HP Operations Smart Plug-in for Systems Infrastructure Release Notes

for HP Operations Manager for Windows®, UNIX, and Linux operating systems

Software version: 1.00

Publication date: September 2009

This document is an overview of the features in HP Operations Smart Plug-in for Systems Infrastructure (Systems Infrastructure SPI). It contains important information that is not included in the manual or the online help. You can find information about the following in this document:

In This Version
Installation Notes
Verified Environments
Product Documentation
Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds
Documentation Updates
Local Language Support
Support
Legal Notices

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In This Version

HP Operations Smart Plug-in for Systems Infrastructure manages individual systems. The features provided by the SPI are detailed below:

• Service Discovery: Discovers the single systems.

  The System Infrastructure SPI service discovery policy is deployed to the nodes when new nodes are added in HPOM for Windows. It discovers the systems infrastructure on the node.

  The system discovery is not deployed automatically in case of HPOM for UNIX and Linux. Also, in case of existing nodes in HPOM for Windows discovery policy is not autodeployed. You must manually deploy the following policies before you manually deploy the discovery policy.

  Deploy the following policies on managed node:
  • InfraSPI-Messages policy -To access this policy select Policy management >Policy groups> SPI for Infrastructure > en > Messages
  • SI-SystemDiscovery policy - To access this policy select Policy management > Policy groups > SPI for Infrastructure > en > Systems Infrastructure > AutoDiscovery

  Deploy the following policy on managed node on management server:
  InfraSPI-ServerSetting policy -To access this policy select Policy management > Policy groups > SPI for Infrastructure > en > Settings and Thresholds > Server Settings

• Policies: Collects data and monitors the capacity, availability, and utilization of systems infrastructure. To use the advanced monitor policies (Measurement Threshold type policies), make sure you deploy the following policies:
  • OPC_OPCMON_OVERRIDE_THRESHOLD
  • OPC_PERL_INCLUDE_INSTR_DIR

  To access these policies select Policy management > Policy groups > SPI for Infrastructure > Settings and Thresholds > Agent Settings

• Tools: Help to administer and manage the systems infrastructure.
• Reports: Displays the metric data collected from managed nodes. These reports help you understand an overall picture of system resources.
• Graphs: Displays the resource utilization on the managed nodes.

Installation Notes

Instructions for installing the Smart Plug-in for Systems Infrastructure are documented in the following guide provided in PDF (.pdf) format:

• HP Operations Smart Plug-ins for Infrastructure Installation Guide

Software Requirements

Before installing the Systems Infrastructure SPI, make sure that the following requirements are met. For the installation requirements for the management server, see the HP Operations Manager Release Notes.

HPOM management server requirements:

• HP Operations Manager versions supported:
  • HP Operations Manager for Windows 8.10 + Patches. The following patch is required:
    • OMW_00048– This HPOM for Windows patch is a pre-requisite for HP Operations Agent 8.60. You can download it from: OMW_00048.
  • HP Operations Manager for UNIX 9.00. The following patch is required:
    • Hotfix for QCCR1A91189: Incompatible instrumentation directory layout for Windows on OMU 9
  • HP Operations Manager for Linux 9.00.
• HP Performance Manager (to view graphs) versions supported:
  • Version 8.20.100 (version 8.20 with software patches) on HPOM for UNIX and HPOM for Windows
  • Version 8.21 on HPOM for Linux
• HP Reporter version 3.80 or later (to view Reports)

HPOM managed node requirements:

• Microsoft Windows or Linux operation system
• HP Operations Agent versions supported:
  • HP Operations Agent versions supported on HPOM for Windows:
    • HP Operations Agent (HTTPS) 8.60 on Linux with patch OMW_00041. You can download the patch from: OMW_00041.
    • HP Operations Agent (HTTPS) 8.60 on Windows with patch OMW_00044. You can download the patch from: OMW_00044.
  • HP Operations Agent versions supported on HPOM for UNIX:
    • HP Operations Agent (HTTPS) 8.60 on Linux with patch PHSS_39502. You can download the patch from: PHSS_39502.
    • HP Operations Agent (HTTPS) 8.60 on Windows with patch PHSS_39505. You can download the patch from: PHSS_39505.
  • HP Operations Agent versions supported on HPOM for Linux:
    • HP Operations Agent (HTTPS) 8.60 .
• HP Performance Agent 5.00

Disable Autodeployment on DCE agents

If you add a new node running DCE agent in the HPOM for Windows node bank, ensure that auto-deployment is disabled for the node. To disable autodeployment on DCE agents, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the node.
2. From the menu, select Properties.
3. Select the Network tab.
4. Under Auto Deployment, clear the Enable Auto Deployment check box.
5. Click Apply.

