Managing your infrastructure from chip to the business service HP Operations Manager and HP Systems Insight Manager integration

Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 2 HP Operations Manager................................................................................................................... 2 HP Systems Insight Manager ............................................................................................................. 3

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Achieving end-to-end management with HP OM and HP SIM.................................................................... HP SIM integration (HP SIM SPI) ............................................................................................................ Key features ........................................................................................................................................ Service views ...................................................................................................................................... ProLiant system monitoring .................................................................................................................... Event forwarding ................................................................................................................................. Event clearing and acknowledgement .................................................................................................... Tools ................................................................................................................................................ Policies............................................................................................................................................. Conclusion........................................................................................................................................ For more information..........................................................................................................................

Executive summary IT managers today are under increasing pressure to deliver and maintain the infrastructure and services that enable business to compete effectively and respond quickly to changing market requirements.

Critical success factors include:

• Gaining visibility into infrastructure events and incidents and the threat that they pose to the business services

• Prioritizing activities to deliver maximum value to the business • Minimizing and eliminating business service outages

Monitoring the user experience is helpful, but it often detects the problem too late. Infrastructure monitoring is essential because it can detect signs that a problem is developing before the user experience suffers.

HP products combine the two views to provide end-to-end management:

• The ability to visualize and maintain the entire enterprise from the user view to • The hardware infrastructure to minimize or avoid many incidents that would result in user

experience issues

This document illustrates how HP Operations Manager (HP OM) and HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) can be used together to help IT organizations deliver consolidated end-to-end management and increased availability—from the chip to the business service.

HP Operations Manager HP Operations Manager (HP OM) is a consolidated event and performance management console that correlates heterogeneous infrastructure, network, and user experience events across the entire IT infrastructure.

HP OM:

• Monitors both physical and virtual servers to identify the root cause of event storms, allowing faster time to resolution at lower cost.

• Monitors, controls, and reports on the health and performance of a heterogeneous IT environment across operational silos.

• Improves uptime for all layers of IT, including:

– Networks – Systems – Databases – Applications – Services – Internet

This software:

• Helps IT staff improve its efficiencies by automating performance and availability monitoring • Provides a consolidated view into infrastructure health that helps prevent service outages • Allows your operations team to handle more tasks, • Frees subject matter experts to focus on strategic tasks

HP OM can also incorporate agent-less monitoring using HP SiteScope software. When used in conjunction with HP Operations Orchestration, it automates routine tasks reducing the labor required to manage IT operations.

Your Operations team can use this software to:

• Reduce user-reported incidents (including detected duplicates) • Decrease time to resolution • Increase incidents resolved before expert tier support is required • Provide actionable alerts to tier 2 and 3 when a problem cannot be solved

HP Systems Insight Manager HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) is the clear choice for managing HP infrastructure by being the easiest to use, simplest to deploy, and least expensive way to maximize system uptime and health.

HP SIM provides a view of all HP infrastructure resources, delivered through a console for discovery, monitoring, and control. It provides the common foundation for additional Insight software value which provides greater visibility into the infrastructure, greater ability to manage that infrastructure, and the ability to continuously improve over time.

Your Systems Administrator can use this software to get more from every hour, watt, and dollar that has been invested in infrastructure— both physical and virtual. HP SIM resembles an element manager to Operations Manager because it can surface information specific to HP infrastructure, in the proper context.

Achieving end-to-end management with HP OM and HP SIM HP OM is the primary interface used to manage the availability and performance of critical business services. Integration with HP SIM enables your operations team to:

• Correlate HP infrastructure with the availability of business service-levels • Obtain in-depth data for more accurate root cause analysis and faster problem resolution

The following example demonstrates how integration between HP OM and Insight Management Agents and HP SIM enable fast root cause analysis and problem resolution to maintain the availability of a critical business service. In this example, the Exchange service is a critical component for maintaining email communications for the business, so the IT administrator assigns a high priority for this event, even though other events for less critical services may have already been received. By launching the root cause analysis tool from the Exchange symbol on the OM service map, the administrator ensures that all elements associated with the event appear, indicating that the change in Exchange status originated from an event generated by an IM Agent.

