TrueSight 10 Architecture & Scalability Q&A Best Practice Webinar 8/18/2015

Transcription

1 Q: Where can I find the TrueSight Operations Management Best Practice material? A: TrueSight OM Best Practice material is published on the BMC Communities web site at the following link. Q: Does the Presentation Server support High Availability? A: Yes. It includes built-in application level High Availability. Q: Is the Presentation server a thick client or web client? A: It is a web client. Q: Is Single Sign On (SSO) a purchased item? A: SSO is included with your TrueSight OM license. Q: Is Atrium SSO supported on Windows 2008? A: Yes, on Windows Server 2008 R2. Q: Are there any changes in TrueSight Infrastructure Management v10.0 compared to BPPM v9.6? A: Yes. The "BPPM" console view was update to be more color coordinated with the Presentation Server. CMA has moved to Presentation Server as well. Q: What are the differences between the admin console in the Presentation Server and the Infrastructure Management Server? A: CMA in the Presentation Server supports core solution component configuration and monitoring policies. The admin console in the Infrastructure Management Server is a java UI for managing Cell related configuration. Q: Is it possible to publish Solarwinds data or models? A: Yes, but this is not an out of the box capability. There is no out of the box integration with Solarwinds. Setting this up would be a custom configuration requiring BMC Consulting Services.

2 Q: Can service models be shown in the Presentation Server console? A: Yes. The top service CI and its status is seen in the Presentation Server. Details of the model are viewed in the Infrastructure Management Server as needed though launch in context. Q: Does the Presentation Server replace the Central BPPM Server, and if so where do BPPM child servers connect? A: This is dependent on the use case for the Central Server. The Presentation Server replaces most of the functionality of the Central Server, however a Central Server installation of the Infrastructure Management Server is required for integration to BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management (CLM). It is also required if you are using "Distributed Service Models" as provided in previous releases of BPPM. The use of "Distributed Service Models" has to be evaluated in each environment to determine if the Presentation Server can replace that functionality for each specific environment. Q: Are the available menu commands documented? A: Yes. Q: Is the PATROL Classic Console required? A: The PATROL Classic Console is only required for developing KMs. PATROL Central is also considered a "secondary" console and is only needed for certain uses cases. It should not be required in most environments. Q: Why are the Infrastructure Management and Presentation Servers separate? A: BMC has decided to separate the data processing layer from the presentation layer. This is to improve scalability and efficiency. The Presentation Server provides access across a number of underlying technologies for Operations and Administration (e.g. Infrastructure monitoring, Application Monitoring & Modeling, ITDA, etc.) Additionally, the Presentation Server provides a more current UI (HTML 5, Table compatible, etc.). Q: When will CMA be HTML5? A: This is being worked on but no dates are available as of August Q: Does the Postgres database replace the Sybase database of the earlier versions of BPPM? A: No. Postgres is used only for the Presentation Server. The Infrastructure Management Server still uses Sybase or Oracle.

3 Q: Are there any changes made to BPPM Reporting? A: No. Q: What is RBAC? A: Role Based Access Control Q: Are there any plans to release BPPM or the Infrastructure Management server with MS SQL as a supported database? A: No, not at this time. Q: Will TrueSight 10 support BI4.1 SP 4 or higher? A: TrueSight 10 supports BRF 4.1 or SAP Business Objects 4.1 SP3 Patch3. Q: Is there a copy option for policies within CMA? A: Not in the UI. You can export and import policies to copy them using the command line utility. Q: How are older BPPM environments that use Oracle upgraded? A: BPPM 9.5 and higher environments are upgraded by the installer (older versions require a multi-step upgrade). You can also leverage the BMC AMIGO program for assistance. Q: Does PCM still exist in the Infrastructure Management components, or is it completely replaced by CMA? A: Policies in CMA are designed as a replacement for PCM. However the functionality is not completely like-for-like and PCM still exists. BMC recommends leveraging the policies in CMA and moving away from PCM. Q: Does BMC have any plans for supporting Ubuntu? A: No, not at this time.

