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Siebel Server Monitoring

The Siebel server is a multi process application that forms the critical 3rd tier in the Siebel architecture. Each Siebel server can contain hundreds of discreet components and tasks, each of which is responsible for various system functions. In Siebel 7 thin client architecture, the middle tier is even more critical, as all access to the Siebel environment is routed through the Siebel servers. How does one determine the availability of various Siebel components and tasks status?

The only traditional monitoring method availible to Siebel Administrators is to periodically check the Siebel Server status visually. VA2 can automate and perform such checks with much greater consistency and frequency. For example, to monitor whether a particular Siebel server is running, though one could examine the Siebel service on the OS level, that does not really show whether critical components within that service are running - such as those which could allow your customers to log into your website, or pass transactions to ERP systems. The ability to break down and distill the information contained within the Siebel server is critical maintaining a healthy system.

What Virtual Administrator offers:

Log event tracking: Siebel has a fairly sophisticated method of publishing events in log files for each component on the Siebel Server. However, capturing those events is up to you as an administrator. Virtual Administrator offers a seamless system with the most efficient and powerful >real-time log processing available. Virtual Administrator allows graphic definition of log file searches, and routing of events and reactions based on those events. Furthermore, this same system can be applied to any application running on a Virtual Administrator host.

Task and Component Tracking: Our system of tracking components running in the Siebel Server and components status is the most advanced available. Our distilled Server Status information makes the creation of analysis rules easy and powerful.

Virtual Administrator also offers a graphical representation of the resources each Server Task or Component is consumes, and the ability to implement rules based on this information.

Analysis Rules and Statistic Collectors: VA2 was built with several core objectives in mind. One was to be extendible and flexible. Hard coding a system to track CPU usage or even Siebel Server status is only of limited benefit in a real world production IT environment. That a business system is functioning correctly may be defined by many parameters, not just hardware/software components. There must be access to business data. While an IT manager may need to know memory and CPU utilization, an accounting manager may wish to monitor the number of purchases generated by the system in a given day. The power to analyze data is an essential part of truly monitoring a business application.

Utilization of user definable Analysis Rules and Statistic collectors provides the true power of the system, and the means to collect, track, and act upon disparate data sources.

VA2 Statistics track a discreet data point, from virtually any source, at a given interval. The advantage of a statistic is that the data is retained for historical purposes, allowing trending and reporting not available through dynamic reporting capabilities.

Analysis Rules act upon the collected statistics, or other data sources, such as Siebel Server information, to make intelligent decisions on system health. Analysis rules can be created for nearly anything. VA2 was implemented using the power and flexibility of an open source Perl based rules, instead of implementing restrictive proprietary scripting.

Virtual Administrator allows you to track both the traditional system statistics and data points that other systems would never track, but may be the determing factor of a truly healthy system.


Extensibility and Integration

There is no limit on the number and type of useful rules available. Analysis Rules and Statistics are importable via XML files, and a growing user community is providing internet posted packaged analysis rules, in addition to the out-of-the-box variety.

VA2 allows one to define any NT Service Application, or any group of applications as a managed software system. In Siebel's case, the Web Server, LDAP Service, Database servers, and a host of other components can be added in for monitoring and grouped under one logical system.

VA2 has an event handling mechanism that is also extendible. Any XML-RPC compliant programming language can send an event into the Virtual Administrator system. If, therefore, interval based analysis rules prove not powerful enough, then custom event generators can be created to track very specialized needs, such as complex integration projects, which typically lack sufficient monitoring and standard interfaces.



Monitoring Features

What can VA2 Monitor?

These are some of the items VA2 can monitor. Since the Analysis Rule and Statistic collector infrastructure is extensible, this is a list of some of the possibilities for monitoring.

Siebel Server Related:

Siebel Functional/Data Area

Administration

General Monitoring