1. SENTRY SOFTWARE Extending BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management with
Monitoring Studio KM for PATROL

2. How do I monitor my IT-based biztools?
Communication
ing system
Web server
Management
CRM software
Accounting system
Stock management
Production
Product engineering
Factory automation
IT-related business specific
Billing
- Standard software components
- Mostly covered by standard monitoring solutions
- Specific software components
- Not covered by standard monitoring solutions (by definition…)
- Most critical part

3. Monitoring Studio by Sentry Software
Monitoring Studio KM for PATROL
Ready-to-use monitoring toolkit for PATROL
Install it as any other KM for PATROL
Version Available now!
Easy-to-use:
Use the GUI to configure various monitoring tools (LOGs, processes, Web, SQL, OS Commands, strings numeric values searches, etc.)
Help yourself!
Setup the monitoring of any software within hours: no coding, no deployment, no maintenance
The "BMC PM Monitoring Studio" is a KM that allows monitoring of 98% of homegrown or custom applications for which there is no solution in the BMC catalog. It combines process monitoring, file monitoring, log-file monitoring, command line tests, HTTP requests, database queries, SNMP polling, NT event monitoring, etc. It is available on all UNIX, NT and VMS. It serves as a simple and effective way to deploy and industrialize the monitoring of custom applications without having to do any specific PSL development while also offering, via maintenance, all updates and patches.

4. Comparison Flexibility and capabilities Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Custom KM (PSL) / PM
Monitoring Studio KM for PATROL
BPM for Servers / BPM for Logs
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

5. Monitoring Studio KM - Toolkit content
Monitoring tools for:
Processes
Windows services
Flat/LOG files
Folders
File systems
Command line execution
SQL queries
HTTP requests
SNMP (polling and traps)
JMX polling (Java Mbean)
Windows events
Windows performances
WMI requests
Other KM’s parameters
Advanced string searches
Advances numeric value extraction
Once it has been installed, Monitoring Studio provides a graphical user interface that allows PATROL administrators to set up the monitoring of an application. The administrator can create icons for the applications in the PATROL Console and specify in a highly detailed way what must be monitored for this application. For an application, you can setup Monitoring Studio to:
monitor the processes of the application
monitor the file systems used by the application
parse the log files produced by the application
launch OS commands or scripts to query the application
send requests to a Web front-end of the application
send queries to the database back-end of the application
poll SNMP agents and listen for SNMP traps

6. Monitoring Studio KM for PATROL
How does it work?
Examples
Typical usage
Demo
“Less typical” usage…

7. How does it work? (1/4)
Deploy the KM on your PATROL agents and consoles
just like any standard KM
through the BMC Installation Utility
through BMC Distribution Server
BMC Performance Manager Monitoring Studio is a Knowledge Module (KM) for BMC PATROL. Therefore, it must be installed on the following components of the PATROL framework:
the PATROL Agents
the PATROL Consoles
the PATROL Console Servers (PATROL7 framework only)
Just like any other KM, the active part of Monitoring Studio resides on the PATROL Agent. Therefore, a PATROL Agent must be installed on each server that an application or a part of an application resides on and BMC Performance Manager Monitoring Studio must be installed on each PATROL Agent. This version of BMC Performance Manager Monitoring Studio cannot monitor an application remotely.
Please refer to the BMC Performance Manager Monitoring Studio – Installation Guide document for further details on the installation procedure.

8. How does it work? (2/4)
From your PATROL console, define the application you want to monitor
Once it has been installed, Monitoring Studio provides a graphical user interface that allows PATROL administrators to set up the monitoring of an application. The administrator can create icons for the applications in the PATROL Console and specify in a highly detailed way what must be monitored for this application. For an application, you can setup Monitoring Studio to:
monitor the processes of the application
monitor the file systems used by the application
parse the log files produced by the application
launch OS commands or scripts to query the application
send requests to a Web front-end of the application
send queries to the database back-end of the application
poll SNMP agents and listen for SNMP traps

9. How does it work? (3/4)
processes, NT services, file systems…
define the base system elements your applications relies on
log files, SQL queries, HTTP requests, Windows event logs, SNMP agents, JMX polling, WMI requests, command-line results, Windows performance counters, and even other KMs!
define the information sources
regular expressions, automatic acknowledging, numeric values extraction, XML, etc…
specify the information your are looking for in order to detect failures
Determining exactly what should be monitored on an application naturally depends strongly on the application itself. Typically, however, the principles below can be used as a guide.
1. Specify the resources used by your application:
the processes of your application, or the NT services of your application
the file systems (or logical disks) used by your application
the directories (folders) where your application runs (where transactional data is stored, where queries are queued, etc.)
the files that are critical to your application (to check their presence, size, growth, etc.)
other middleware information provided by other KMs if your application relies on some middleware software that can monitored by specific KMs (Oracle, Tuxedo, MSMQ, etc.)
other middleware information provided by Windows performance counters if your application relies on middleware software under Windows and provides perfmon data
2. Specify the information sources (where/how can you get information about the application):
flat files that contain useful information about your application
LOG files in which your application writes data (traces of the operations)
web pages (your application provides a web front-end that should be tested)
database queries (your application relies on a database server and some tables contain useful data or procedures that should be tested)
SNMP agents (your application provides information through an SNMP agent that can be polled or that sends SNMP traps)
OS commands or scripts that test the application, giving its status or other useful information
3. Specify what should be searched for in these information sources:
strings (regular expressions) that have to be found or not found
numeric values that will be used to build a graph in the console (with alert thresholds)

