HP Network Node Manager i Software Smart Plug-in Performance for Metrics Release Notes

for the Windows® and Linux operating systems

Software version: 9.10

Publication date: March 2011

This document is an overview of the HP Network Performance Server (NPS) version 9.10 and the associated HP Network Node Manager i Software Smart Plug-in Performance for Metrics (NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics). It contains important information that is not included in books or online help. You can find information about the following in this document:

Product Overview
What's New in This Release?
Installation Notes
Localization Support
Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds
Documentation Errata
Documentation Updates
Support
Legal Notices

Product Overview

The NPS stores, aggregates, and provides reports for collected performance data. It is the foundation for operational reports on NNMi. Other iSPIs rely upon the NPS for report presentation functionality. The NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics adds the performance management capability to NNMi by analyzing, processing, and aggregating a range of standard Metrics collected by NNMi from different network elements. This release of the NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics includes the following features:

• Interface Health Reports
• Component Health Reports
• Path Health Report
• Custom Polled Reports

What's New in This Release?

The NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics contains new features, feature enhancements, and other changes.

New Features

Usability

• The user interface for interacting with reports has been updated and improved. A new side navigation panel is now available to control topology and time selections as well as offering report run history and navigation back to NNMi.
• Miniature reports, each containing only a simple chart or table etc, are available for embedding within external dashboards. These are known as ‘reportlets’ and can be accessed from the navigation panel.
• Reports now support multiple time zones, configurable by the user within the navigation panel.
• Many reports have been expanded to allow the selection of up to 12 Metrics for display at a time.
• Many reports have been expanded to allow the filtering of data using metric ranges - example: Availability between 10% and 20%.

New Reports
There are several new, generic reports. Each is available with all installed extension packs. They are:

• Top N Chart - a version of the Top N report, but with an individual historical chart for each entry in the top N table.
• Peak Period - a time based report displaying the interval within the selected time range which had the maximum values for the selected metric.
• Baseline and Threshold sleeves - reports showing the selected metric and how it compares to the defined thresholds within NNMi or to the historical ‘normal’ range of values.

In addition, there are several new custom reports for the Interface and Component Health packages. These are Overview, Executive Headline and for Interface Health only - Wireless LAN.

Product Features and Architecture
The following new features and changes are worth noting:

• Support for baseline reporting. The system tracks historical values for baselined metric and can present what is considered the ‘normal’ range for a particular time.
• Forecasting and predictions. In parallel with baseline technology, the product now includes the ability to offer future forecasting based upon historical data.
• Multi-Tenancy. When configured correctly, in conjunction with NNMi, the NPS product is capable of running within a multi-tenancy environment.
• Long term data retention has been improved, with historical data now accessible for up to 400 days from collection.
• Improved logging
• Improved SSL support for more secure environments.

The NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics includes two underlying packages - Interface Health and Component Health. The types of data that is collected within these packages has been extended to include the following:

Interface Health:

• 802.11 Wireless LAN
• Sonet and SDH
• Average Frame Size
• Broadcast packet rates

Component Health

• Disk space utilization
• Backplane utilization
• Device reachability
• Device availability
• ICMP response times
• Reboots
• Bad polls

Installation Notes

For a list of supported hardware platforms, operating systems, and database, see the support matrix available at the root directory of the product media or at this location:

HP Support Matrices.

Localization Support

The following table lists the localized languages and supported Locales for each operating system:

To install the localized version of NPS and NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics on Linux system, set the following environment variables:

Japanese

$LC_ALL = ‘ja_JP.utf8’

$LANG = ‘ja_JP.utf8’

Simplified Chinese

$LC_ALL = ‘zh_CN.utf8’

$LANG = ‘zh_CN.utf8’

Localization Support for Documentation

• The Release Notes and Support Matrix are localized in Japanese and Simplified Chinese.
• The Installation Guide and Online Help are localized in Japanese and Simplified Chinese.

Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds

This release contains certain unresolved problems and some limitations. These problems are listed below, with available workarounds where applicable.

