Requirements for a redundant Assure UI server environment - assure_mimix - Latest

Assure Unified Interface Guide
Product type
Software
Portfolio
Integrate
Product family
Assure
Product
Assure MIMIX™ Software for AIX
Version
Latest
Language
English
Product name
Assure Unified Interface
Title
Assure Unified Interface Guide
Copyright
2021
First publish date
2010
Last updated
2024-02-09
Published on
2024-02-09T05:11:34.582000

The Enterprise Monitor portlet1 can be used to monitor instances of Precisely

products that support enterprise monitoring that may not otherwise be able to use the Assure Unified Interface due to firewall issues or other access restrictions or that may not provide a portal application for the Assure UI portal.

When properly set up, the Assure UI portal will monitor the in-box of a specified email account for status reports emailed from product instances that have been enabled for enterprise monitoring, process received emails, and display the reported information in the Enterprise Monitor portlet. Be aware the email server may limit the size of attachments it can receive.

To set up this capability, the Assure UI administrator (vspadmin) must log in and

configure Enterprise Monitor policies. Also, the administrators of products that support enterprise monitoring from the Assure UI portal must perform additional steps to enable product instances to send status reports to the portal that then can be displayed in the Enterprise Monitor portlet. Both components of setup are required, but the order in which they are completed does not matter. Similarly, to prevent an enabled instance’s status from appearing in the portlet, the instance must both be removed from the portlet and the instance configuration must be changed to stop sending status reports to the email account.

Setting up Enterprise Monitoring policies (Assure UI administrator)

The Assure UI administrator (vspadmin) must configure Enterprise Monitor policies to identify an incoming email server and email address.

Do the following:

  1. Log in using the Assure UI administrator user ID (vspadmin).
  2. Select the Administration page.
  3. In the Policies portlet, select the Enterprise Monitor tab, then click Change. The Change Enterprise Monitor Policies dialog opens.
  4. Do the following to set up the incoming email server:
    1. Specify the host name of the incoming email server that the Assure UI portal will use to monitor for status reports from remote product instances. The address can be a maximum of 255 alphanumeric characters.
    2. The default port number to monitor on the incoming email server is 143. If necessary, specify a different port number in the range from 1 through 65535.
      Note: When connecting to an email in-box, Assure UI portal supports the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) protocol, which typically defaults to port 143, or port 993 for an SSL connection.
    3. If you require a secure connection with the email server, select Yes for Use SSL (TLS).

      1 Enterprise Monitoring is available on Assure Unified Interface servers running version 3.2.09.00 or higher software.

    4. Specify the user email address to use for the Inbox email address. This should be a dedicated email account that is used explicitly by the Assure UI portal. The portal monitors the in-box of this address for emails with attached status reports from product instances. This address is also used for authenticating to the incoming email server. The address can be a maximum of 256 alphanumeric characters.
      Note: Product instances need to be configured to send email with status attachments to this email address.
    5. Specify the password for the email address. When a password is already set, the characters ***** are displayed.
    6. Specify the email folder to monitor for the email account. The default name “Inbox” literally monitors for the folder by that name. You can specify a different named folder for the email account.
  5. Do the following to set up processing criteria for incoming emails:
    1. For the Retrieval frequency, specify the number of minutes that the Enterprise Monitor portlet will wait before checking the email account and retrieving new reports. The default value is 5 minutes.
      Note: If one or more product instances are configured to send reports more frequently than the value specified, reports will be retrieved at a frequency matching the product instance which is configured to send reports most frequently.
    2. Select a value for Delete processed emails. The default value Yes allows the Assure UI portal to delete emails after they have been successfully processed. If you select No, the portal does not automatically delete processed emails.
  6. Specify a value for Non-reporting grace period. This is the amount of time that the Assure UI portal will wait before highlighting the elapsed time of an instance in the Enterprise Monitor portlet to indicate the instance has failed to report within the time as configured by the product. The default is 5 minutes.
  7. Click Verify Email Account. This will verify the specified values for the email server, port, email address, and password. If necessary, correct any reported issues.
  8. Click OK.