10. How does it work? (4/4)
Define what to do when an application failure is detected
trigger a PATROL event, write to a log file, send an SNMP trap, start a process…
Alert Actions enables the PATROL administrator to choose specific actions to execute when an alert occurs for an application. With the Alert Actions, it is possible to either customize the way a notification is performed for an application alert or specify a recovery action to run when a problem occurs.
Alert Actions offers a large choice of actions to execute in order to notify the administrator of a problem with the application or to recover from a particular problem. Monitoring Studio can be configured to run one, several or all types of Alert Actions when an alert is triggered by PATROL.
The following types of Alert Actions can be performed by Monitoring Studio:
trigger a PATROL event
annotate the parameter's graph
execute an OS command
execute a PSL command
send a pop-up to the PATROL consoles
write a line to a LOG file
send a basic SNMP trap (using the PATROL MIB)
send a custom SNMP trap
Alert Actions are highly customizable: one can customize the string that is sent through SNMP, set the username/password that is used to execute the OS Command, define the content of the PATROL event sent by Monitoring Studio, etc.
In addition, some information regarding the alert, such as the parameter name or its value, is available through the Alert Actions macros. This information can be used to further customize the Alert Action triggered by Monitoring Studio and provide more details about the problem that occur.

11. Example: the ABC application
Application ABC
In-house application
No standard KM for ABC
We want to monitor the number of waiting customers
Waiting customers = QUEUE0001’s length
We have a little command-line tool « getqueues » that gives us this value
Monitor ABC with Monitoring Studio!
Let's take a typical example of an in-house developed ABC application. Naturally, no standard KM for PATROL is available for the ABC application. But the ABC application is a business-oriented and therefore critical piece of the IT infrastructure.
Among other things, we need to monitor the number of customers that are waiting for their request to be processed.
The ABC administrator told us that each customer request is queued in a so-called QUEUE0001 queue. He also added that we can retrieve the length of the QUEUE0001 queue with a command-line tool that was provided with the ABC application: getqueues.
Let's see how we can setup the monitoring of the waiting customers for the ABC application with Monitoring Studio, with no PSL coding.

12. Monitoring ABC with Monitoring Studio
Monitoring Studio launches this utility and analyses its output
Look at the line that contains « QUEUE0001 »1
Through the Monitoring Studio GUI, define a new "Application monitoring", named ABC
Configure Monitoring Studio to run the "getqueues" tool as an OS Command and analyze its output
Tell Monitoring Studio to look at the QUEUE0001 line within the output of getqueues and retrieve the numeric value which is located just before the "job(s)" string
Get the numeric value just BEFORE « job(s) »

13. ABC: too many waiting customers!
250
200
Warning!
Take an action when too many customers are waiting!
150
Now that Monitoring Studio has been configured to monitor the ABC application, here is what we get in our PATROL Console: a graph showing the number of waiting customers, with a warning thresholds, that will let us take an action when too many customers are waiting.
This is a good example how you add business value to your IT management tool PATROL.
100 50
Waiting customers

14. Typical usage
Run your scripts with Monitoring Studio to integrate them directly into the BMC framework
I’m using shell scripts to check the health of an application/software/hardware
Run your SQL query from Monitoring Studio, check its result, extract numbers and build graphs
I need to execute a SQL query and check its result
Catch these SNMP traps with Monitoring Studio which will send PATROL events for each of them
I need to convert SNMP traps into PATROL events
Connect to the Java application server to retrieve the value of your application’s Mbean objects (JMX)
I need to monitor a Java application

15. My Application Demo
My Application DEMO

16. Monitoring the… weather!

17. Monitoring the… weather!

18. Monitoring the… weather!

19. Tracking your competitors news

20. Reporting stock quotes

21. Key benefits 100 % Easily monitor: Your strategic custom application
Any non-standard technology
100 %
Application
Middleware
Operating system
Hardware
Monitored by BPM for Hardware
Monitored by standard solutions
Monitored by Monitoring Studio

22. Implement consistent fault management across all applications
Key benefits
Implement consistent fault management across all applications
Replace hard to maintain in-house developments (KMs, PMs) by a standard solution
Monitor your applications:
Resources
Errors
Availability
Performances
- Increase your monitoring coverage up to 100% of the IT infrastructure
- No development, easy GUI
- Efficient monitoring solution
- Secured investments in monitoring technology

23. Sentry Software Company www.sentrysoftware.com BMC Software
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