Repeat step 1 to step 5 for all managed nodes running DCE agents.

Verified Environments

Verified HPOM versions on Management Server:

• HP Operations Manager for Windows 8.10 + patches. For details on patches see, Software Requirements.
• HP Operations Manager for UNIX 9.00
• HP Operations Manager for Linux 9.00.

Verified operating systems on Managed Nodes:

To know about the supported operating system architectures, supported operating system release versions, and for recent updates, go to the support matrix URL:HP Software Support Matrix.

Product Documentation

The following documentation is available for Systems Infrastructure SPI:

• HP Operations Systems Infrastructure Smart Plug-in User Guide
• HP Operations Infrastructure Smart Plug-ins Installation Guide
• HP Operations Infrastructure Smart Plug-ins Concepts Guide

Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds

Open issues in this release:

• Advanced Monitoring policies modified in HPOM for UNIX Admin GUI fail to run after deployment to managed nodes.

  When advanced monitoring policies are edited in GUI mode in HPOM for UNIX policy editor, syntax errors are induced into the Perl code module (CR ID: QCCR1A96995). This causes the policy to fail to execute. Errors such as the following appear:

  "An error occurred in the processing of the policy 'SI-LinuxSshdProcessMonitor'. Please check the following errors and take corrective actions. (OpC30-797)
  Error during evaluation of threshold level "Processes - Fill Instance list" (OpC30-728)
  Execution of instance filter script failed. (OpC30-714)
  Perl Script execution failed: syntax error at PerlScript line 11, near "1
  
  #BEGIN_PROCESSES_LIST
  #ProcName=/usr/sbin/sshd
  #Params=
  #Params=
  #MonMode=>=
  #ProcNum=1
  #END_PROCESSES_LIST
  @ProcNames"
  Missing right curly or square bracket at PerlScript line 17, within string
  syntax error at PerlScript line 17, at EOF
  . (OpC30-750)"

  The un-edited advanced monitoring policies (Measurement Threshold type) work fine when deployed from HPOM for UNIX.

  Workaround: To edit the settings in the Measurement Threshold policy, use ‘Edit in Raw mode’ feature of the HPOM for UNIX Admin GUI to change the policy contents. This requires you to know the syntax of the policy data file.

• SI-MSWindowsRemoteDrivesSpaceUtilization fails to send alerts for Remote Drives on Windows x64 and x86 managed nodes

  Workaround: Double-click the policy to open the policy edit window, select Source tab, and set the administrator privilege for each source.

• Infrastructure SPIs Measurement Threshold policies that use perl modules like OvTrace.pm, OvPrum.pm, etc do not work on x64 systems.

  Workaround: Use MGD_NODE_INSTRUMENTATION_DIR config variable in eaagt namespace. This must be used in addition to OPC_PERL_INCLUDE_INSTR_DIR.

  Example:
  [eaagt]
  OPC_BUFLIMIT_SEVERITY=major
  OPC_BUFLIMIT_SIZE=10000
  OPC_HBP_INTERVAL_ON_AGENT=-1
  OPC_INSTALLATION_TIME=7/9/2009 2:38:14 AM
  OPC_INSTALLED_VERSION=08.60.005
  OPC_IP_ADDRESS=192.168.0.0
  OPC_NODENAME=YexampleY.com
  OPC_NODE_CHARSET=utf8
  OPC_PERL_LIB_DIR=C:\Program Files\HP\HP BTO Software\\nonOV\perl\a\lib
  OPC_PERL_INCLUDE_INSTR_DIR=TRUE
  MGD_NODE_INSTRUMENTATION_DIR=C:\ProgramData\HP\HP BTO Software\bin\instrumentation
  

• Alert Messages while System Discovery automatically adds nodes

  While system discovery automatically adds nodes for cluster and virtualized environments, it generates alert messages with normal severity. These messages run automatic actions to re-classify the managed node based on operating system specific node groups in the HPOM node bank. Once the auto-action for each message completes the message is auto-acknowledged. As long as the action is running the message action status is shown as 'R' (running state). If the action fails to run for any reason, the status is shown as 'F' and the message is not auto-acknowledged. Appropriate actions are listed in the instructions for the alert in case of failure. Sample of such messages -
  Auto-Add linux-vma.ovtest.com:VMware vMA:InfraSPI Managed Nodes
  Auto-Add WIN2k3.ovtest.com:MS Windows:InfraSPI Managed Nodes