1. A hard drive, part of a RAID array configuration, on an HP server hosting Microsoft Exchange has developed a problem.

2. Insight Management Agents (IM Agents) running on the server monitor hardware health and provide in-depth configuration, status, and fault data. The IM Agents detect the hard drive problem and generate a hardware event in the Windows Event log.

3. The OM agent, communicating with the IM Agent and monitoring the Windows Event Log, records the event and generates an update to the OM console application.

4. Based on prior discovery, the OM policies automatically associate the hard drive problem with a possible degradation of the Exchange service

5. The OM service map is updated with a failure-level status on both the physical server symbol and the Exchange service symbol.

6. The OM event browser is updated with a similar level of hard drive and Exchange service entries. 7. From the Insight Manager symbol in the root cause display, the administrator launches the HP SIM

to collect hardware details on drive size, configuration, and overall server status

Note: In this example, the failed drive is part of a RAID array, so there is no server down time and no interruption to the Exchange service

8. After the drive is replaced, the RAID array begins its automatic rebuild and the OM service map is updated to reflect only a minor problem status for both the server and the Exchange service.

Figure 1: HP Hardware Events Translated and Displayed in the OM Event Browser

9. In the OM event browser, the critical and major events previously logged are automatically closed

and replaced with minor level indications.

10. When the drive rebuild is complete, all events associated with the drive failure and replacement are automatically closed, and the OM service map symbols for the server and the Exchange service return to their normal condition.

The previous example illustrates how, using default functionality of the Insight Manager policies shipped with HP OM, the administrator can:

• Clearly see the relationship between the failed hard drive and the Exchange service. • Quickly prioritize, diagnose, and resolve the problem through easy access to service level,

application, and in-depth hardware infrastructure data. • Maintain systems and service availability. • Provide a resolution using a streamlined and efficient set of processes. Event closure was handled

automatically using policy based definitions, removing the need to physically acknowledge and close each individual event (total of 4–6 events depending on the configuration).

HP SIM integration (HP SIM SPI) Integration is achieved by installing a smart plug-in (SPI) between HP OM and HP SIM called an HP SIM SPI.

This smart plug-in provides:

• Monitoring and managing the HP SIM and IM Agent and host agent services • Event forwarding and event acknowledgement between HP SIM and HP OM • Predefined rules to automatically correlate and close HP hardware events in the OM event browser • Policies, tools, and messages to manage the functionality of HP SIM, management servers and IM

Agents • Auto-discovery of HP servers running IM Agents on the OM service map • SNMP events instrumented by HP IM Agents translated and displayed in the OM event browser • Embedded menu items to administer and launch HP SIM, the HP System Management Homepage

(SMH), and HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) Advanced Pack enabling remote control of system resources located in data centers and remote sites.

HP SIM SPI can be installed in environments consisting of multiple HP SIM management servers and IM Agent nodes. The HP SIM SPI is available for free with the Operations Manager (OM) agent license and ships on the SPI CD for Operations Manager.

For detailed instructions on installation and configuration of HP SIM integration, see the Configuration Guide and Release Notes available at http://h20230.www2.hp.com/selfsolve/manuals.

HP Passport sign-in is required. Look for the documents under the product description “Operations integration for Systems Insight Manager”.

Key features • Service discovery—Supports discovery of HP SIM central management server (HPSIM CMS) and IM

Agents. • Service/process monitoring—Monitors the availability of the discovered HP SIM and the IM Agent

services. Service alerts can be communicated to the HP OM service navigator and the HP OM message browser.

• IM Agent service monitoring policies—Monitor the availability of IM Agent services. These policies are automatically deployed to a node after IM Agent service discovery.

