Users Guide

46 Configuring IT Assistant to Monitor Your Systems
As a result of how Jane has configured Alert Action Filters and Alert Actions in IT Assistant, here is what
will happen:
• IT Assistant will continuously monitor all servers and network switches on Jane’s network.
• When any server or network switch reaches a warning or critical state, the Alert Action Filter Jane set
up in IT Assistant will automatically trigger the accompanying Alert Action.
• The Alert Action will send Jane an e-mail notification to the address she specified.
• Jane then decides what action to take on the affected system, such as power cycling the systems, shutting
it down, or running a remote command using other IT Assistant capabilities.
Many more features are available in IT Assistant than those illustrated here. Click the Help button in the
appropriate IT Assistant dialog box to see detailed online help about that feature.
Now, let us look at how a much larger enterprise might use IT Assistant to accomplish basically the same
tasks as Jane did for a small enterprise.
Discovery in Tom’s Enterprise-Size Business
In a larger enterprise business, Tom is the systems administrator for a network of 1,000 servers. Tom also
supervises four technicians who assist him by taking corrective action on servers when notified that a
critical or warning event has occurred. Tom’s four technicians have the following areas of responsibility:
• One administrator responsible for all remote systems
• One technician for the first shift (12 hours)
• One technician for the second shift (12 hours)
• One technician for weekends who works 24-hour shifts but who responds only to critical and warning
events when notified
Configuring the Discovery Cycle
Since Tom is monitoring a network of servers and no clients, his primary choice for a systems
management protocol is SNMP. However, since he also manages systems running Windows, he’ll also
enable CIM (like Jane).
To configure the discovery cycle for his servers, he will need to perform the following tasks:
• Determine subnet ranges, IP addresses, and/or host names for the servers that he wants to monitor.
• Determine the subnet ranges, host names, or IP addresses that he does not want to monitor.
• Determine SNMP public (Get) and private (Set) community names that he will use for his network.
• Install and configure the SNMP agents and the operating system SNMP service on each system he
wants to monitor.
• Determine appropriate discovery time-out values for the network.