Selecting, configuring, and using monitoring tools

Use the Operations Center to obtain an overview of system status and to drill down to more detailed information. In some cases, you might want to use advanced tools to collect specific monitoring information.

Procedure

Select and configure the monitoring tools that are appropriate for your solution.
Table 1. Monitoring tools
Tool type Use cases More information
Operations Center
  • Use the graphical user interface to review system status and diagnose issues.
  • Set up the Operations Center to send daily email summary reports.
  • Optional: Customize the alerts that are displayed in the Operations Center and set up email notifications about the alerts.
  • Optional: Monitor the storage environment remotely by viewing the Overview page in the web browser of a mobile device. For example, you can use the Apple Safari web browser on an Apple iPad device. Other mobile devices can also be used.
Tip: If you install IBM Spectrum Protect client management services on a backup-archive client, you can use the Operations Center to obtain troubleshooting information for the backup-archive client. The client management service can be installed only on Linux or Windows operating systems.
 Installing and upgrading the Operations Center
Servermon component By using the statistics that are collected by the servermon component, an experienced system administrator can troubleshoot issues in a storage environment. The administrator can also use the data to predict bottlenecks in resource use, identify measures to improve performance, and provide historical context for server operations.

If the administrator cannot resolve a detected issue, the administrator can share the collected data with IBM Software Support to facilitate issue resolution.

The servermon component is automatically installed and enabled when the IBM Spectrum Protect server is installed.

To share data that is collected by the servermon component with IBM® Software Support, complete the following steps:
  1. Obtain a list of available archive files by issuing the following command from the instance directory: 
    servermon –list
    This command provides the index identifier to use for extraction, the date and time that the archive was created, and the size of the zip file. The zip file includes data from a single day of collection, and is available at the end of each 24-hour cycle of data collection.
  2. Select a data archive file by issuing the following command and specifying the ID that you want to extract for analysis:
    servermon –extract –id id_to_extract

    where id_to_extract specifies the ID of the data archive that you identified after you issued the servermon –list command.

  3. Go to the srvmon subdirectory and locate the archive .zip file. The file name includes the time stamp that is associated with the extracted archive ID. For example, archiveFile-YYYYMMDD.zip.
  4. Send the archive file to IBM® Software Support.
Message context reporting To get additional information when ANR9999D messages are displayed, use the message context reporting feature. By using this feature, you can view additional information about messages, such as the process name, thread name, session ID, transaction data, locks that are held, and database tables that are in use. Message context reporting is enabled by default when you create a server instance. However, the feature might not be enabled on servers that were upgraded from earlier levels.
To ensure that message context reporting is enabled, issue the following administrative command: 
set contextmessaging on
 SET CONTEXTMESSAGING (Set message context reporting on or off)
IBM Spectrum Protect administrative commands Review detailed information. Use the method that is appropriate for your solution:
  • To display messages that were generated by the server and client, use the QUERY ACTLOG command.
    Tip: You can run administrative commands from the Operations Center command builder.
  • To monitor activities such as server migration and client logons, use the administrative client in console mode. Run the dsmadmc -consolemode command.
Event logging Log server messages and most client messages as events to one or more repositories called receivers.

Linux operating systemsWindows operating systemsAIX operating systemsFor instructions about using event logging to monitor a solution, see Logging events to receivers (V7.1.1).

Linux operating systemsFor instructions about logging events to a Linux system log, see Logging events to the Linux system log (V7.1.4).
Restriction: In IBM Spectrum Protect V8.1 and later, the simple network management protocol (SNMP) is no longer available.
SQL queries Create and format customized queries of the server database.
For example, you can query the SQL activity summary table to view statistics about client operations and server processes. To display all information in the summary table, issue the following command from the administrative client: 
select * from summary
 Using SELECT commands (V7.1.1)
Operating system tools Monitor and test system performance.  
Device-monitoring tools Monitor devices for availability, capacity, and performance. For example, use IBM Spectrum Control or tools that are included in device hardware packages.

To monitor overall device status by using IBM Spectrum Control, follow the instructions in Monitoring the status and condition of resources.

To monitor performance by using IBM Spectrum Control, follow the instructions in Monitoring the performance of resources.
IBM Tivoli® Monitoring for Tivoli Storage Manager Monitor IBM Spectrum Protect servers and produce historical reports about server and client activities.

The Operations Center is the preferred tool for monitoring. However, Tivoli Monitoring for Tivoli Storage Manager is useful for generating historical reports that are based on IBM Cognos® Business Intelligence technology.

Restriction: Tivoli Monitoring for Tivoli Storage Manager is not delivered in IBM Spectrum Protect Version 8 product releases. In limited lab testing, Tivoli Monitoring for Tivoli Storage Manager V7 was used to monitor an IBM Spectrum Protect V8 server and to generate reports.
 Tivoli Monitoring for Tivoli Storage Manager