Monitoring Domino Servers with HP Operations Manager

Transcription

1 Monitoring Domino Servers with HP Operations Manager White Paper published April 2013 by NiCE a leading Application Monitoring solution provider Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 1 of 18

2 Table of Contents Introduction When Performance Means Business - Impact of Domino Server based services on Business What a monitoring solution should provide Key areas of Domino Server Monitoring HP Business Technology Optimization An Overview HP Operations Manager An Overview Smart Plug-Ins for HP Operations Manager An Overview NiCE Domino SPI Features and Benefits About NiCE Further Resources Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 2 of 18

3 Introduction IT Challenges IT staff face three significant challenges: managing a more and more complex environment, working efficiently with limited resources, and diagnosing and addressing problems in real-time. Complexity In today s interconnected IT environments, the underlying infrastructure is very complex and involves a wide range of servers, databases, and operating systems. They all resemble business critical functions. Limited Resources IT is expected to keep a close watch over these business-critical applications, infrastructures, and third-party service dependencies and to be ready to resolve issues before they impact the end user. The reality is a bit different: IT people live in a do more with less world where inadequate time, resources, and tools often lead to a continuous state of firefighting. As such, proactive monitoring and the time, effort, and expense it requires to achieve this, may seem out of reach to many IT departments. Diagnosing and Addressing Problems in Real-Time This still seems to be an unattainable goal. According to an IT Management Solution Study (March 2007, Ziff Davis) 60 percent of the service outage problems require the involvement of up to ten different people within the organization. 80 percent of the time required to fix a problem is spent on addressing the problem itself. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 3 of 18

4 When Performance Means Business Impact of Domino Server based Services on the Business When using Domino as your backbone for both internal and external communications as well as being the basis for lots of customized applications, it is most critical to ensure that all of those applications work in perfect harmony to provide a good user experience. Therefore, it is of grave importance that the server being the base for all these various application services that run main parts of your business critical communication is in optimal shape regarding availability and performance. Performance and availability may be interpreted in many different ways. To one company it may simply mean that the services are available 24x7. To another, it may mean that certain transactions need to be faultlessly completed within milliseconds. Questions like what does performance mean to you? and which business critical Domino transactions rely on the health of my Domino Server, lead to a set of questions that need to be matched when Domino monitoring is considered. How do I know which business critical services rely on the Domino server How do I categorize them, once found Which details do I need to monitor How easily can I scale from high-level monitoring to in-depth monitoring How easily can I adjust monitoring features, in order to react to business changes How can I co-relate Domino events with other business resources so I understand the full impact of the event How is the information presented to me Can I split monitoring tasks amongst the IT staff, so that the more senior staff are not flooded with low level events Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 4 of 18

5 What a Monitoring Solution should provide Utilizing monitoring solutions is an optimal way to address the above mentioned needs. However, there are still plenty of things to consider in choosing the right monitoring solution. The best stand-alone monitoring solution may be worthless if there is no way to correlate the data gathered with other business sources in an appropriate manner. Isolated problem statements will not show how they are caused or how they affect other business services. This leads to a silo state that will not show the complete picture, which in turn leads to ineffectiveness when interconnected problems need to be solved. What is even more concerning is that reacting to isolated problem views may cause a whole cascade of other events because of this singular view. Such an unintended change for the worse can seriously harm your business. Monitoring solution essentials It must integrate with the overlaying IT management solution, so that the data gathered can be correlated with other monitoring sources and business processes. The overlaying Management Solution must provide ways to aggregate and visualize Lotus Domino / Domino service driven business processes. It must provide a good set of predefined monitoring conditions so you can start using the solution right away, adjusting it to individual needs when they arise. It needs to be easily adaptable to different and changing business needs. The monitoring solution must be able to scan high-level issues - such as overall availability as well as response times and key performance indicators like dead mail message - which must not violate Service Level Agreements (SLA). The given advice created from event correlation must be in the same IT language as all the other advice provided. Event messages need to be sent out to different administrator groups and roles depending on their expertise. Reporting for various timeframes and business levels is important to prove that service levels have been matched, as well as to provide reliable data for future planning. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 5 of 18

6 When looking for the right monitoring solution, you will need to check the following criteria: A mature, high-end monitoring solution Designed to fit into the existing Management Solution Comes along with a comprehensive pre-set of monitoring metrics Can be easily adjusted to your individual needs Easy to understand Gives you the flexibility to handle different monitoring levels easily Sends out messages to different user groups Correlates events a) within the Domino environment itself and b) within business services based on Domino services Creates various reports on availability and performance Provides manufacturer commitment to support new releases of Domino and monitoring trends The NiCE Domino SPI is such a mature, high-end monitoring solution that neatly integrates into one of the top IT Business Management Solutions the HP Operations Manager. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 6 of 18