  Messages with auto-actions for auto-adding all cluster nodes and resource groups are generated if the node is a clustered node. These messages too, are auto-acknowledged if the actions run successfully. It is possible to prevent cluster resource groups from getting added in the node bank setting the XPL config-setting infraspi.AutoAdd_Cluster_RG_IP=false. If all the nodes in a cluster are already in the node bank as controlled nodes, these nodes are regrouped in a cluster-based classification. If some nodes in the cluster are not in the node bank, SNMP nodes/Message allowed nodes are created with node IP address set to the same IP address as the cluster node. This is to assign messages to the cluster node.

  If the virtual node for the resource group is already added in the node bank, there is no additional node added for the resource group, instead a copy of the virtual node is created and grouped under a cluster node group. Messages with auto-actions for auto-adding ESX, ESXi and vCenter nodes managed by a VMware vMA system are dispatched during its system discovery.

  If you want you can disable the Auto-addition feature by changing the default value of the following XPL configuration parameters:

  Configuration Parameters	Default Value	Value to disable auto addition
  AutoAdd_ClusterNode	true	false
  AutoAdd_Cluster_RG_IP	true	false
  AutoAdd_HypervisorNode	true	false
  AutoAdd_Guests	false	true

• Enabling alerts for Log monitoring policies for RHEL and SLES on managed nodes running agent as non-root user

  Systems Infrastructure SPI supports policies and tools for alternative, non-root user on HTTPS agents. The following policies fail to work on RHEL and SLES systems:

  • SI-LinuxBootLog
  • SI-LinuxSecureLog
  • SI-LinuxKernelLog

  To enable alerts for log monitoring for Infrastructure SPIs on non root agents follow these steps::

  1. Change the Permission of the required log files with the following command:

  For RHEL:
  chmod 444 /var/log/messages
  chmod 444 /var/log/boot.log
  chmod 444 /var/log/secure

  For SLES:
  chmod 444 /var/log/messages
  chmod 444 /var/log/boot.log

  Doing this will enable users to read the logs and help to generate alerts.

  2. Change the permission of OVBBCCB and OPCLE process with the following command:

     chmod 4555 /opt/OV/bin/ovbbccb
     chmod 4555 /opt/OV/lbin/eaagt/opcle

  3. Switch to Non-root user by running the following command:
     

     su - <non-root user name>

  4. Restart ovc by running the following commands:

     ovc -stop
     ovc -start

  5. To check the status of all process, run the command OVC. It displays all process up and running, without any process shown as aborted.

• HPOM Monitor Agent’s memory usage is constantly increasing to the point where the system runs out of memory and the monitor agent aborts

  The root-cause for this problem is described in CR ID QCCR1A95505: opcmona has memory leak while processing policies with embedded perl script. The issue is more prone to occur when you deploy many (30 or more) advanced monitoring policies using embedded Perl scripts. To check the status of this issue, see QCCR1A95505.

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.

To check for recent updates or to verify that you are using the most recent edition, visit this URL: HP Software Product Manuals

To retrieve a document, select the:

1. Product name.
2. Version list.
3. Operating System.
4. Preferred Language.
5. Document title.
6. Click Open or Download.

You must have Adobe Reader installed to view files in PDF format (*.pdf). To download Adobe Reader, go to the Adobe web site.

Localization Support

The Smart Plug-in for Systems Infrastructure software and documentation are not provided in localized languages. However the SPI can be installed successfully and deployed on non-English HP Operations Manager for Windows, UNIX, and Linux servers.

HP Software Support

This web site provides contact information and details about the products, services, and support that HP Software offers. For more information, visit the HP Support web site at: HP Software Support Online.

HP Software support provides customer self-solve capabilities. It provides a fast and efficient way to access interactive technical support tools needed to manage your business. As a valued support customer, you can benefit by being able to:

• Search for knowledge documents of interest
• Submit and track progress on support cases
• Submit enhancement requests online
• Download software patches
• Manage a support contract
• Look up HP support contacts
• Review information about available services
• Enter discussions with other software customers
• Research and register for software training

To access the Self-solve knowledge base, visit the Self-solve knowledge search home page.

Legal Notices

©Copyright 2009 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.

The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.

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All other product names are the property of their respective trademark or service mark holders and are hereby acknowledged.

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