by Arnold Hagens

For System Center Forum readers that might have missed our first blog posts, this is Jalasoft’s fifth article about Xian Io’s functionality in a series of eight. Prior posts discussed the monitoring of network device interfaces and port status, a device’s response time and asynchronous monitoring and monitoring of processes.

In this installment, we’ll discuss a very nice feature that Operations Manager 2007 offers, which is the use of Distributed Applications (DAs). Although the term might suggest differently, it is not at all limited to applications. So its applicability can easily go beyond them.

Xian Network Manager Io is fully compatible with DAs, since it performs a full device discovery and gives the opportunity to add related interfaces to a DA where you can already have; for example, your Windows machine, SQL server or other applications. Below as an example, we are going to create a DA that will combine the following:

• A windows server.
• A CRM windows server, monitored through SNMP.
• Some processes on a Linux machine.
• Two interfaces on a switch.

Creating a DA is very simple. In the authoring section of Operations Manager 2007 go to ‘distributed applications’ and chose ‘create new distributed applications’ (blank) from the actions pane. Then add different components with the help of the ‘add component’ button in the toolbar.

Once you have the different components ready, you need to search for the specific objects that you want to add in them. In screenshot 1, you can see how to search for objects. After finding your objects, drag and drop them to the desired component.

Screenshot 1: Searching for objects to add in different components.

Once you have added your preferred objects you can enhance them by creating relationships with the ‘Create Relationship’ button in the toolbar; finally, click ‘save’ and your customized Distributed Application will be ready.

Screenshot 2: Distributed Application (Design View)

In screenshot 2 you can see how it all looks like once you have added all the different components and objects. Since this is the Design view you will not be able to see any alerts. For this you need to save and go back to the monitoring section. If you then go to the distributed applications section, you’ll be able to see your newly created DA and with a right click you will have several options. Select the ‘Diagram view‘ option to see a diagram with alerts rolling up similar to our example below (screenshot 3).

Other views available are the Health explorer view, which is very useful if you want to have a quick idea on the DA’s health, the Alert view where you can see all current alerts or the Performance view where you see only those performance counters related to the objects in the defined DA.

Screenshot 3: Diagram View with alerts

A very fast root cause analysis is possible with Xian Io, thanks to the distributed applications feature in Ops Mgr 07. Let’s assume that one Ethernet interface has a problem and is affecting your CRM application. As you can see in the diagram above there is a critical health status, but if we look at the real CRM Server, it shows that all is healthy; however, the DA clearly alerts that there is a problem with one interface and even shows that something is not properly functioning on a windows server. With the information provided by the DA and Xian Io, there is no need to guess anymore where the problem lies; instead, you are able to take action immediately.

If you have any questions or comments please reply to this post, and we’ll make sure to send you an answer as soon as possible, alternatively you could send us an e-mail to techsupport[at]jalasoft.com.

To access prior blog posts on the monitoring of network device interfaces, port status, a device’s response time, asynchronous monitoring and monitoring of processes, please review the “Articles” section of the System Center Forum site.

For further information on Xian Io for Ops Mgr 07 please visit our website http://www.jalasoft.com/.