HealthMon

[Previous] [Next]

HealthMon is an add-on tool for SMS 2.0 that offers the SMS administrator a real-time at-a-glance view of the status of any Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 computer. As with status messages, the "health" of a system is graphically represented by a green check mark for OK, a yellow triangle for Warning, and a red "X" for Critical status.

HealthMon includes several built-in monitored objects that look suspiciously like the Performance Monitor objects we saw in the preceding section. In fact, HealthMon uses Performance Monitor objects and counters to collect data and determine status thresholds. These status thresholds are known as monitoring policies and are, of course, configurable by you, the SMS administrator. HealthMon also includes monitors specific to the Microsoft BackOffice application services. Table 6-3 lists the HealthMon objects and the Performance Monitor counters associated with them—or, in the case of a BackOffice application, the services associated with them.

Table 6-3. HealthMon objects and their associated counters

Object Counter or Service
Processor Interrupts Per Second
Percent Total System Time
Memory Available Memory Bytes
Page Reads Per Second
Pages Per Second
Percent Committed Bytes to Limit
Pool Non-Paged Bytes
Paging File Percent Peak Usage
Percent Usage
Logical Disk Percent Free Disk Space
Physical Disk Disk Queue Length
Diskperf Driver Started
Percent Disk Time
Network Interface Excessive Network Traffic Bytes Total/Sec
Server Work Queues Context Blocks Queued/Sec
Processor Queue Length
Security Errors Access Permission
Errors Logon
Fault Pool Non-Paged Failures
Pool Paged Failures
Sessions Errored Out
SQL Server MSDTC Service Started
MSSQL Server Service Started
IIS Server IIS Service Started
Exchange Server MSEXCHANGEDS Service Started
MSEXCHANGEIS Service Started
MSEXCHANGEMTA Service Started
MSEXCHANGESA Service Started
SNA Server Host Connection Status
SNABASE Service Started
SMS SMS_Executive Service Started
SMS_Site_Component_Manager Service Started
SMS_SQL_Monitor Service Started

Installing HealthMon

HealthMon is not installed as part of the regular SMS 2.0 setup; instead, it is included on the SMS 2.0 CD as an add-on utility. HealthMon is itself a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in and as such could be added later to the SMS Administrator Console to keep all your SMS 2.0 utilities in one place. You can add the HealthMon snap-in to the SMS Administrator Console when you run the console in the Author mode. For more information on adding an MMC snap-in, refer to Chapter 16 and to the MMC online documentation.

HealthMon consists of two components: the client agent and the console. Each system that will be monitored must have the HealthMon Agent installed on it. You will most likely install the HealthMon Console on the SMS administrator's Windows NT workstation.

To install the HealthMon Agent and HealthMon Console, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the Healthmon folder on the SMS 2.0 CD or in your updated SMS 2.0 Service Pack 1 source file directory, and expand the folder to your appropriate platform folder—Alpha or i386.
  2. Expand the platform folder, expand the 00000409 folder, and open the Agent folder.
  3. In the Agent folder, double-click on Setup.exe to launch the Microsoft SMS HealthMon Agent Installation Wizard. The installation instructions are straightforward and self-explanatory, so we won't go through them here. You do have the option of turning on disk performance counters during this setup, but you shouldn't do so because Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) will freeze when you restart the computer. You can enable the disk performance counters later when you need to use them.
  4. On the last screen of the Installation Wizard, click Finish. The HealthMon Agent will start automatically. If you turned on disk counters, you will be required to restart the system.
  5. Return to the 00000409 folder and open the Console folder.
  6. Again, double-click on Setup.exe to launch the Microsoft SMS HealthMon Console Installation Wizard, which installs the HealthMon Console. HealthMon will, by default, appear in the Systems Management Server program group.

Now that you've installed the HealthMon Agent and HealthMon Console successfully, let's look at how to run HealthMon on the monitored system.

Using HealthMon

The first time you run HealthMon, the HealthMon Console will open but no systems will be displayed, as shown in Figure 6-8.

click to view at full size.

Figure 6-8. The HealthMon Console.

To specify the Windows NT systems that you want the utility to monitor, follow these steps:

  1. Right-click on Monitored Systems in the HealthMon Console, choose New from the context menu, and then choose System to display the New Monitored System dialog box, shown in Figure 6-9.
  2. Figure 6-9. The New Monitored System dialog box.

  3. Enter the name of the Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 system you want to monitor and then click OK.
  4. Expand the new system entry to view its component status and events.

Figure 6-10 shows the HealthMon Console with an SMS site server added to it. The server's component status is displayed. In this example, a Warning icon appears next to the Logical Disk entry. As you can see, each component in the Components window corresponds to a HealthMon object listed in Table 6-3.

click to view at full size.

Figure 6-10. The HealthMon Console with an SMS site system named Scruffy1 added.

