HP Insight Management Agents architecture for Windows servers

ManualsBrandsHP ManualsSoftwareHP Insight Management Agents for HP ProLiant 100 Series Servers

HP Insight Management Agents architecture for Windows

servers

Technology brief, 2

edition

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3

A first look at the Insight Management Agents architecture .................................................................................................... 3

HP Insight Management agents ............................................................................................................................................................ 4

Foundation Agent................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Server Agent ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 5

Storage Agent .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 5

NIC Agent .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 6

The SNMP Services component ............................................................................................................................................................. 6

Microsoft SNMP Agent Service ........................................................................................................................................................ 6

Management Information Base ........................................................................................................................................................ 7

Enhancing SNMP Security ................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Performing SNMP Sets ......................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Delivering SNMP Traps ........................................................................................................................................................................ 7

Additional agents monitoring and alerting functionality ........................................................................................................... 9

The HP Insight Event Notifier ............................................................................................................................................................ 9

Process Monitoring .............................................................................................................................................................................. 10

The System Management Homepage framework ....................................................................................................................... 12

System Management Homepage web server .......................................................................................................................... 13

System Management Homepage .................................................................................................................................................. 13

HTTPS, single sign-on, and secure task execution ................................................................................................................. 14

Replicate Agent Settings capability .............................................................................................................................................. 14

Considerations when installing and configuring the Insight Agents ................................................................................... 15

Updating Insight Management Agents ....................................................................................................................................... 15

Understanding port use with Insight Management Agents and HP SIM ..................................................................... 15

Configuring the data collection interval ..................................................................................................................................... 15

Summary of content (21 pages)

