Glossary

PATROL Knowledge Modules and Monitoring Solutions are compatible with a multiple consoles and environments. Although some terms are used across all consoles and environments, there are some differences. The following table identifies the similarities and differences among the consoles and describes the various terms.

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applications

An application in PATROL is any resource used or running on a computer. Each running copy of an application discovered by PATROL is called an instance of the particular application class.

application classes

Application classes are the object classes to which application instances belong. It is a logical grouping of individual applications, while an application group is a logical grouping of application instances. Within PATROL, you use application classes to define the attributes of all instances within an application class (global settings) or the attributes of a single application instance that has been customized (local settings). Monitor types are similar to application classes. Monitor types are a way of classifying the data that is to be collected.

application discovery

PATROL Agent discovers applications using instructions provided by the Knowledge Module. The instructions provided by the KM include the application discovery rules that you have defined. When the PATROL Agent discovers an application, it represents the application with an icon either in the icon window for the monitored computer on which it runs or in an application window specified for all application instances of that class. You can add a new application class to PATROL Agent so that it will find all future instances of that application running on monitored computers. PATROL Agent periodically runs application discovery to discover new applications and to verify that previously discovered applications and files are still there. If an application or previously discovered file is not found, the PATROL Agent triggers an audible or visual alert for the missing resource. Application discovery rules are defined using either

  • Simple discovery: uses simple pattern-matching to find instances of the application running on the monitored computer
  • PSL discovery: uses scripts written in PATROL Script Language to find the application instances

attributes

Attributes are similar to parameters. Attributes classify monitor types into types of data.

InfoBoxes

InfoBoxes are tables of attributes accessed from parameters and application class icons. The PATROL Agent populates all of the attributes that appear in the parameter InfoBoxes and some attributes, such as icon type or status, that appear in the application InfoBoxes.

Knowledge Module

A Knowledge Module (KM) or a monitoring solution is a set of files from which a PATROL Agent receives information about resources running on a monitored computer. A KM file can contain the actual instructions for monitoring objects or simply a list of KMs to load. KMs are deployed to PATROL Agents.

menu commands

Menu commands, also known as KM commands, are a menu of commands for a monitored object. You can configure the knowledge module, discover hosts, add objects, and set parameter thresholds using menu commands. Right-click an object to access its menu commands.

monitoring profiles

Monitoring profiles are profiles to which the monitor types you want to enable are associated. Each solution contains multiple monitoring profiles and helps to reduce unnecessary monitoring. Each monitoring profile is associated with a group of monitor types. The monitor types that belong to a profile are pre-determined. You cannot add or remove monitor types from a profile.

monitoring solutions

A monitoring solution is a pre-defined set of metrics that monitor the health and performance of a specific device or service. BMC monitoring solutions are composed of monitor types and attributes.


monitor types

Monitor types are a way of classifying the data that is to be collected. They are similar to application classes as they are the objects to which the application instances belong.

parameters

Parameters are the monitoring elements of a PATROL knowledge module. The PATROL Agent runs parameters. They periodically use data collection commands to obtain data on a system resource, then parse the process and store it on the PATROL Agent computer. Parameters can display data in various formats, such as numeric, text, stoplight, and Boolean. They have thresholds and can trigger warnings and alarms. Attributes are similar to parameters.