7 Key Areas of IBM Domino Server Monitoring Domino is an IBM server product that provides enterprise-wide , collaboration capabilities, and custom application platform. It can be used as an application server for Lotus Domino applications and/or as a web server. As outlined before, good performance is essential to every business. It is even a key topic when it comes to communications. If the basis of the communication infrastructure is ailing, this will be infectious to all layers of your business. Symptoms may be delayed or even missing information, which in turn will slow down or even kill your projects. More often than not, the critical ones will be the first to suffer. This in turn will lead to unforeseen delays and inconvenience, not only linked to the reactivation of project flows, but also to explain to the project staff why things are delayed or going wrong. This may be a particularly sore point when you need to bring this up to the attention of your customers, on whom your business depends. Avoiding such scenarios upfront by laying out well thought out 101 fundamentals, helps you to free resources to drive your business with excellence. The goal of performance optimization is a stable, well tuned system that continuously meets and supports your business functional and service level agreements. It is a continuous, iterative process, diminishing event returns over time, and empowering you to focus purely on your interaction with your customers. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 7 of 18

8 Details of Domino Performance Tuning Topics such as Topology Design, Capacity Management, System Management, and Application Design Management influence the overall Domino architecture performance. However, this needs to be seen within a greater picture, and can not be achieved by any Monitoring Solution. This paper focuses in detail on the IBM Domino Server tuning. Performance tuning initiatives will take effect within the network when Domino Servers are communicating and collaborating with other Domino servers. As Domino is not designed as a stand-alone application, individual server performance tuning is most beneficial to the network as a whole. Part A Different kinds of Domino Servers and how to treat them Performance Tuning means modifying a system to improve its efficiency in meeting specified functional service levels. The systems in question can be a single application one Domino server a collection of servers participating in a common activity, such as mail routing or replication an entire Domino domain IBM Domino Servers types There are a number of different roles that a Domino Server may perform. Separating servers by their usage enables targeted and therefore most effective monitoring and performance tuning. Mail servers Mail servers are used in the Domino network to store and route mail messages among users, servers, and applications. Database (or application) servers Database servers are used to store the data for Domino applications. Hub servers Hub servers are designed to be used as dedicated servers to route mail and replicate databases to other servers within the network to minimize the performance impact on production servers. Each hub server is required to support the storage of all common databases and have the capability to replicate these databases for each additional server in a timely fashion. It should also be able to route mail and ensure that messages are delivered within an acceptable time frame. Web servers Web servers provide data requested by Web browsers. This information can be normal Web pages consisting of graphics files and text files stored on the server in HTML format, or in a Domino environment, pages built from Domino databases. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 8 of 18

9 Web servers usually carry a lot of network traffic and can have a significant CPU load if complex Web applications are implemented. Your monitoring solution must provide pre-sets of event conditions for each Domino server type. This enables you to automatically establish and understand the baselines (see page 10) for each dedicated server role automatically monitor each server type individually by its usage to see understand and fine-tune even the minor details. Even overseeing small issues may build up to cause a major disaster if not taken care of proactively. Part B - Server Capacity and System Management Managing server capacity according to your infrastructure also improves the overall infrastructure performance. Some examples are listed below: On a Domino mail server cluster, the average load of each server within the cluster is reduced by balancing the number of concurrent users between the cluster members. For Web servers in a cluster, load balancing the http port on a network layer improves access times and the application performance itself on each cluster partner. Exercising proper storage capacity management, including utilizing monitoring facilities on Domino servers, prevents server performance reduction or crashes caused by missing storage resources. System Management includes Domino related system management (monitoring Domino server tasks and managing transaction logging) as well as management of third-party software components running per server instance, such as virus scanning and backup management. Since each of these tasks demand system resources, they will impact the performance of the overall system. Therefore the configuration and schedule of these tasks must be adapted to the servers requirements (out of peak times), reduced to a minimum, centrally controlled to avoid redundancies and, where possible, monitored to detect scheduling conflicts. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 9 of 18

