3.3 Expanding the Scope of Your Deployment

When you feel comfortable with the core set of Knowledge Scripts and the stability of your environment, consider expanding your deployment. During the expansion stage, focus on the following goals:

  • Deploying AppManager to additional computers

    Large or widely distributed organizations typically phase in a full AppManager deployment over a period of several weeks or even months. For example, if your organization is going to monitor a group of computers in the United States, Germany, and Spain, you might decide to deploy AppManager first in Germany, stabilize the environment there, and then expand the deployment to include computers in Spain and the United States. Or you might decide to expand the deployment to include the computers in Spain, allow time to uncover problems and stabilize that environment, and deploy to the computers in the United States later.

  • Running additional Knowledge Scripts beyond the core set

    For more information about additional recommended Knowledge Scripts, see Running Additional Knowledge Scripts.

  • Identifying reporting needs and generating recommended reports

    For more information about reporting needs to consider and reports to generate, see Identifying Your Reporting Requirements.

  • Adding responsive and corrective actions to Knowledge Scripts

    AppManager Knowledge Scripts can automatically take corrective actions, notify selected people in response to certain events, and acknowledge events. To take advantage of Knowledge Script automation capabilities, you might need to install additional components, such as an agent that can send email responses to events. For more information about enabling agents to send email responses to events, see Understanding MAPI Mail Settings. For more information about responsive and corrective actions, see the Control Center User Guide for AppManager, available on the AppManager Documentation page.

3.3.1 Running Additional Knowledge Scripts

During the expansion stage, add Knowledge Scripts beyond the core set. The following table describes Knowledge Scripts that NetIQ Corporation recommends adding. For more information about using these Knowledge Scripts and setting parameters, see the AppManager Knowledge Script Reference Guide, available on the AppManager Documentation page

Knowledge Script

Description

General_AsciiLog

Monitors one or more ASCII text files for specific strings and messages

General_Counter

Monitors any System Monitor counter

NT_NetworkBusy

Monitors the traffic on network interface cards (NICs) and raises an event if the bandwidth utilization of the network interface exceeds the threshold

NT_PagingHigh

Monitors reads and writes per second to the pagefile and raises an event if the number of reads and writes per second exceeds the threshold

NT_PrinterHealth

Monitors printer health and raises an event if the printer is paused, the queue length exceeds the threshold, or there is some other error such as a jammed printer

NT_PrinterQueue

Monitors printer queue length and raises an event if the number of queued jobs exceeds the threshold

NT_RunAwayProcesses

Detects runaway processes on the specified computer based on sustained high CPU usage and raises an event if a process exceeds the CPU usage threshold

NT_SystemUpTime

Monitors the number of hours a computer has been operational since it was last rebooted and raises an event if the computer was rebooted within the monitoring interval

Once you select a set of Knowledge Scripts for monitoring basic server health and key application resources, you can plan for and implement policy-based monitoring. For information about implementing monitoring policies, see the Administrator Guide for AppManager, available on the AppManager Documentation page.

3.3.2 Identifying Your Reporting Requirements

When considering your reporting needs, determine the following information:

  • Standard AppManager reports to generate and the Knowledge Scripts required to generate those reports

  • Who should receive the reports and how frequently

  • Whether to generate reports automatically on a scheduled basis or manually on demand

  • Who will generate reports

    For example, you might want to restrict access to the Report view or assign Exchange reports to an Exchange administrator and SQL Server reports to your DBA group.

  • Whether to format reports in table format, in charts, or both

  • Whether to deliver reports through e-mail or a website

The following table describes report Knowledge Scripts that NetIQ Corporation recommends running to generate standard reports. For more information about using these Knowledge Scripts and setting parameters, see the AppManager Knowledge Script Reference Guide, available on the AppManager Documentation page.

Knowledge Script

Description

ReportAM_EventSummary

Summarizes events per computer

ReportAM_SystemUpTime

Details the uptime and downtime of monitored computers

ReportAM_CompDeploy

Details the number of instances of each AppManager component installed on computers in an AppManager site

ReportAM_WatchList

Details the top or bottom N computers (by number or percent) generating the selected data streams

NT_Report_CPULoadSummary

Summarizes CPU usage and queue length for selected computers

NT_Report_LogicalDiskUsageSummary

Summarizes the percentage of disk space used and the amount of free space (in MB) for selected computers