation Integration with other HP Operations software solutions: HP Operations Console and HP Operations Reporter interface Just like OVNM, OVNPM also includes both a NonStop Agent and an enterprise management interface. The NonStop Agent monitors the performance status and health of its NonStop system host. The OVNPM enterprise management interface can present NonStop system performance status to any supported enterprise management solution (Operations Center, Tivoli, BMC, and so on). OVNPM can also work in conjunction with the HP Operations Agent for NonStop (OVNM). 6

7 Summary and usage Just line OVNM, OVNPM also provides enterprise management integration for NonStop systems, while working in conjunction with enterprise management frameworks, such as HP Operations Center, IBM Tivoli, and BMC PATROL. Although it can be used standalone to perform performance monitoring, its main advantage is realized when it is used to manage applications and how business is affected by the performance problems in the system infrastructure. OVNPM is highly configurable providing user a choice of setting up their application groups, thresholds, alerting mechanisms, and automated actions. It is highly scalable to manage a large enterprise consisting of many NonStop systems. OVNPM is best suited for the similar environment as OVNM mostly a large enterprise consisting of a large number of NonStop systems, especially in conjunction with other operating systems. With its configurability, it provides a great choice for exception-based monitoring of a large enterprise, with the ability to drill down and perform historical analysis. Specially for the customers who have HP Operations Center, Tivoli, or BMC products as their enterprise management solutions, OVNPM is the product to integrate NonStop performance into those enterprise management solutions. HP NonStop Cluster Essentials Managing a cluster of systems is more complex than managing a single system, and managing a heterogeneous cluster consisting of many hardware platforms and operating systems is more complex than managing a homogeneous cluster consisting of only one hardware platform type and operating system. Moreover, in operating a heterogeneous cluster, system administrators and operators have to deal with a set of tools and management interfaces that increase the learning curve and hence, the total cost of ownership (TCO). The challenge is to provide a single system image from the manageability point of view where the system administrators and operators feel that they are managing one platform from one management interface rather than managing many completely separate platforms that require them to switch management interfaces on a per-platform basis. HP NonStop Cluster Essentials provides an integrated cluster management solution for heterogeneous clusters. The product supports clusters consisting of NonStop systems and optionally, ProLiant systems running Linux. It is a plug-in into HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM) and acts as a central integration point for heterogeneous cluster management. Support of all clustering technologies HP NonStop Cluster Essentials supports systems clustered together using any clustering technology, such as Expand, TCP/IP, or Serviceguard. This is accomplished by allowing the cluster administrator to specify the cluster membership through the Configuration Management Application. It allows users to create a virtual/administrative cluster consisting of NonStop and Linux systems. The cluster configuration can be saved on the HP SIM CMS (Central Management Server) where the application is launched as well as on a different CMS or a set of CMSs. Cluster discovery as a single managed entity HP NonStop Cluster Essentials adds a new type of cluster to HP SIM NonStop Cluster. As systems are discovered in HP SIM over the network, the software automatically associates the servers with their defined clusters. This results in the cluster identification as a single managed entity in HP SIM. Integrated health and alert monitoring HP NonStop Cluster Essentials accumulates the health status from individual NonStop and Linux systems and provides an aggregated health status indicator for each NonStop cluster. This health status is dynamically updated in real time as problems occur (or are corrected) on the individual systems. This provides exception-based monitoring where users do not have to drill down to individual systems unless there is some problem or unless they need to perform a configuration or control task. HP NonStop Cluster Essentials displays the aggregated health status as well as the individual health and other status for each system in the cluster. Any system name can be clicked on to drill down to the display of that system and, if desired, launch individual single system management applications. Similarly, the aggregated alerts that have occurred on the individual systems in the cluster are displayed in an integrated manner. These include the alerts created by OSM on NonStop systems, alerts created by Insight Agents on Linux systems, and events created by HP SIM on behalf of the NonStop and Linux systems participating in the cluster. Any alert can be clicked on to get its details, including recommended actions to fix the alert. Integrated event monitoring HP NonStop Cluster Essentials includes an integrated event viewer that can be used to look at EMS events from NonStop and evlog events from Linux, in an integrated manner. HP NonStop Cluster Essentials includes a syslog to evlog converter to ensure that all syslog events are also included in the event displays. This aggregated view can be used to troubleshoot and diagnose problems in the cluster. The event viewer provides all event filtering capabilities of NonStop EMS and Linux evlog. Users can look at events in real time or based on some other time range. They can also look at the events pertaining to a particular subsystem, or particular severity, or any other filter criteria. The event viewer also allows the selection of display templates. More detailed token dump and cause/effect/recovery information for any event can be displayed. 7