10 Part C Back to the whole picture of Monitoring the Domino Environment Monitoring the IBM environments is a multi-faceted exercise and reaching optimal performance is not an easy goal. It is a process of ongoing improvement. You need to know how factors such as memory, physical design and maintenance can affect performance. To tune and maintain, you must start to continuously monitor the entire environment. Solely focusing on tuning standard tasks and operations is a good start, however, this is certainly not sufficient. Your IBM Domino environment is like an ecosystem that is constantly changing by means of physical design, transactions, and memory and it still needs to be balanced at any time to work with the best possible performance. The next section will give you insight into the key areas of IBM Domino monitoring. Part D Key areas of Domino monitoring Before you begin the iterative optimization process it is important to verify that you have a consistent and accurate data baseline to measure against, prior making changes to the system. Tools to achieve that are proper monitoring and management solutions. Establishing the baseline A baseline is established by monitoring and capturing/tracking performance characteristics of a system under certain conditions. Also, performance tuning and measurement require multiple baselines for comparison, for example, little or no load, normal peak load, and during a maintenance window. This sounds like a Sisyphean labor. A monitoring solution with a comprehensive set of outof-the-box monitoring capabilities (metrics and thresholds set) is optimal to establish, verify and adjust such multiple baselines. Domino specific performance tuning As outlined above, each Domino server should be tuned for its specific role in the infrastructure. Here is a short overview of the main areas, which you may dispatch with a proper monitoring solution, thereby freeing valuable time. Server tasks Minimizing the number of server tasks on the server, their frequency and specific execution times will enable you to optimize performance of the Domino server. You will need a monitoring solution to identify these tasks, separate them by their value, and help you to set thresholds for each of the tasks, which may not be violated to ensure constant high performance. Replication Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 10 of 18

11 The database replicator (replica) on a server is responsible for handling scheduled replication requests, as configured in server connection documents. Replication plays such a significant part in any multiple Domino server environment that it is critical to optimize replication scheduling with the help of a monitoring solution. Failure to do so may directly, and indirectly, affect performance and availability in many other areas within Domino. HTTP Domino s HTTP task reserves significant resources as soon as it is started. Correlate system performance events with HTTP performance events to avoid false alerts. Update One of the most common, preventable causes of poor response time and low performance of Domino servers is excessive and unnecessary activity of the Domino Update task. You may track the Updates and then find ways to minimize them. Directory Cataloger / Catalogs (Dircat) A Directory Catalog is an optional directory database that aggregates information from multiple Domino Directories. Because Dircat is a CPU-intensive task, it is often beneficial to dedicate one server solely to Dircat processing. However, it s highly important to monitor that specific server to make sure Dircat is always performing faultlessly. Router Domino mail servers use a MAIL.BOX database to hold messages that are in transit. Monitoring and also reporting on message delivery (Maximum delivery threads, Setting transfer limits, Maximum concurrent transfer threads, and Maximum transfer threads) and health of the MAIL.BOX database is also highly recommended. AdminP The Administration Process (AdminP) automates routine administrative tasks, such as ID management, database moves, and so on. Some of these administration requests can require significant server resources. Implementing a designated administration server for AdminP is useful and you may want to monitor this task. Domino Memory Manager On a typical Domino server, the vast majority of memory managed by Domino is shared. Furthermore, the majority of that shared memory is usually part of the Unified Buffer Manager (UBM), also known as the NSF Buffer Pool. The UBM may use 70-80% of the total memory allocated to Domino. For this reason, it is critical to effectively monitor and manage the UBM. Database performance Often, the most pervasive performance problems are due to poor database design. However, monitoring the database itself is most important to optimize performance on a given database. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 11 of 18

12 Views In a well-tuned environment, indexing should be relatively transparent; views and full-text indexes should be updated quickly. In an environment experiencing performance problems, you may see the following symptoms: Long delays when opening a database, opening a view, switching views, scrolling through a view, or saving a document Delays when opening a document that uses lookups (In fact, you may see the form pause at certain points as it waits for these lookups to compute.) Performance problems throughout the working day, but excellent performance during the off-hours Out-of-date full-text indexes To troubleshoot view indexing problems, start monitoring the log.nsf Additions Hard disk performance CPU and memory are also important for stability, and often receive more attention when talking about hardware. Typically, servers install software and load and save data frequently. All of these operations require frequent reading / writing to the disk. Therefore, hard disk performance and reliability is a critical issue. Additionally, it's important to also monitor CPU and memory usage. Minimizing logging activity Do not log things that you never review!!! is one of the most common statements. However, you need to clearly understand what log file entries may be worth gold when it is interpreted by a smart monitoring solution reading from log files. Domino clustering A Domino cluster links multiple Domino servers so that they appear as one resource. If any given server is unavailable or too busy when the request arrives, the cluster transparently passes the request to a server that is capable of handling the work. The monitoring solutions must support Domino Clustering. The impact of third-party applications Domino may not be the only application installed on a system, so it is important to understand the impact that other applications may have on a Domino server s performance. Each process actively running on a machine is using some amount of memory, CPU, and so on. This is true whether the application is running in the foreground or in the background. Antivirus and backup software tend to be two of the most common third-party applications sharing resources with Domino. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 12 of 18

