Monitoring Automation automates the configuration of monitoring for hybrid infrastructures and applications. Whether the monitoring tool used is agent-based or agentless, Monitoring Automation applies the appropriate monitoring configuration for target instances.
This program provides easy monitoring and reporting. It identifies new instances of components, mapping them to management templates and aspects that model the desired configuration and type of resource. Monitoring generates events that a CI behaves unexpectedly.
Common events in Monitoring Automation include:
- A monitored value exceeds a specific threshold. Example: Used disk space in the database exceeds the predefined limit of 90 percent.
- A network node is removed. Example: A power outage causes a server to shut down and become inaccessible.
Monitoring Automation provides a comprehensive management solution for an application or service that enables you to create a management solution for the entire set of configuration items (CIs) that make up the application. This solution can be designed to dynamically respond to topology changes and make the monitoring solution independent of hardware and application platform.
The key to understanding Monitoring Automation is to become familiar with the terminology and underlying architecture.
The stack foundation represents the CIs that need to be monitored. CIs can be network elements like computers or applications or a set of applications delivering a service.
CIs can be accessed in the following ways:
- As shown in the central section of the proposed figure, users interact with CIs independently of any monitoring.
- OMi monitors CIs using the familiar monitoring structure illustrated in the left section of the figure.
- A monitoring developer configures monitoring solutions as depicted in the right section of the figure.
An application specialist initiates the monitoring process after setting the configuration established by the monitoring developer. They act on the events sent by the operator, inspecting deployment activities and utilizing specific application management tools.
Monitoring automation provides several features to create flexible monitoring solutions. The following section explains each configuration element in turn. This explanation corresponds to the layers that form the configuration category from bottom to top.
Node A node is a physical element that can be accessed on the network. CI A CI is a Node or an application or service that runs on a Node. Typically, they are things that are actually monitored by OMi. Events are always related to CIs.
Monitoring Policy Patterns
Policy patterns define what is monitored and how monitoring is conducted. Note that policy patterns are platform-dependent. Before Monitoring Automation, all configurations were carried out through policies and policy patterns.
This means that for every change in a CI, depending on the platform, topology, or monitoring policy, the values present in the CI policy patterns that the CI is monitored against should be modified.
Parameters and Metrics
Monitoring Automation introduces parameters. Each parameter relates to a monitoring setting for a CI feature in the policy pattern. Changing the parameter value alters the monitoring behavior and eliminates the need to manually change hardcoded values in a policy pattern.
The concept of cascading default values is central to monitoring automation. The idea is that the monitoring developer or application expert uses default values at a certain level as much as possible to create a baseline for monitoring.
At the next level, a subset of these values can and may need to be overridden for a specific monitoring task at hand, but any value that has already been covered by baseline settings can be utilized without needing to redefine it.
The following features of parameters provide greater flexibility:
- Conditional parameter values facilitate the use of a parameter with multiple policy patterns and make monitoring solutions hardware and platform-independent.
- Parameters with the same value can be combined into a single parameter. This eliminates the need to enter the same value multiple times.
Metrics encompass scripts and applications executed by the HPE Operations Agent, as defined in the policies related to the managed nodes where the agent is installed.
Aspects of Monitoring Automation
Policy patterns and metrics represent an expected specific behavior of the application or service to be monitored, grouped by aspects. At the aspect level, developers simplify the configuration as follows:
- They combine parameters with a function into unit parameters.
- They can place aspects to combine aspects that exhibit similar behavior, but are defined in different policy formats, into one aspect. Each nested aspect can be accompanied by a deployment condition that tells OMi which nested aspect is used in which environment. This allows any CI of a target CI type to use the same aspect independently of the platform.
- They set default values at the aspect level in accordance with the company's monitoring policies.
