Getting started with policies

This section is designed to get you up and running with policies.

Note

Policies will work with older pre-8.0 Agents, but the Discovery feature for MQ objects that is used to automatically update the list of available MQ objects is not available until the Agent is also updated to version 8.

There are basically three steps you need to follow when working with policies:

Step 1: Select the monitored technology

In the Management Console, navigate to the Policies tab and select the Agent Policies sub-tab. In this tab (as shown below) you can see a series of Agent Policies with names like IBM_MQ_Agents_Basic. The naming convention for the BMC supplied Policies is TECHNOLOGY_Agents_LEVEL, where TECHNOLOGY is an abbreviation for the specific monitored product to which the policy applies.

Immediately after installation of the Middleware Monitor server, you will see the policies for IBM MQ and the self-monitoring policies for MainView Middleware Monitor (MVMM). If you are only monitoring these technologies, you can proceed to Step 2.

If you are monitoring other technologies, then you need to import the Policy and Event Packs before proceeding (see Policies supplied with MainView Middleware Monitor). The Policy and Event Packs include policies for additional monitored technologies, including Apache ActiveMQ, IBM Integration Broker / IBM App Connect Enterprise (IIB/ACE), IBM DataPower, BMC AMI Ops Monitor for MQ (MVMQ) , IBM WebSphere Application Server, IBM HTTP Server, TIBCO EMS, and Oracle WebLogic Server.

AgentPolicyList_v9.1.png

Step 2: Select the Agent Policy

For each technology, the supplied policies come with a number of Agent policies that implement various monitoring levels and event actions. See Policies supplied with MainView Middleware Monitor for a full description of the monitoring levels and prerequisites.

Step 3: Copy and enable the policy

Once you have selected your technology and agent policy, go to the Agent Policies list (as shown above) and select the appropriate policy.
Then click the Copy Agent Policy with all Sub-Components button (also known as a Deep Copy), and specify a prefix for your copy (such as "MyCompany_"). Click OK to copy and enable the policy and all required underlying objects. You must save the copied Policy Objects before applying them.
Select the copied Agent Policy in the list of Agent Policies. Run a test to verify the resulting actions when the policies are applied. This enables to ensure the intended result of the policy.
Click the Test button and review the policy actions that the policy is going to apply.
Click the Apply button to apply the policy to your existing objects.

Important

Policies will apply to new objects in the future, but this step is necessary to check all of the existing objects that were discovered before you created/copied your policy. The following dialog box displays what the policy has done. Upon completion, you can exit the dialog box.

PolicyApplied_v9.1.png

Where to go from here

Your next step will depend on the stage of your setup:

If you are new to MVMMand have not deployed and started any agents, this would be the next step. The policy will pick up the new objects and configure the monitoring setup based on the policy.
Whether you are new or an existing user, if you have deployed and started any agents, you can run the ‘Test Agent Policy’ to confirm which objects this policy would apply to. Or you can run the ‘Apply Agent Policy’ to apply the policy to all the existing objects (that match the policy expressions). Note that if the policy has a Schedule component, you can wait for the schedule to automatically apply the policy. Make sure your agent's description matches the expression for your Agent Policy. Most Policy and Event Packs expect the description to be set with the technology monitored by that extension. See Setting-the-agent-description.