Infrastructure configuration and Central Monitoring Administration configuration best practices

This topic lists some recommendations to be followed when configuring the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management infrastructure components and configuring using the BMC ProactiveNet Central Monitoring Administration UI.

Infrastructure configuration best practices

Infrastructure configuration refers to the configuration of the major BMC ProactiveNet components such as heap settings, retention periods, and so on for the BMC ProactiveNet Server and BMC ProactiveNet Integration Service nodes. Plan these settings as a part of the architecture and scalability assessment before installing the solution. You must configure these settings immediately after installing the infrastructure components and before configuring any monitoring settings deploying the agents.

For recommendations on infrastructure configuration settings, see Tuning-recommendations-for-data-and-event-management.

Central Monitoring Administration configuration best practices

The configuration functionality in the Central Monitoring Administration UI is organized into five major functions or tabs as shown in the following screen shot:

Policies

Policies include monitoring, blackout, and Integration Service staging configuration.

Servers

Servers provide functionality to add Integration Service nodes and BMC ProactiveNet Servers to CMA.  This area also provides visualization of connection status, instance synchronization, policy versu non-policy management setting per agent, and agent query capabilities.

Repository

The repository includes the following:

• A Manage Repository option that allows you to import content downloaded from BMC. The content includes BMC PATROL Agents, Knowledge Modules, and PATROL consoles.
• A Deployable Package Repository option that contains silent install packages that you create.
• Downloadable installation packages for the BMC ProactiveNet Administration Console.
• Downloadable install packages for the Integration Services.

General

General includes configuration of time frames and clusters. The cluster configurations provide high availability support (HA) for the Integration Service processes.

Global thresholds

Global thresholds provide configuration for global thresholds that are stored and acted upon in the BMC ProactiveNet Server. These thresholds are not applied on the PATROL Agents.

General recommendations

Observe the following general best practices regarding these areas of configuration.

• Implement the configuration settings in the order outlined in this topic according to the process workflow. You can deviate from this best practice if you want; however, it is easier to understand the implementation and stay organized if you follow the process provided, especially during the initial implementation.

• Policies include the following two major areas of configuration:

  Warning

  Note

  These are not labels in the product. They are categories that describe two general types of configuration in the product. 

• BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management solution infrastructure configuration – This type of configuration defines how components are architecturally connected and how the PATROL Agents operate at a very basic level. They do not define actual data collection or how a PATROL Knowledge Module monitors the managed environment. Examples include the following:
  • PATROL Agent to Integration Service connections
  • PATROL Agent tags
  • How PATROL Agents forward events
  • PATROL Agent history Retention
• Monitoring configuration - This type of configuration defines how the managed technology is monitored. Examples include the following:
• 
  
  • Knowledge Modules that are loaded in the PATROL Agents for monitoring.
  • Data collection and event propagation filtering
  • Data collection frequencies
  • Thresholds