IBM Books

Planning Volume 2, Control Workstation and Software Environment


IBM tools for problem resolution

IBM offers several tools to help you with efficient problem resolution. Service Director for RS/6000 is standard with the SP while others are separate software packages.

|Inventory Scout

|Inventory Scout is an AIX tool that surveys servers and workstations for |hardware and software information. Inventory Scout is used by the |following Web services: |

|Inventory Scout runs on AIX POWER Versions 4.1.5 or |later. The tool can be invoked by Java applets or run from the command |line.

|Inventory Scout can be installed from the AIX installation CD-ROM or |downloaded from the IBM pSeries AIX Support Web site |http://www.ibm.com/support/pseries.html

Service Director for RS/6000

Service Director is a set of IBM software applications that monitor the health of your SP system. Service Director analyzes AIX error logs and runs diagnostics against those error logs. You can define which systems have the Service Director clients and servers. You can also define the level of error log forwarding or network access.

During error conditions, Service Director analyzes the severity of the fault and determines whether or not to capture fault information. Depending on how you configure Service Director, the IBM support center and the responsible system administrator at your location receive E-mail containing the fault information. If a Service Request Number is created, a record of that is created, the product automatically sends a message (call home) to IBM and a PMR is opened. Upon receiving the fault notification, IBM will automatically dispatch a service engineer with the parts needed to correct the problem, if such an action is needed.

Planning the Service Director's physical environment

Service Director requires a local server. The local server must have:

Typically, the local server is the control workstation. However, if the control workstation does not have an available serial port, any other workstation on the LAN can act as the local host.

The local host uses the required serial port for a modem interface. The modem is then used to transmit fault messages to IBM and your system administrator over local phone lines. All new RS/6000 SP systems include a modem package as part of the ship group. This package includes:

You must supply the following:

In addition to the local host's physical requirements, all nodes in your SP system must have the client version of Service Director installed. This requires 1.5 MB of free disk space on each node.

Planning Service Director's Software Environment

SP systems require Service Director 2.1 (or later). The disks and documentation you will need to install Service Director are included with the modem equipment in the ship group package sent with all new SP systems. In addition to the disk space requirements listed above, Service Director 2.1 has the following prerequisites:

Service Director can be installed concurrently. During installation, you will be presented with several customization options for system analysis scheduling and error notification. Once installed, Service Director runs dynamically under AIX and is capable of using the local server to display a structured view of problem management information. This information includes:

Service Director error logs are maintained in each node and are not consolidated in the local server.

Note:
Operating system upgrades can introduce new error logs. Therefore, Service Director software upgrades might be needed when you upgrade PSSP and AIX.

Considering security

Service Director accesses only system error logs, system diagnostic data, and vital product data (VPD) files. All information that is transmitted to IBM is also routed by E-mail to the system administrator that you assign. Service Director disables the login capability on the assigned serial port and the modem configuration will not permit auto-answer. No customer-unique data is ever accessed.

NetView for AIX

NetView for AIX manages multi-vendor networks by polling the base AIX SNMP daemon agents to gather information for display and action by network control desk. It performs the following functions:

Note that NetView for AIX is not supported on the control workstation.

EMEA Service Planning applications

The EMEA Service Planning offering, available directly from EMEA, runs a set of application programs managed by cron and the AIX Error Notification Facility to collect data from the ErrorLog, Syslog, /var/adm, and /tmp from individual nodes. The data is stored at the control workstation. The application, if required by events in the logs, calls the support center and opens a PMR.


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