A value of 100 appears in the Percent Warning column. If we switch to the Events folder for the same system, as shown in Figure 6-11, the same Warning icon will appear, but with a more understandable message—namely, that drive C has less than 10 percent free disk space available. Normally, you would want to open the Components folder for a quick scan of components and then switch to the Events folder for a more detailed description of a specific event or message. With the HealthMon Console open and the Events folder in view, events will be displayed dynamically as they occur.

click to view at full size.

Figure 6-11. The HealthMon Events folder for a Windows NT system.

HealthMon and WBEM

The HealthMon Agent, which is installed on all systems that need to be monitored, uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect data through Performance Monitor. WMI is, of course, Microsoft's implementation of Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM). Because HealthMon is a WBEM-compliant application, it is capable of monitoring activity from any device or application that includes a WBEM provider to collect health data. For information about WBEM providers and other WBEM-related components and terms, refer to Chapter 1.

Research into creating and marketing WBEM-compliant hardware such as computer motherboards is currently underway. Such devices will expose to the WMI layer on Windows 2000 systems events such as the computer chassis being opened, the fan stopping, or the processor chip exceeding acceptable heat levels. Such technology will make it possible for network administrators to closely monitor all aspects of their systems, from resource utilization to hardware functionality and specification.

Configuring HealthMon

As mentioned, the components you monitor can also be configured by you, the administrator. You can enable the components you want to monitor using one of two methods and then configure the components you enabled. The first method is shown here:

  1. Right-click on the system entry in the HealthMon Console and choose Properties from the context menu to display the System Properties window, shown in Figure 6-12.
  2. Figure 6-12. The System Properties window.

  3. To enable monitoring, check the components you want to monitor.
  4. Double-click on an enabled component to display its Properties window, where you can configure the component's properties.
  5. Choose OK when you have finished.

The second method is shown here:

  1. Select the Components folder under the appropriate system entry in the HealthMon Console.
  2. Right-click on the component you want to enable, and choose Enable from the context menu.
  3. Right-click on the component again, and choose Properties from the context menu to display its Properties window, where you can configure the component's properties.
  4. Click OK when you have finished.

Regardless of which technique you choose to enable components, configuring a component's properties will always be done in the Properties window for that component. For example, you would configure the logical disk from the Logical Disk Properties window, shown in Figure 6-13.

Figure 6-13. The Thresholds tab.

The General tab of the Logical Disk Properties Window simply lists the Performance Monitor counters that are used to generate events and gives a brief explanation of the purpose of each counter. The Thresholds tab, however, provides your configuration options. Here you can set the Critical and Warning alarm thresholds for each component counter.

In this example, if the Logical Disk counter detects that less than 10 percent of free disk space is available on any logical drive, a Warning message will be generated. If the value subsequently goes above 15 percent, the warning is reset. If you delete or move files from the monitored drive to create more free space, you can eventually get the Warning message to go away. Similarly, if the amount of free space falls below 5 percent, a Critical message will be generated. The Duration value represents the number of seconds over which the condition must be met before the messages are generated. This setting ensures that messages are not generated for momentary spikes and other anomalies. In this case, the value is set to 0 because any loss of free space on a disk—especially on an SMS site server—can be detrimental and ought to be investigated.

NOTE
Enabling the Physical Disk object requires that you first enable the disk performance counters in Performance Monitor using the DISKPERF command at a Windows NT command prompt. (See the section "Specific Objects and Counters" earlier in this chapter for details.)

Network Interface counters are disabled by default. To enable them, you should install the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit counters component from the Windows NT 4.0 CD or install the SNMP Service using the Network option in the Control Panel. If you install SNMP, remember to also reapply the Windows NT Service Pack 4.0 or later to your system.

When you enable Microsoft BackOffice objects, remember that you are simply monitoring to determine whether the application's services are running. Be sure that you have enabled the appropriate services through the application before you enable monitoring of those services—for example, be sure to install Microsoft Exchange Server before trying to monitor its services. Otherwise, you will always display critical error messages.

PLANNING
If you installed SMS 2.0 Service Pack 1, SMS Setup disables Performance Monitor counters for SQL Server 6.5 if SQL Server and SMS Provider are located on the same computer. Because of this, Performance Monitor, HealthMon, and other applications will be unable to access SQL Server counters. To enable the counters, you will need to modify the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSSQLServer\Performance. Double-click on the parameter entry Library, and change the value to Sqlctr60.dll to enable the SQL performance counters. To disable these performance counters when you have finished your analysis, reset the Library value to "" by double-clicking on the reference to Sqlctr60.dll and then deleting it.

Making this change may result in random WMI or SMS Administrator Console errors. Restarting the SMS Administrator Console should clear up the problem. However, for this reason, you should only enable the SQL Server performance counters when it is necessary to analyze a suspected performance-related issue. SQL Server 6.5 with Service Pack 5 and SQL Server 7.0 are not affected by this change.



Microsoft Systems Management Server 2.0 Administrator's Companion
Microsoft Systems Management Server 2.0 Administrators Companion (IT-Administrators Companion)
ISBN: 0735608342
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 1999
Pages: 167

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net