• Pressing the 'Play' button in the top right of the report screen may result in input prompts being displayed, with no explanatory text regarding their content.
  • Workaround: Users can ignore these prompts and scroll to the bottom of the screen where an 'OK' button is displayed. This issue can be avoided by using the navigation panel to the left of the screen to modify report controls such as time and topology then submitting the report in the usual way.
• Changing the value of a selected metric, or a grouping construct, can sometimes propagate the value to those below in the prompt area - overwriting previously selected values.
  • Workaround: Users should avoid changing the values of selected metrics or grouping constructs when there are visible metrics or grouping constructs below the item being changed.
• After authenticating with NNMi, the user can potentially change the hostname of the NPS server contained in a bookmark in order to direct access to another NPS server (in the same network domain) not paired with the NNMi used for authentication.
• The Interface Health Wireless LAN report has incorrect scales on the ‘Frame Duplicates’ and ‘Undecryptable Frames’ charts.
  • Workaround: These charts represent the data correctly, but the values are being interpreted as percentages so are appearing as 100 times their actual value, with two decimal places shown. For example: a value of 40000 for frame duplicates will appear as '4000000.00%'.
• Attempting to drill down on a data point within a PDF, or mailed HTML, version of a report will display the top level BI portal page, instead of a useful navigation point.
  • Workaround: Do not attempt to drill down when viewing reports in PDF format. Instead, change the display setting to HTML and then drill down on interesting data points.
• The session time-out settings for NNMi are not set to match NPS. Users may find that their NNMi browser is still logged in but their reporting browser is not, or vice versa.
  • Workaround: Users should simply close the browser, relaunch it and log in to become authenticated again.
• There is a lack of documentation regarding the audit and activity logging features of the product.
  • Workaround: Search online for the latest documentation updates.
• It is possible for users to save reports into the 'All Extensionpacks' folder when this is not an appropriate storage location for saved reports.
  • Workaround: Users should avoid saving reports into this publicly accessible folder area, especially in multi-tenancy deployments.
• The Calendar report layout may be 'stretched' under some circumstances when less than 7 days.
• Many reports offer the option of displaying 2 or more metrics. It is not possible to have these reports display with just one visible metric.
  • Workaround: Selecting the second metric to be the same as the first will cause the report to display as if it only had one selected and avoid confusion.
• Temporary files may be left behind in the /tmp directory after using the extractData.ovpl tool.
  • Workaround: These files can be removed - an explicit list of all files created is displayed by the tool when running.
• Right clicking and selecting the 'Lineage' option from within a report can show an error page. This option is not supported within the product.
• The nnmenableperfspi.ovpl script which is bundled on the NNMi system does not warn the user if Samba is chosen but is not actually available on the system.
• When running in PDF format, the Interface Health Overview report includes additional lines which represent table headings but are of no value to the reader.
• Displaying any report with a selected grain which is finer than the polled frequency of the displayed data will result in displayed charts which appear to have 'holes' where no data was available.
  • Workaround: Do not display collected data with a finer grain than is available. This issue is particularly noticeable when using the 'As Polled' display grain.
• Reports include an 'Auto refresh' option, to have them refresh automatically after a preset interval. This refresh should continue indefinitely. Occasionally, the refresh will stop after an indeterminate period.
  • Workaround: If this happens the user should manually refresh the report.
• It is sometimes necessary to press the Submit button within the Time Control panel twice before the selection will force the report to update.
  • Workaround: If the report does not begin to refresh immediately when the Submit button is pressed, press it again.
• Drillthrough will fail from the Gauge reportlet.
• Report templates suitable for scheduling include pre-run prompt pages. Sometimes, JavaScript errors are visible when running these prompt pages.
  • Workaround: The errors have no effect on the functionality of the page and can be ignored.
• In previous releases of NNMi it was possible to click on an interface within the layer-3 neighbor view and then launch a report based upon that selection. This option is no longer available. Workaround: Select a node instead of the interface and launch the report, then filter the report using the topology filter area.
• The pre-run prompt pages for the Baseline and Threshold reports have their Confirm button greyed out on the third prompt page. Workaround: Select the 'Finish' button visible at the bottom of the report instead.
• The Baseline and Threshold reports are created for all packages - including custom collections. However, not all packages produce the types of data required to populate them. As a result, the user may come across a version of these reports which will not actually run. In these cases, an error will be displayed.
• In some areas of the product, the HP logo used is not the current version of the corporate branding.
• Users will find that the scheduled reports have a 'Most Recent Complete x' where x is Hour, Day Week or Month time selection. These options are not available in the main navigation control panel and as such are inconsistent.
  • Workaround: The user has the option of specifying a start and end time in the navigation panel so therefore can explicitly define the time interval they need.
• When drilling through from the Component Health Overview report, the selected metrics in the destination report are not well placed - for example, a volume style metric is on the same y-axis as a percentage.
  • Workaround: The user can rearrange the metrics as they see fit using the metrics options panel available where appropriate within reports.
• The navigation panel display area uses a slightly different display style to that of the main NNMi interface.
  • Workaround: This does not cause any functionality issue.
• When saving a report in PDF format, the system will suggest a file name. These suggested names are mostly random characters and have little relevance to the content of the report being saved.
  • Workaround: The user should rename the saved file to something more meaningful.
• The times displayed in the navigation panel representing the start and end range of the available data do not follow local time display settings.
  • Workaround: The format used is MM/DD/YY hh:mm
• The resetSPI.ovpl routine does not reset the size of the existing database files, located at /var/opt/OV/NNMPerformanceSPI/database, or the equivalent location on Windows.
  • Workaround: Reinstalling the product will reset the database files if required.
• The new forecasting algorithms include a set of associated metrics which the user may view. Some of these metrics, including the slope of a line, may have negative values. These negative values cannot be displayed on the existing charts.
  • Workaround: Negative values will appear in tabular display reports.
• The options page on some reports is wide. This can result in the user needing to scroll left or right to reach certain parts of the page if they are using a low resolution display.
  • Workaround: Higher resolution screen settings and making use of browser zoom function can both help with this issue.
• When moving from report to report, the users selections will typically be carried forward and applied when appropriate. There are some circumstances when the system may 'forget' which metrics have been chosen as the user moves from one report to another. This is only in relatively rare circumstances.
  • Workaround: If this happens the user can reselect the metrics they wish to display again.
• The colors used to display metrics in a chart will change depending upon how many metrics are chosen to display. This means, for example, that on subsequent runs of the same chart a metric which was green on one iteration may then appear as blue.
• When drilling through from a report which had filters for the from: and to: values of a metric, for example: Availability from 1% to 5%) the filter values will not carry forward in the drillthrough if they are equal. Workaround: Modify your filter from: and to: values to cover a range, rather than a single value.
• Customer haves the ability to create their own custom poll collections and report on these. Each reporting package is created within the NPS with a generic set of reports. If the name of the package exceeds 32 characters the hourly summaries within the product will fail with a database error.
  • Workaround: Ensure the length of custom collection package names remains at 32 characters or less.
• Using the 'Cross Launching' panel and drilling back to NNMi to an interface configuration screen can result in a broken link within the browser.
• While scheduling reports, users may be presented with a list of untidy input prompts.
  • Workaround: Users wishing to schedule reports for automated execution need to start by copying templates from the "Report templates suitable for scheduling" folder. The reports in the next folder up are used by the system for dynamic execution and are not suitable for scheduling.
• CSV report options are available on all tabular reports from the navigation panel, however, they are only available on the Chart Detail report when setting up automated scheduling. Workaround: Users can run any of the tabular reports using the navigation panel and specify CSV as the output type.
• Custom collections within NNMi fail to be created if ReportGroupName contains multi-byte characters.
  • Workaround: When creating custom collections in NNMi - make sure that the ReportGroupName does not contain any multi-byte characters.
• After enabling SSL for NPS, Internet Explorer 8 installed in Windows 2008 does not launch reports from the NNMi console. An error of 'Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage' will be seen. Workaround: Either use the Firefox browser instead, or else launch Internet Explorer 8 with Cipher Strength : 128-bits version (8.0.6001.18702) from another, non Windows 2008, system.
• The SSL certificate request file that is generated by the embedded ThirdPartyCertificateTool is a 512-bit key. At this time it cannot be certified by third party Certificate Authorities
  