8 Single-click boot HP NonStop Cluster Essentials includes a boot application that provides the functionality to boot both NonStop and Linux systems together in correct sequence or in parallel, as desired. The boot application lets the user boot the cluster using a predefined configuration. A default configuration is shipped with the software, which boots all of the systems in the cluster in parallel. Users can define new boot configurations one time through an easy-to-use interface, and use them for subsequent boots. The boot configuration is a way to specify shutdown and startup dependencies across the cluster. In a customer environment, many different boot configurations might be required at different times. HP NonStop Cluster Essentials allows saving multiple boot configurations, with the option of saving one as the default boot configuration. Once the boot configurations are defined for any cluster, booting all (or a set of systems) is as simple as clicking on a button. Virtualized configuration and control HP NonStop Cluster Essentials provides virtualized configuration and control of the whole cluster. It provides ability to perform all cluster management tasks without knowing the syntax for NonStop or Linux commands. The management tasks are categorized into various categories and displayed as a tree to help user find the correct task. The tasks span across startup and shutdown, backup and restore management, disk and file system management, process management, kernel management, network management, database management, transaction management, software management, hardware management, user account management, and time management. When the user clicks on one of the tasks, a display asks for the systems on which to perform the task, and the values of the parameters needed to perform the task. These parameter values are asked for in user-friendly format, rather than as the values of a command line tool. For the parameters that have limited set of values, a drop-down box is provided with the options to choose from. For the parameters that have Boolean (true/false) values, a checkbox is provided to select or deselect the parameter. For the parameters that have default values, they are already filled in with an option to change them. The task is executed on all selected systems simultaneously and the results are displayed in a Web-based user interface. All tools are invoked through SSH (Secure Shell) and thus, all communication between HP SIM CMS and managed NonStop and Linux systems is secure and encrypted. Software consistency check HP NonStop Cluster Essentials provides the functionality to compare the software versions across all NonStop systems in the cluster, and across all Linux systems in the cluster. This check is also run every 24 hours. The software consistency check fetches the installed product versions from the systems in parallel, and creates a report that displays the individual software versions that are not consistent across the cluster. Versions of all software installed on NonStop and Linux systems are checked for consistency by default. The user has option to exclude particular software products for the future runs of the software consistency check. Unified user account management The Account Management Application of HP NonStop Cluster Essentials manages OS and maintenance accounts across the whole cluster by one-click. Using Account Management Application, a single username can be setup across all systems in the cluster. This username becomes a Safeguard alias on all NonStop systems in the cluster, and a Linux username on all Linux systems in the cluster. The application supports all account options for NonStop and Linux. Integrated inventory reporting HP NonStop Cluster Essentials also provides an aggregated report of all hardware inventory across all NonStop and Linux systems in the cluster. This is in addition to many inventory reports that can be created using HP SIM core data collection facilities, with the ability to use multiple filter criteria. These reports can be used to perform historical analysis. Both high-level and detailed inventory reports can be created. HP NonStop Cluster Essentials is completely integrated with HP SIM, and requires HP SIM. It does not require any agents on NonStop or Linux systems, and leverages the standard hardware health agents and software installation and management tools on the systems. It also works in conjunction with the complementary product HP NonStop Cluster Performance Essentials, to provide integrated performance monitoring for the whole cluster. Summary and usage HP NonStop Cluster Essentials provides an out-of-the-box cluster management solution. It is one-stop shopping for many cluster management tasks, including monitoring, command and control, software version check, inventory control, and booting. Its most important capability is virtualized configuration and control, which obviates the need for learning NonStop or Linux commands, thus provides the customer ability to redeploy the operators across different operating systems reducing the TCO. It works across all clustering technologies, and provides a cluster management solution for homogeneous clusters of NonStop-only systems, or heterogeneous clusters of NonStop and Linux systems. Being an Essentials product, this product cannot be used without HP SIM. 8