• ProLiant server system monitoring—Offers tool to configure IM Agent SNMP trap destination and policies for IM Agent SNMP traps. These policies generate HP OM event messages for server hardware problems. 1

• Event forwarding from HP SIM—Can be configured to forward any collection of events from HP SIM to HP OM. Event forwarding can be configured to use a default event collection, or any customized collection of HPSIM events. The integration also associates an operator action with each HP SIM event, to launch the HPSIM web interface for further investigation.

• Bi-directional event acknowledgement/clearing on HPSIM—Contains an optional policy that you can deploy to the HP OM management server to automatically clear events in the HP SIM database when the same event is acknowledged in the HP OM message browser. You can also configure the integration so that clearing an event in HP SIM automatically acknowledges the same event in the HP OM database.

1 NOTE: If both the HP SIM default event forwarding and the IM Agent SNMP trap policies are deployed, 2 messages will be generated for each

“Critical” and “Serious” incident, one from each application group.

• Tool groups—Provide separate policy and tool groups to manage HP SIM and IM Agent nodes. The HP SIM tool group provides tools to add nodes to be managed by HP SIM, execute tools on HP SIM – managed nodes, launching the HP SIM Insight Management agent web interface, and Remote Insight Lights-Out (RILOE) web interface.

• Policy groups—Contain policies for monitoring the HP SIM and IM Agent services, clearing/acknowledging events, and IM agent SNMP trap interpretation.

• Contextual launch to HPSIM system page—Enables users to initiate contextual launch of the HPSIM CMS System page from HPOM messages.

• Web Interface tools—Provides tools to launch the web interface for HPSIM, IM Agent, and Integrated Lights-Out (iLO).

Service views A Service View in Operations Manager is a visualization of a service structure into which events can be mapped. It enables you to view the objects that make up the environment to better determine the effect of problems or predict potential problems. Component services are color-coded according to status. The SIM SPI provides separate service views for HP SIM and the IM Agent services under the Systems Infrastructure service tree.

The following HP SIM and IM Agent services (or Processes) are discovered and mapped into service views:

• HP SIM central management server and its managed nodes • IM Agents:

– System Management Homepage agent – NIC agent – Server agent – Storage agent – iLO Advanced – Version control agent

When “Add HP SIM node to node group” is executed on a node, the HP SIM and IM Agent discovery policies are deployed to the node and run immediately. When HP SIM is discovered, the HP SIM service monitoring policies are automatically deployed. When the IM Agents are discovered, their corresponding monitoring policy is automatically deployed to the node. Discovery also results in a service view being added to the Systems Infrastructure service tree in HP OM.

Figure 2 shows the HP SIM service category and the HP SIM services discovered on nodes “DIDICAS” and “GUFA.”

Figure 2: HP SIM service view

The HP SIM node “DIDICAS” in Figure 2 is colored red, indicating that a message with a “Critical” status has been received for that service. The HP SIM service monitoring policy detected that the service is stopped and the policy-generated message caused the service map to change to reflect the current message severity.

Figure 3 shows a service view of the IM Agent services running on a HP ProLiant Server. The HP SIM integration discovery has found IM Agents on the node “DIDICAS” and created a Systems Infrastructure service map showing the discovered services.

Figure 3: Service map on HP OM displaying Insight Management Agent services

ProLiant system monitoring The SIM SPI provides SNMP trap interceptor policies (templates) to monitor ProLiant servers. The templates generate messages regarding the status of the monitored node network interface, storage, environmental, power management, and so on. An incoming message automatically acknowledges any previous message from the same monitored object. This helps display the latest status of the node in the HP OM active message browser and service views. The message contains an operator action to launch the System Management Homepage for the node so that the root cause of the message can be investigated.

To use this capability, you must install the IM Agent and the OM Agent on the managed server. You must configure the IM Agent trap destination manually using the application provided in the SIM SPI or through the server Systems Management Homepage, and then deploy the SNMP trap policies manually to the IM Agent nodes.

When the event forwarding configuration steps are completed, the OM agent (opcmsg) forwards the HP SIM events to the HP OM server through so that the messages reach HP OM in a reliable manner.