13 Conclusion Good performance is truly a measure of customer satisfaction. When you plan a performance tuning strategy, be sure to understand the business needs of the customer. Identify the most critical business applications and focus your tuning efforts on those first. And remember that tuning is not a set it and forget job. Instead it is a process of ongoing improvement. Constantly monitor critical applications for any type of environmental changes and adjust the applications accordingly. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 13 of 18

14 Short Overview on HP Business Technology Optimization Business technology optimization (BTO) helps you make sure that every dollar invested in IT, every resource allocated and every application in development or production meets your business goals. HP Operations Manager Software HP Operations Manager software provides system monitoring for performance and availability and consolidates events across the enterprise to reduce IT management costs. HP Operations Manager is a consolidated event and performance management console that correlates infrastructure, network and end-user experience events across your entire IT infrastructure. It monitors both physical and virtual servers to identify the root cause of event storms, allowing faster time to resolution at lower cost. This software helps your IT staff improve its efficiencies by automating performance and availability monitoring. It provides a consolidated insight into infrastructure health that helps you prevent service outages. And it allows your organization to handle more tasks on your own, freeing subject matter experts to focus on more strategic tasks. Key Features Consolidates heterogeneous management consoles for physical and virtual infrastructure into a single console, reducing license, maintenance, support, and training costs Reduces labor costs by eliminating duplicate efforts of multiple domain experts working independently on symptoms of the same problem rather than the underlying root cause Speeds time-to-resolution by showing dependencies among transactions, business services, applications, application components, servers, storage and network components Provides measurement-based service level reporting from the business perspective and prioritize IT escalations based on business impact Smart Plug-Ins for HP Operations Manager HP Operations Smart Plug-ins (SPIs) are ready-to-go modules that provide an essential link to bring databases and applications under control with instant intelligence. In addition, these modules also show the business impact of failures in the application quality of service. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 14 of 18

15 Monitoring applications is a complex undertaking. That s because it involves critical components such as networks, servers, Internet, services and operating systems all of which must work in perfect harmony to provide a superior customer experience. HP Operations Smart Plug-ins (SPIs) help you coordinate the management of this end-toend environment seamlessly. Key Features Provide impact and application insight by monitoring the entire application environment Manage industry-leading business applications, e-commerce platforms, messaging services, databases, and Internet infrastructure Install and link easily with rest of the IT environment managed by the HP Software family Obtain enhanced trouble shooting and service views View predefined reports and graphs of application performance Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 15 of 18

16 Details worth knowing about the Domino SPI The NiCE Domino SPI keeps an eye on important details It monitors the critical functions in your IBM Domino environment easily and precisely. It keeps you informed about the status by configuring automatic checks on threshold settings and filtering critical messages. The NiCE Domino SPI triggers you with prompt and precise preventative measures. The NiCE Domino SPI uses out-of-the-box intelligence Over 70 predefined metrics exactly monitor the details you need allowing you to get the job done just by a click of your mouse. Fine tuning made easy with the NiCE Domino SPI With the NiCE Domino SPI you set individual metrics to monitor specific details and selected components. This information helps you to configure resources to suit your ever changing business needs and requirements day by day. The NiCE Domino SPI looks behind the scenes Coordinated and meaningful monitors add further value to the management of your IBM Domino based services. At any state you will be able to get information about even the smallest event in your IBM Domino environment, events, which under certain circumstances could have far-reaching consequences. Schedule reports with the NiCE Domino SPI Alarms and warnings are displayed in the message browser. Generate reports about areas and time periods of particular interest. The integrations of the SPI into Reporter and Performance Manager allow you to use the collected metrics to draw graphs as well as reports. The IBM Domino SPI even provides pre-defined and customized graphs and reports, which you can use unchanged or as a base for your own designs. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 16 of 18

17 About NiCE NiCE IT Management Solutions - About us: NiCE IT Management Solutions is a company that has over 20 years of experience with Cross Platform Application Monitoring Solutions on UNIX, Linux, and Windows. We have amassed this wealth of experience from collaboration and integration with our valued Business Partners including HP, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and BlackBerry. Our roots come from years of developing and perfecting Smart Plug-ins (SPIs) with our Business Partner, Hewlett Packard. With this technology in place, the migration to Microsoft System Center Operations Manager was seamless. As a Microsoft System Center Alliance Partner, we provide management packs for database and communication applications. Our mission has always been to provide the best monitoring solution for IT professionals worldwide. Our highly skilled team services clients from around the globe spanning from SMBs to large corporations. NiCE IT Management Solutions is focused on ensuring that our clients are completely satisfied with our products because of the value they add to their business. Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 17 of 18

18 Further Resources HP Business Technology Optimization HP Operation Manager software NiCE Domino SPI Monitoring_DominoServers_WhitePaper_2013Q3 Page 18 of 18