4 Q: On Windows, can a user who is a member of the administrators group install the Infrastructure Management Server? A: Yes. BMC recommends selecting the installer with a Right Click and choosing "Run as Administrator" when launching the installer. Q: Will the sudo user meet the requirements to install the Infrastructure Management Server? A: Yes. If you do this all command line actions must be executed as a sudo user and there are other requirements as well. Please see product documentation for details. Q: Which component is integrated with the CMDB and Change Management? A: The Infrastructure Management server. Q: When will Real EUEM be a part of the TrueSight App Visibility Manager? A: The Active agents (AD Agents) are part of the TrueSight App Visibility Manager. Passive EUEM is not there yet. We do not have a date to provide for passive EUEM at this time. Q: How is a service model published into the Infrastructure Management server? A: Using the publishing server process like it was in BPPM. Please see product documentation for details. Q: Is the App Visibility component needed to run Synthetic Transaction Execution? A: Yes. It provides the central processing for TEA Agents much like TMART Central provided to TMART. Q: What is the role of the Proxy regarding the App Visibility Manager? A: The App Visibility proxy collects and processes data about an end-user's experience with a web application by injecting Java script into the browser and sending the data collected by that script to the App Visibility collectors and portal. Typically you would install the App Visibility proxies in the network's demilitarized zones (DMZs). Q: Is the Infrastructure Management server a BPPM version 9.6 server? A: Not completely. It is an updated version and is like a BPPM server. The main changes include communication support with the Presentation Server.

5 Q: Does the App Visibility Manager proxy interact with end user browsers or does it use network traffic? A: The App Visibility proxy collects and processes data about an end-user's experience with a web application by injecting Java script into the browser and sending the data collected by that script to the App Visibility collectors and portal. Q: What are beacons related to the App Visibility Manager? A: Beacons are small pieces of end user experience monitoring data sent from the end user browser to the App Visibility Proxy. Q: Is Entuity part of TrueSight Operations? A: Not from a license perspective. Entuity is separate and can be integrated with Infrastructure Management servers like it is with BPPM. Q: Is there a default configuration that can be setup in the Infrastructure Management Server such as a default view for new users that shows a certain event slot order, event list, etc. A: Yes. There is a global filter that can be configured in the Infrastructure Management Server that supports this. We also support a "Landing Page" in the Presentation Server allowing users to see the desired "first screen". Q: What improvements are planned for scheduling configuration of synthetic transactions? (Currently they are limited and are not comparable to the TM ART capabilities.) A: This is being looked at. No date is committed to yet. Q: How do I find the Infrastructure Management Server on BMC's Electronic Product Download site (EPD)? A: Enter "TrueSight" in the filter field and you will find it listed as "BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management". Q: Can we use the App Visibility component to monitor the TrueSight Infrastructure Management server? If so should the java agent be installed? A: Yes. The App Visibility Java agent can be used to monitor BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management.

6 Q: If I just need to implement Event and Impact Management for events from third party monitoring tools through MSEND or SNMP traps, is the presentation server and atrium SSO required? A: Yes. TrueSight 10 requires SSO and the Presentation Server. Q: What is the purpose of the event enrichment cell? A: The enrichment cell is used to consolidate "Site/Customer" specific correlation and enrichment configuration, thus limiting the KBs needing to be managed. Most customers implement this as a High Availability configured cell. Q: Is a top to bottom approach best when installing TrueSight OM components? A: Generally yes. Install SSO first, then the Presentation Server, then other components like the Infrastructure Management servers and the App Visibility components. Please see the product documentation for more details. Q: Do the App Visibility and Infrastructure Management components require the Presentation Server and SSO? A: Yes, for TrueSight 10. Q: Is there an App Visibility like product separate from TrueSight 10 like there is with BPPM 9.6? A: Yes. There is a separate Application Monitoring solution independent from TrueSight called BMC End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM). Q: Are Detailed Diagnostics and deep dive analysis the same things? A: No. Deep dive analysis is just a general application monitoring term. Detailed Diagnostics are Infrastructure Management Server functions related to infrastructure monitoring. Q: Can I add custom rules to the event enrichment cell? A: Yes, and you can add custom data classes, event policies, etc. The event enrichment cell is built on the same technology as other event cells.

