PATROL Agent

The PATROL Agent product monitors a system according to the instructions provided by loaded PATROL Knowledge Modules (KMs). PATROL Agents are a core component of the Infrastructure Management architecture for monitoring and managing your IT infrastructure. A PATROL Agent offers reliable collection of data from your monitored systems by guaranteeing delivery of event data and instance data to the TrueSight Infrastructure Management Server. To use the KM deployment feature, you need PATROL Agents version 10.0 and later.

For complete information about PATROL Agent, see the PATROL Agent documentation. Open link

PATROL Agent functions

A PATROL Agent performs the following functions:

Runs commands to collect information either locally or remotely; the information is collected according to the applications and parameters defined in KMs.
Acts as a service provider for event and data management for TrueSight Infrastructure Management Server
Interprets data by using defined rules
Loads specified KMs at start-up, runs commands, and updates configuration information
Stores information locally

PATROL Agent intelligent events

PATROL Agent events are considered internal intelligent events and are mapped to the instance object they belong to. This monitor instance association of PATROL events facilitates Probable Cause Analysis, leveraging categorizations (for example, Database, Application, Server, Network, and so on).

PATROL Agent data collection

The PATROL Agent pushes data as it is collected to Infrastructure Management. The data is streamed from the PATROL Agent to the Infrastructure Management Server without buffering, minimizing latency for data, events, and instance information. The behavior of data delivery depends on the type of data to be sent. In Infrastructure Management, data can be divided into three types:

Performance data (also known as statistical data)
Event data
Instance data (data of each instance in Infrastructure Management)

Infrastructure Management introduces an acknowledgement mechanism whereby the PATROL Agent receives an acknowledgement for the data it sends. This acknowledgement mechanism varies depending on the type of data being sent by the PATROL Agent. This mechanism is applicable if the PATROL Agent or any component of Infrastructure Management goes down during execution. The acknowledgement mechanism applies only to instance data and event data

The role of the Integration Service with PATROL Agent

PATROL Agents send performance data and events to the Integration Service which in turns filters the data and events before passing the data to the Infrastructure Management Server. The Integration Service performs the following functions for PATROL Agents:

It ensures that the data between the Infrastructure Management and the PATROL Agent is in sync by streaming data and events to the Infrastructure Management Server and providing near real-time information about application classes and instances (along with data and events) available in the PATROL Agent.
It consolidates event and data collection transport over a single connection between the PATROL Agent and the Integration Service; that is, you need to use only a single port opened in your firewall.
Because the Infrastructure Management Integration Service is stateless; it offers a seamless switch over from one Integration Service to another in case of a failover, thus causing no impact on the Infrastructure Management Server.

The Solution Administrator configures PATROL and Infrastructure Management such that events are sent from PATROL to the Integration Service. The Integration Service then routes these events to the cell for event processing.

Consoles for monitoring events and viewing performance data from PATROL Agents

PATROL events reach the TrueSight Infrastructure Management Server through the cell, where they are processed and and displayed in the Infrastructure Management operator console or routed to the TrueSight Presentation Server for display in the TrueSight console. IT Operations can then monitor for critical events and perform event operations or other functions, such as Probable Cause Analysis.

For more information, see Getting started with infrastructure monitoring.

PATROL Agent configuration with the TrueSight console

Solution Administrators configure PATROL Agents from the TrueSight console. For information, see Managing Infrastructure Management devices from the TrueSight console.