Setting up a product instance to enable enterprise monitoring (product administrator)

The administrator of a Precisely product that supports enterprise monitoring from the Assure UI portal must enable a remote product instance to send status reports to the portal for display in the Enterprise Monitor portlet. Enabling a product instance requires:
  • The node in the instance that will be sending status must have configuration information that identifies the sending email server. For products that operate between multiple nodes, such as MIMIX, the email server configuration information must be available on the node in the instance that will be used to report status.
  • Automatic sending of reports must be configured.
Precisely products may vary in how these requirements must be performed. Most products that support enterprise monitoring have access to the Configure SMTP Email (CFGEMAIL) and Send SMTP Email (SNDEMAIL) commands in the LAKEVIEW library1 to perform these activities.
Note: Always check the product’s documentation for additional information before using the following instructions. MIMIX requires the use of the CFGEMAIL command and the use of MIMIX policies that provide additional configuration options and enable sending emails.

Setting up the sending email server and default values for send email requests

These instructions use the CFGEMAIL command to set up the sending email server and specify email addresses to be used as default values for email sender and recipients parameters on the corresponding SNDEMAIL command.

From the native user interface for the product instance, do the following:
  1. From the node in the product instance that will be used to send reports, type the following command and press F4 (Prompt): LAKEVIEW/CFGEMAIL
    Note: When configuring a MIMIX product instance, use a management node as the node to send reports.

    The Configure SMTP Email (CFGEMAIL) display appears and shows the currently specified values. If the command has never been run on this node, several fields will be blank.

  2. At the SMTP host or IP address prompt, specify the SMTP server host name or IP address to use when sending emails using the SNDEMAIL command. You can specify up to 256 characters.
  3. At the SMTP port prompt, specify the SMTP port to use when sending emails using the Send Email (SNDEMAIL) command. The default value is 587 (for secure email transmission).
  4. At the Default sender email address prompt, specify the email address to use as the default value for the sender of the email (the SENDFROM parameter on the SNDEMAIL command). The address can be up to 256 characters and must be in the format MAILBOX@DOMAIN.
  5. At the Default recipient email address prompt, specify at least one email address to use as the default value for the recipient of the email (SENDTO parameter on the SNDEMAIL command).
    Note: One of the addresses must be the same address that the Assure UI administrator specified for the incoming email address in Enterprise Monitor policies. You can specify as many as five addresses. Each address can be up to 256 characters and must be in the format MAILBOX@DOMAIN.

    1. The CFGEMAIL and SNDEMAIL commands in the LAKEVIEW library are available on systems where License Manager 9.0.09.00 is installed.

  6. At the Authentication prompt, if you want the SNDEMAIL command to use authentication with the SMTP server when sending emails, specify *YES.
  7. At the Use TLS (SSL) prompt, if you want the SNDEMAIL command to use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to communicate with the SMTP server when sending email, specify *YES.
    Note: TLS is the successor protocol to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)). If you specify *YES, you must also specify *YES to authenticate in the previous step.
  8. If you specified *YES in the step for the Authentication prompt, you must do the following:
    1. At the User ID prompt, specify a user ID to use for authentication with the SMTP server. The specified user ID must be known to the SMTP server.
    2. At the Password prompt, specify the password associated with the user ID when authenticating with the SMTP server.
      Note: If you specified *NO for Authentication, you must specify *NONE.
    3. Press Enter.

Setting up sending status reports as emails

Each product that supports that supports enterprise monitoring in the Assure UI portal controls how and when emails with attached status reports are sent to an incoming email server identified in Assure UI policies for the Enterprise Monitor portlet. Products also control how frequently a product instance will report status.

Some products, such as MIMIX, use the SNDEMAIL internally to send status reports. Always check the product documentation for th preferred way to send status reports to the Enterprise Monitor portlet in the Assure UI portal.

Note: MIMIX periodically submits the SNDEMAIL command under the covers based on values specified in instance policies for the Enterprise Monitor. MIMIX policies provide the preferred method of enabling and sending these status reports. Emails are sent as a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) email message using the SMTP server configured by the CFGEMAIL command. See online help for MIMIX policies, the Using MIMIX from the Assure Unified Interface book, or the Assure MIMIX Operations book.