PAGE 1
HP Insight Management Agents architecture for Windows servers Technology brief, 2nd edition Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 A first look at the Insight Management Agents architecture .................................................................................................... 3 HP Insight Management agents .................
PAGE 2
Setting the server role ........................................................................................................................................................................ 16 Additional support for Insight Management on HP ProLiant servers ................................................................................. 17 HP Insight Management WBEM (WMI) Providers ..................................................................................................................
PAGE 3
Introduction This technology brief is an overview of the HP Insight Management Agents for HP ProLiant servers running the Windows server operating system. Our goal is to provide an architectural overview of the entire set of client-side software components on ProLiant servers that provide integrated manageability using the HP Systems Insight Management solution. To get the most from this paper, you should already be familiar with HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) in managed server environments.
PAGE 4
Figure 1: This is top-level overview of the HP Insight Management Agents architecture. HP Insight Management agents The four HP Insight Management agents make up the core of the architecture on managed servers. As a group, they are responsible for collecting all of the management information about the server and its software environment and storing the data in the Windows Registry.
PAGE 5
Table 1: System information that the Foundation Agent collects Information collected Source High-level server information (Host name, System role, OS installed) Windows OS System Performance (OS statistics, CPU and memory utilization) Windows OS File System information (Logical Drives, Drive utilization) Windows OS HP software installed Windows Registry Clustering information Windows OS In addition to collecting high-level system information, the Foundation Agent has additional roles.
PAGE 6
Table 3: Storage information that the Storage Agent collects Information collected Source Storage controller information (firmware revision, battery status) Controller firmware Logical drive information (fault tolerance, rebuild status) Controller firmware Physical Drive information (size, speed, location, performance data, pre-failure) Controller firmware Drive firmware Storage box infrastructure (fans, power supplies, temperature) Enclosure Services interface via controller firmware The Storage
PAGE 7
 Fulfilling SNMP Gets to deliver information from the HP MIB to authorized requesting services. In the Insight architecture, the SIM server or a process associated with the SMH framework typically requests MIB information.  Processing SNMP Sets, which are used to change SNMP configuration information as well as alert thresholds for server management information The Microsoft SNMP Agent Service provides a standard SNMP interface to external processes.
PAGE 8
Management Agents architecture uses SNMP Trap notifications to deliver the alerts to the SIM server, which processes and then displays them on the SIM console.
PAGE 9
Figure 2: Architecture of HP Insight Manager alerting Additional agents monitoring and alerting functionality The HP Insight Agents architecture provides additional functionality that is unique to the HP SIM solution environment. The HP Insight Event Notifier The HP Insight Event Notifier service provides a mechanism for the Insight Management Agents architecture to send e-mail notifications to specified recipients when alert events occur on the managed server.
PAGE 10
not require the full set of capabilities available through HP Systems Insight Manager. Figure 2 shows where the Event Notifier service fits within the Insight Manager alert architecture. Although the Insight Event Notifier is part of the Insight Management architecture on managed servers, it is disabled by default. You can activate this service locally on a managed server through the Computer Management administrative tool.
PAGE 11
Figure 4: Running the HP Management Agents configuration utility Figure 5 shows the Process Monitor tab for the Management Agents configuration utility. With Process Monitor, you can configure the Insight Management architecture to send alerts to HP SIM on the Start, the Stop, or the Start and Stop of any process on the server. The default setting for monitoring each process is None. In that case, the Insight Management architecture will not send an alert when the process is started or stopped.
PAGE 12
Figure 5: Setting process monitoring in the Management Agents configuration utility The System Management Homepage framework The System Management Homepage framework plays several roles in the Insight Management Agents architecture. It retrieves and displays the detailed management information for a managed server through the System Management Homepage.
PAGE 13
Figure 6: The System Management Homepage framework System Management Homepage web server At the heart of the System Management Homepage framework is an Apache-based web server and an infrastructure for supporting a set of plug-in web applications that we developed. The web applications retrieve the detailed information on the managed server from the MIB. The apps put the data into a meaningful format and create the HTML pages that comprise the System Management Homepage.
PAGE 14
subsequently using the Configure and Repair Agents capability in HP SIM, you are automatically logged into the System Management Homepage when accessing it through HP SIM. This is part of the HP SIM single sign-on functionality. Figure 7: SIM management console and SMH for a ProLiant server HTTPS, single sign-on, and secure task execution An additional role of the SMH framework is to provide a secure communications environment for the Insight Management Agents architecture.
PAGE 15
to query the SMH framework for the configuration settings of various components of the client-side Insight architecture. This includes the Insight agent settings, general SNMP settings, the SMH security settings, and others. The SIM server and the SMH framework can then pass changes to configuration settings back and forth between them over the HTTPS link. When the Replicate Agent Settings service receives the new parameters, it changes the configuration settings on the managed server.
PAGE 16
Using a short data collection interval allows the agents to provide more frequently updated information on the server. You may find this useful for closely monitored systems. But a shorter data collection interval consumes more system resources and can affect system performance at some level. The default value for the data collection interval is two minutes.
PAGE 17
You can use the Server Role field as one of the search criteria in the HP SIM Advanced Search function. This allows it to find groups of servers based on their Server Role and to create SIM Collections from these groups. Figure 8 shows an Advanced Search screen using Server Role as a search criterion.
PAGE 18
architecture. You can also install both WBEM Providers and Insight Agents on single managed server if needed. Support for ProLiant 100-series servers Beginning with our G6 servers, the HP Insight Management Agents and HP SIM support ProLiant 100-series servers. Previously, ProLiant 100-series servers supported only the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) for system management. HP Systems Insight Manager 5.
PAGE 19
Figure 9: This is a comparison of the server health data supplied by the SNMP Agents and the data supplied using Agentless Management. Asterisks indicate areas where SNMP Agents deliver a more extensive set of data than the Agentless Management. Based on the server data that you need to monitor, there are several specific situations when you should install the agents if you are managing a ProLiant Gen8 server using HP SIM 7.0 or HP Insight Control 7.0.
PAGE 20
PAGE 21
For more information Visit the URLs listed below if you need additional information. Resource description Web address HP Systems Insight Manager http://www.hp.com/go/hpsim Information on HP System Management Homepage http://www.hp.com/go/SMH HP Systems Insight Manager 7.0 and HP Agentless Management overview http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/ c03201001/c03201001.pdf Tech Brief HP Insight Management WBEM (WMI) Providers for Windows http://h18004.www1.hp.