7 Q: What technologies does the App Visibility agents use to deep dive into Java and.net applications (for example SCOM uses AVI API's)? A: The App Visibility Agent for Java runs on the application server Java virtual machine (JVM), and captures designated information about application transactions. The App Visibility Agent for.net consists of two components: Agent Core and Probe. Agent Core runs as a Windows service. The probe, a subcomponent of the BMC Application App Visibility Agent for.net, runs in the context of Internet Information Services (IIS) worker processes, and captures designated information about application transactions. Q: What is a number of required servers for small or medium environments? A: There are multiple metric quantities that define small, medium and large. The major metrics include Devices, Instances and Attributes. Sizing examples are published in the product documentation and in the Best Practice material presentation slides. Please refer to those materials for details. Q: Is the Infrastructure Management server Sybase database also embedded as in previous versions with BPPM? A: Yes. Q: Why is SSO a required component in TrueSight 10v? A: It is used to support RBAC and multi-tenancy. Keep in mind that the Presentation Server also spans multiple components including Infrastructure Management servers, App Visibility and ITDA components. Q: Is there a plan to support MS SQL Server? A: MS SQL Server is supported for the reporting component only. It is not planned for the other components at this time. Q: Oracle is robust and is a database standard. Why doesn t BMC go with Oracle instead of Sybase? A: Oracle is an option with the Infrastructure Management server. Sybase is just the embedded database option. In the past, BMC provided Oracle as part of BMC product licensing, but this was discontinued due to Oracle license challenges. Oracle licensing is now the customer's responsibility and BMC continues to fully support Oracle as a database option. Q: Is there any documentation available for the overall licensing model of TrueSight? A: Yes. Please contact your BMC sales representative.

8 Q: In TrueSight 10, can we still use BPPM 9.0 Integration Service nodes and forward Events and Data to Infrastructure Management child servers, Central server and then to the Presentation server? This is to support older versions of the patrol agents. A: BPPM 9.0 Integration Service nodes are not compatible with TrueSight 10. All PATROL Agents must be at least v9.5 to send performance data to TrueSight 10 Infrastructure Management servers. Older PATROL agents can send events to TrueSight 10. For example OpenVMS and AS400 should leverage PATROL agent thresholds and integrate event traffic to TrueSight. Q: Which database stores the data collected by the App Visibility agent? A: The data is stored in App Visibility Portal and is shared to the Presentation Server. If you setup the KM integration from the App Visibility Portal to the Infrastructure Management server the related data is stored in the Infrastructure Management server database and can also be populated to the reporting component for long term storage and reporting. Q: Is BBPM Reporting still needed for reporting in TrueSight 10? A: Yes. Reporting is supported from the TrueSight Infrastructure Management Servers. Q: Does TrueSight 10 support Oracle 12c? A: Yes. The Infrastructure Management server is supported on Oracle 12c. Q: Can the reporting schema be hosted in the Infrastructure Management Server Oracle DB? A: No. This is not recommended, and it is strongly discouraged. The reason for discouraging this is to prevent database performance issues related to large report queries running against the same database that is handling OLTP activity related to the Infrastructure Management server data processing. We don't want reporting activity to cause performance issues for data collection and monitoring. Q: Is it possible to install only an event cell from a TrueSight installation package? A: Yes. Installing only a cell is an option using the Integration Service installer.

9 Q: What recommendations, pro and cons do you have regarding the Integration Service Cluster? A: larger customers are leveraging a Load Balancer between Agents and Integration Service machines. In this configuration there is no need to create Integration Service Clusters. In the absence of a load balancer, Integration Service Clusters provide a way to easily manage Integration Service configuration for the PATROL agents. Q: Does the Integration service store data or events in its cache memory or any files, or is it just used for syncing between PATROL agents and BPPM / Infrastructure Management servers? A: It is just used to synch. Starting with BPPM version 9.5, and going forward to the current release of TrueSight OM, no data is stored. The Integration Service is used as a proxy and communication manager to synch monitor types, instances, performance data and events to BPPM or Infrastructure Management servers. Q: Are there any future plans for including BPPM reporting in the centralized monitoring/truesight/bppm console, which would save users from navigating across different places for reports? A: Not at this time. We do not want a user creating large reports in the live production monitoring environment because doing so could impart performance issues for the monitoring solution. Note that Single Sign On in TrueSight will lend itself to navigating more seamlessly. Q: Do third party integration (SNMP) in TrueSight require additional and license? A: Please contact your BMC sales representative for all license related questions. Q: Do we have to manage two databases, one for the Presentation Server and one for Infrastructure Management? A: There are two separate databases. However, the solution automatically manages the databases. The system automatically backs up, maintains the database and prunes old data. Therefore database management is very minimal. Additionally if there is a database issue BMC customer support is prepared to assist resolving it. Q: Is the Integration Server part of the Infrastructure Management component? A: Yes.