• Changing the BI password will restart the BI server. Other processes monitoring the BI server may also attempt to restart it. The combination of two attempted restarts at the same time may cause an error message to appear. Workaround: The error message can be ignored, but statistical will give the true state of the BI server at any time if there is doubt as to it's status.
• It is not possible to open browsers to two different NPS systems at the same time on the same system. An error regarding session capability will appear. Workaround: It is possible to connect to two separate NPS systems from the same client if different browser types are used - Firefox for one and Internet Explorer for another.
• Upgrading from a previous release of NPS will cause customizations such as e-mail server or file save directory to be lost. Workaround: Use the export mechanism for Cognos Configuration to back up the settings, then re-import them after the upgrade. The primary items of interest are remote e-mail server identities and file save directory locations.
• Occasionally, perl.exe processes will terminate abnormally on Windows. This will cause a message to be logged to the Windows event viewer under 'Applications'. This message has been seen during custom collection package creation.
• The drop down selectors for integer topology attributes will not display the proper English name for the attribute, instead they display what appears to be a variable name which is close to, but not equal to the English text.
• When logging into the PerfSPI authentication screen, if an incorrect password is provided the screen simply refreshes without displaying a warning message. Workaround: Re-enter the password and authentication will take place as usual.
• Bookmarking reportlets with a time span of 'Last 24 Hours' may result in the reportlet displaying with 'Most recent complete day'. Workaround: Using a shorter time frame, such as 'Last 12 hours' will operate correctly.
• The Installation Guide notes that for Single Sign On to work as designed, a FQDN is required. However, it continues to explain that using the IP address will achieve the same results in certain circumstances. This is an error and is not the case - an FQDN is required.

Documentation Errata

The Glossary of Metrics topics in NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics online help do not contain the complete list and definitions of the metrics used by default.

Documentation Updates

The first page of this release notes document contains the following identifying information:

• Version number, which indicates the software version.
• Publish date, which changes each time the document is updated.

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Legal Notices

©Copyright 2009-2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR 12.211 and 12.212, Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor's standard commercial license.

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Acknowledgements

This product includes libjpeg library. This software is copyright (C) 1991-1998, Thomas G. Lane.
The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated.
This product includes libxml2 library. Copyright (C) 1998-2003 Daniel Veillard. All Rights Reserved.
This product includes libxp library. Copyright © 2001,2003 Keith Packard.

© 2009-2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.