BMC PATROL Agent for Infrastructure Management

The BMC PATROL Agent product monitors a system according to the instructions provided by loaded PATROL Knowledge Modules (KMs). BMC PATROL Agents are a core component of the Infrastructure Management architecture for monitoring and managing your IT infrastructure. A BMC PATROL Agent offers reliable collection of data from your monitored systems by guaranteeing delivery of event data and instance data to the BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management Server. BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management 10.0 supports BMC PATROL Agent version 9.5 and above.

For complete information about BMC PATROL Agent, see BMC PATROL Agent 9.6.

BMC PATROL Agent functions

A BMC 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 BMC 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

BMC PATROL Agent intelligent events

BMC PATROL Agent events are considered internal intelligent events in Infrastructure Management 9.6 and above. In earlier versions, they were considered external events and were managed like third party events. BMC PATROL Agent events in Infrastructure Management 9.6 are mapped to the instance object they belong to (previously, the mapping was only at the device level). This monitor instance association of BMC PATROL events improves Probable-Cause-Analysis leveraging categorizations (for example, Database, Application, Server, Network, and so on).

BMC PATROL Agent data collection

The BMC PATROL Agent pushes data as it is collected to Infrastructure Management. The data is streamed from the BMC PATROL Agent to the BMC TrueSight 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 BMC 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 BMC PATROL Agents

BMC 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 BMC PATROL Agent is in synch 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 BMC PATROL Agent.
It consolidates event and data collection transport over a single connection between the BMC 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 switchover from one Integration Service to another in case of a failover, thus causing no impact on the Infrastructure Management Server.

The Solution Administrator configures BMC PATROL and Infrastructure Management such that events are sent from BMC 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 BMC PATROL Agents

BMC PATROL events reach the BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management Server through the cell, where they are processed and and displayed in the Infrastructure-Management-operator-console or routed to the BMC 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 Monitoring infrastructure devices and events.

BMC PATROL Agent configuration with Central Monitoring Administration

Solution Administrators configure BMC PATROL Agents in Central Monitoring Administration, which is available from the TrueSight console. For information, see Setting up agents and monitoring polices for event management.