10 Q: If IBRSD is configured on lower level cells, as recommended, how are service impact events propagated to create related incidents? A: IBRSD and/or SR should be installed on cells that contain service models in order to automatically create incident tickets related to Service Impacting events. In most cases these cells are not lower level cells. They are the embedded cell in a TrueSight Infrastructure Management server or a BPPM server. However, this cell could be a standalone cell in some environments. BMC Consulting Services can assist you with the best configuration for you environment based on your specific needs. Q: Is the IBRSD connection still configured at the Infrastructure Management level? A: Yes. Note that the latest incident management integration is now based on web services and is called Service Resolution or SR. Please refer to product documentation for details. Q: What is the difference between the Presentation Server database and Infrastructure Management database? What is the reason for having two databases? A: The Presentation Server is an independent parent to multiple types of major components. The Infrastructure Management server is just one type. The other types include the App Visibility Manager and ITDA. There can also be multiple Infrastructure Management servers sharing a common Presentation Server. The architecture or design of separating these databases helps ensure performance and scalability at the database level. Additionally, these different databases store different types of data for different reasons. You should consider the Presentation Server and related database as a "presentation" layer while the Infrastructure Management server is a "processing" layer. Q: Can IBRSD connect to a High Availability Cell? A: Yes. This is one reason some customers leverage a standalone cell for the integration to Incident Management instead of the embedded cell in the TrueSight Infrastructure Management or BPPM server. Q: Can we use two servers in medium environments? For example install the Presentation Server, SSO and an Infrastructure Management server on one machine and the Integration Server in one other machine? A: Yes, as long as enough resources are allocated to the machines. Note that the required resources are cumulative.

11 Q: Why doesn't BMC integrate PCM with the Admin Console? Wouldn't that be useful? A: BMC's plan is to provide all configuration of infrastructure monitoring centrally in CMA. This is still a work in progress in some areas, for example moving functionality in the administration console into CMA. Additionally, BMC recommends using CMA and policies for monitoring configuration instead of PCM. Q: What kind of data gets stored in the Presentation Server database? Is it only policies? A: No. It includes roles, authorization profiles, components, dashboards, device groups, devices, application models, etc. A current representation of events is also stored there, however trended data is not. Keep in mind that the Presentation Server is intended to support presentation and operational actions while the Infrastructure Management server is the data processing layer. Q: Does a staging Integration Service have any technical difference internally or is it similar to a normal Integration Service from a product code perspective? A: A staging Integration Service and a normal Integration Service are technically built on the same code. A staging Integration Service is just a configuration of the Integration Service. The configuration is done in CMA. Once an Integration Service is configured as a staging Integration Service it will only apply staging policies. Agents connected to a staging Integration Service do not apply any monitoring policies or collect data and events while the Agent is connected. Q: Is PCO still required to configure some KMs in TrueSight 10? A: The PATROL Central Operator (PCO) console is only required to configure KMs that are not available in CMA. This includes monitoring for iseries (AS400) and Open VMS. Q: Where can I find information about changes in the scheduling logic? A: Please see the product documentation. Q: Is the Presentation Server a requirement to use the Infrastructure Management components? A: Yes. The Presentation Server is required to use any components of TrueSight 10. Q: Is it correct that the iseries KM cannot be configured using CMA? A: Yes. This is correct.

12 Q: Can CMA be used to set thresholds on performance data trended in the Infrastructure Management server, or is it only used to set the thresholds on the agents? A: All thresholds can and should be managed in CMA policies. Policies provide configuration for thresholds that are stored at the agents and thresholds that are stored in the Infrastructure Management server. This applies to both performance and availability parameters. Global and instance threshold settings are also configured in CMA. Q: Does BMC have a time frame to support Oracle Enterprise Linux for Atrium SSO, TrueSight Presentation server, App Vis Portal, IMS. A: BMC continually reviews market usage of major operating system platforms and related customer requests as part of the planning process for new releases. A delivery date cannot be provided at this time. Please request a roadmap session through your BMC sales representative to discuss future enhancements. Q: Why does the App Visibility Manager not support the current schedules from a TM ART environment? This makes it hard to truly leverage it is as a successor to TM ART. A: We do support Blackout Scheduling, but it is correct that TrueSight 10 does not the "general scheduling" as found in TM ART. We are currently considering this for a future release. Q: In a common deployment will one Presentation Server support N number of Infrastructure Management servers as needed? A: Yes, with limitations as outlined in the scalability documentation. Q: Do the scalability numbers mean that one Presentation Server can only collect from 3 Infrastructure Management servers? A: BMC has tested with three as a benchmark. This test was not a test to failure. However, we recommend not exceeding three. Also keep in mind scale is not just limited to the number of Infrastructure Management servers. Devices, instances and parameters from those servers are also factors. Please refer to scalability guidance in the product documentation. BMC is working to improve scalability significantly in the next releases. Q: If I am currently running BPPM 9.5 do I have to upgrade to 9.6 first, or can I upgrade straight to TrueSight v10? A: You can upgrade from 9.5 to TrueSight 10. Older BPPM versions have to be upgrade to 9.5 or 9.6 before upgrading to TrueSight 10.