Event forwarding When IM and OM agents cannot be installed on the ProLiant managed server, or to manage a device other than a ProLiant server, HP SIM event forwarding feature can be used to provide basic monitoring. Using this feature, specified events received by the HP SIM central management server are forwarded to the OM central management server, where they are associated with the HP SIM icon in the HP SIM service view. Clearing or acknowledging the event in either the OM or the HP SIM console clears or acknowledges it in the other console. Note that multiple occurrences of the same message type are not collapsed in the OM message browser for this type of integration. Also, the ProLiant SNMP trap interceptor policies are not active in this configuration.

The SIM SPI makes configuration simple by using customized queries to select the SIM events to be forwarded. Any collection of events can be created using HP SIM flexible event collection customization features. The default event collection created by the SIM SPI selects all events of severity “Critical” and “Major.”

Events are forwarded when the SIM SPI Event Listener process is started on the HP SIM node. An HP SIM task is created that uses the HP SIM Event Notification feature to forward events in the specified collection to the Event Listener process. The Event Listener process translates the HP SIM event into an opcmsg call. The HP OM agent sends this message to the HP OM server in a manner which ensures reliable delivery. Figure 4 Event flow diagram shows the flow of events from HP SIM to the OM message database.

Figure 4: Event flow diagrams

Forwarded events

Create events query/task for events to be forwarded

Event clearing and acknowledgement Bidirectional event clearing/acknowledgement between the HP OM server and the HP SIM server can be configured. Each direction (HP OM HP SIM, HP SIM HP OM) is a separate mechanism, and both must be configured for bidirectional acknowledgement or clearing.

To clear HP SIM events when HP OM messages are acknowledged, you must deploy the Event Acknowledging policies to the HP OM server, and the Event Listener process must be running on the HP SIM node.

Acknowledging HP OM messages when HP SIM events are cleared is accomplished through a combination of event collection and tasks similar to the event forwarding mechanism. An event collection selecting the cleared HP SIM events triggers the Event Listener process to cause the HP OM message to be acknowledged.

Tools HP SIM SPI adds the following types of tools for configuration and management. Some examples include:

• SIM integration configuration – Fwd Important Events—Configures the default HP SIM queries and tasks for forwarding HP SIM

important events to HP OM. • SIM management server or IM Agent configuration

– Add Nodes to HP SIM—Adds node to HP SIM for HP SIM discovery. – Configure SNMP Trap Destination—Configures SNMP trap destination on the IM Agent node.

• Start/stop/status process – Start HP SIM Service—Starts the HP SIM service on the node. – Stop Server Agent—Stops the IM Agent Server service on the node. – Status Version Control Agent—Returns the status of the IM Agent Version Control service on the

node. • Launch web interface

– Launch HP SIM Console—Launches the HP SIM web interface. – Launch SysMgmt Homepage—Launches the System Management Homepage for this node.

Policies HP SIM SPI includes HP OM policies: service discovery, service monitoring, HP SIM event clearing, and IM Agent SNMP traps.

Conclusion HP understands the need for efficient mechanisms for visibility of demand and control over the cost of services provided to the business.

HP is in a unique position to deliver a complete portfolio of products, solutions, and expertise that enable your business to develop a truly Adaptive Infrastructure. Together HP Operations Manager and HP Systems Insight Manager provide a solid and reliable end-to-end management capability.

With these two products, your operations teams can now achieve excellent visibility of infrastructure events and incidents and the threat that they pose to the business services that reside across the infrastructure. They can prioritize their activities to deliver maximum value to the business—ensuring that business service outages are minimized or eliminated.

For more information For additional information on HP Systems Insight Manager and HP Operations Manager, see the following resources:

• HP Systems Insight Manager: http://www.hp.com/go/hpsim • HP Operations Center, including Operations Manager: http://www.hp.com/go/software

© Copyright 2009 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.

577282-001, April 2009