9 HP NonStop Cluster Essentials is best suited for an environment where there are a large number of NonStop systems, or NonStop and Linux systems. If the customer is already deploying HP SIM to manage other hardware from HP, this product provides a very good fit to be used in that environment. It is also well suited for an environment where customers want to keep the software images across multiple systems consistent with each other, for example, where database is partitioned across multiple systems. This product provides exception-based monitoring capability, making it well suited for a large enterprise. HP NonStop Cluster Performance Essentials This product is a plug-in to HP NonStop Cluster Essentials and provides integrated performance monitoring of homogeneous clusters of NonStop systems or heterogeneous clusters of NonStop and Linux systems. This software allows the user to monitor the performance of individual NonStop or Linux systems, or clusters of them, using the HP SIM and NonStop Cluster Essentials user interface. It monitors in real time, the performance of the NonStop and Linux servers configured in the cluster. The product allows thresholds to be set which, when exceeded, cause alert messages to be displayed in standard SIM format. When presented with an alert message, the user can drill down to discover the cause of the performance problem. In addition, the product displays performance trend information based on metrics configured by the user. Performance monitoring The product monitors CPU, disk, process, TMF, and network (Expand) line entities. This information is displayed in a graphical format with visual alerts to highlight areas that require attention. It allows the user to monitor the resources utilizing the top of each entity (for example, busiest CPUs, busiest disks, and so on). In addition, each entity has an associated trend graph which shows its recent usage pattern. A graphical operational drill-down interface is also provided to pinpoint issues or gather specific details. Alert notifications The product supports the definition and configuration of particular performance threshold values that will trigger an event alert notification. It also includes the predefined alerts for CPU and process. The notifications can be routed through or SMS text. Any alert can be set, edited, and logged by the user. HP NonStop Cluster Performance Essentials is an add-on to HP NonStop Cluster Essentials and requires both HP SIM and HP NonStop Cluster Essentials. Summary and usage HP NonStop Cluster Performance Essentials adds to the functionality of HP NonStop Cluster Essentials by providing an out-of-the-box cluster performance monitoring solution. It also works across all clustering technologies, and can be used for integrated performance monitoring solution for homogeneous clusters of NonStop-only systems, or heterogeneous clusters of NonStop and Linux systems. HP NonStop Cluster Performance Essentials is best suited for an environment where there are a large number of NonStop systems, or NonStop and Linux systems. If the customer is already deploying HP SIM to manage other hardware from HP, this product provides a very good fit to be used in that environment. This product also provides exception-based monitoring and alert notification capabilities, making it well suited for a large enterprise. HP NonStop I/O Essentials HP NonStop I/O Essentials is a new product in the HP NonStop Essentials product family. I/O Essentials is a plug-in to HP SIM and virtualizes the configuration and control of all CIP (Common I/O Protocols) tasks for the newly introduced storage and network subsystems of Integrity NonStop BladeSystem. Benefits The major benefits of using NonStop I/O Essentials are as follows: Ability to perform all CIP management tasks without knowing the syntax of NonStop or Linux commands. With NonStop I/O Essentials, users do not have to learn the new commands for the CIP subsystem. Ability to perform CIP management tasks on multiple targets (for example, CLIMs, disks, tapes, and so on) in parallel. Pre-created management tasks shipped out-of-box to configure and control all aspects of CIP. NonStop I/O Essentials provides out-of-box tasks so that anything and everything on CLIMs, disks, and tapes can be configured and controlled. Secure and encrypted communication between console and NonStop servers. All of the data in motion between console and NonStop BladeSystem is encrypted over SSH (Secure Shell). Remote management. NonStop I/O Essentials provides a way to manage all aspects of the CIP subsystem completely remotely via a Web-browser. 9

10 Management tasks NonStop I/O Essentials provides support for all configuration and control tasks in CIP subsystem. These include, but are not limited to: Configure and control NonStop processes managing CIP subsystem Configure and control CLIMs Backup of CLIM configurations CLIM reboot Configuration and control of data and maintenance interfaces Configuration and control of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses Configuration and control of data and maintenance providers Configuration and control of bonding interfaces Configuration and control of tunnel interfaces Configuration and control of network routes Configuration and control of CLIM-to-CLIM failover Configuration and control of all aspects of IPSec, including key management, security policy management, security association management, remote entry management, and VPN (Virtual Private Network) management Configuration and control of storage LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers) Configuration and control of NonStop disk volumes and paths Configuration and control of NonStop tapes Features NonStop I/O Essentials provides the following features to enhance the customer experience and operator efficiency: Automatic selection of targets (such as CLIMs) to perform a management task Multiple target selection for parallel execution of tasks, where possible Does not allow multiple target selection for tasks where it is not possible (for example, same IP address for maintenance interfaces of multiple CLIMs) Parameters in human-friendly format Drop-down boxes for parameters with limited set of values Checkboxes for parameters with Boolean (true/false) values Default values automatically filled in, with an option to change them All management task results displayed in a single webpage HP NonStop I/O Essentials is completely integrated with HP SIM and requires HP SIM. It can be used standalone or in conjunction with HP NonStop Cluster Essentials. When used in conjunction with HP NonStop Cluster Essentials, all functionality of NonStop I/O Essentials can be deployed across a cluster of NonStop systems. Summary and usage HP NonStop I/O Essentials has a dedicated usage: manage CIP subsystem of NonStop BladeSystem. It obviates the need to learn new command syntax introduced with the CIP subsystem and thus, eases in migration from previous networking and storage subsystems to CIP. It also helps in operator efficiency and avoidance of operator errors by parallelizing many management tasks and performing many error checks. HP NonStop I/O Essentials is highly suited for customers using CIP subsystem of NonStop BladeSystem. It is highly scalable and provides a value add, irrespective of the number of CLIMs and number of disks and tapes in the customer environment. If the customers have many NonStop systems, this product can be used in conjunction with HP NonStop Cluster Essentials to provide CIP management across multiple systems. 10

11 Summary As can be seen from the descriptions above, HP offers a wide range of operations and performance management products for NonStop systems. While any of the products can be used to manage the typical operations environment, they do offer unique capabilities that make one product more appropriate than others in a specific customer environment. In many cases, a set of products can be deployed in conjunction with each other to provide more comprehensive functionality. The Summary and Usage section of each of the products above should provide a guideline to customers while deciding among these products for their specific environments. However, these are only guidelines and many other factors (like customers previous use of a particular product) also play an important role in selection of the appropriate product set for their environment. For more information To learn more about the products mentioned in this white paper and other operations and performance management products for NonStop systems, visit hp.com/go/nonstop/operationsmanagement. Get connected hp.com/go/getconnected Current HP driver, support, and security alerts delivered directly to your desktop Copyright 2008, 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. 4AA2-0482ENW, Created June 2008; Updated May 2012, Rev. 1