13 Q: Can a single Infrastructure Management Server connect to two Presentation Servers? A: No. Q: Does the Elasticsearch setup support Elasticsearch clustering i.e. multiple Elasticsearch servers that form a cluster? A: This is not currently supported out of the box or documented for TrueSight 10. The Presentation Server includes built-in application High Availability where one instance is the primary and a second instance of the entire Presentation Server is a hot stand-by. Please see documentation for details. Q: What will happen if we push the scalability to 5 or 6 Infrastructure Management servers with 1 Presentation Server? A: The result is dependent on the scale and number of objects in the Infrastructure Management servers. Resource allocation on the Presentation Server would also determine stability and performance. Q: Why is the database sizing so high? A: The sizing provided is based on successful benchmark testing. You might be able to reduce the sizing in some environments, however if you do this you risk potential performance issues. Q: Can a single Presentation Server support data from three different geographic regions? A: Yes. This assumes you have good network bandwidth and low latency between Infrastructure Management and Presentation Servers. Q: Does the App Visibility collector database require 5 GB of storage per agent? A: As a general estimate yes. This is based on the following basic parameters. The average agent request size is 256 KB. The average number of entry points collected is 200 every five minutes. The Collector database retention period is 35 days (default). If these parameters change significantly the Collector database sizing will vary from the 5 GB per agent rule. Q: Can we install the App Visibility agent in High Availability? A: Not in the TrueSight 10 release. This is being address in a future release.

14 Q: I have plans to build a SaaS for monitoring utilizing TrueSight 10. If I assume 40k devices across a number of tenants, how does the solution scale? A: Scalability is not just based on the number of managed devices. There are multiple factors that determine scalability. Please review the scalability information in the product documentation for details. Additionally, BMC has tested a single TrueSight 10 Presentation Server to 30k devices. You can scale beyond this, but you should expect to see some performance degradation as the overall number of objects is increased. Q: Can SSO be installed on the same machine with the Presentation Server and is SSO licensing part of TrueSight 10 licensing? A: Yes. SSO can be installed on the same machine with the presentation server and it is included in the TrueSight 10 license. Q: Is 50 the maximum number of Service Models that the Infrastructure Management server can scale to? A: BMC has tested to 50. Some customers have exceeded this number without issues. Q: Is it possible to installed three Presentation Servers, one in each of three regions, then install a single "Central" Presentation Server for all data across all three regions? A: No, not in TrueSight 10. Q: Can the Infrastructure Management server and the Integration Service be installed on separate servers? A: Yes, and this is recommended. Q: Do the Application Models replace the Service Models, or are they the same thing? A: They are not the same, but they serve the same general purpose. In some cases the application models can replace the Service Models. This depends on what is represented in the service model. Many service models today represent "applications" and those are likely to be more easily managed leveraging the Application Models in TrueSight 10. BMC can help you better understand what makes sense for your environment through the AMIGO program or BMC Consulting Services.

15 Q: Can additional resources be added to the TrueSight server to allow for a seven day raw data retention? What is the bottle neck for recommending only three days? A: Technically you can increase it. You will have to increase memory and ensure high IO SAN drives are in place. However BMC recommends keeping it to 3 days for performance reasons. If you increase it you will likely see some degradation in performance even after adding resources and tuning. Q: Can the Presentation Server, SSO and the Infrastructure Management server all be installed on a single machine? A: Technically yes, however increased scale will quickly make the configuration unmanageable. If this is for a small test environment or demo system it will work fine. Q: Does TrueSight 10 require at least three servers in a production environment, one for the Presentation Server and SSO, one for the Infrastructure Management server and one for an Integration Service? A: Generally that is true, however every environment should be assessed properly for scaling according to BMC best practices.