ibm ecm system monitor whitepaper

Reliable and efficient operation of IBM ECM solutions with IBM ECM System Monitor V5.1

IBM ECM System Monitor 5.1 White Paper

White Paper

CENIT AGIndustriestraße 52-5470565 StuttgartPhone: +49 711 7825-30Fax: +49 711 7825-4000eMail: [email protected]

www.cenit.com

1. Reliable and efficient operation of IBM ECM solutions

IBM ECM solutions such as IBM FileNet, IBM Case Manager, IBM Content Manager 8 or IBM Content Manager OnDemand are used in mission-critical business processes. However in most organizations the ECM applications are still ope-rated manually, which results in high efforts in IT Operations and Service Desk, often 24*7. Enterprise monitoring tools are restricted to a basic monitoring of ECM components, but they do not provide any ECM specific functional application health monitoring – they only provide a limited component perspective, often in silos.

Several IT Service Management studies show that more than 70% of application problems were not detected by the application administrators, but by the end users. Identifying the root cause of a problem often takes hours, especially in complex J2EE environments, and involves different groups in the IT organization. This results in more downtime and operational costs than necessary - and certainly does not help to meet the end users' expectations or SLAs.

A Forrester study shows the impact of cost reductions in IT Operations. Organizations with a comprehensive IT Service Management can spend a far higher percentage of their IT budget for investments and innovations instead of „burning” it to keep the status quo up and running.

The answer to address this challenge is „IBM Enterprise Content Management System Monitor“ (ECM System Monitor) – a solution which allows customers to manage the IBM ECM components and their underlying infrastructure reliably and efficiently by automating routine work in the daily operation. ECM System Monitor can be integrated seamlessly into central enterprise monitoring solutions, giving IT Operations and Service Desk staff full insight into the ECM health 24*7.

The benefits are manifold:

■ Comprehensive, proactive monitoring of entire business services improves availability and end user experience ■ Management of IBM ECM components and their infrastructure in one Single Point of Control makes administrator’s lives easier ■ Better and cost efficient fulfillment of Service Level Agreements■ Integration of IT Operations and Service Desk for central operation of IBM ECM 24*7■ Automation of non-value-adding routine monitoring work of IBM ECM administrators reduces operational costs■ Better support of IT compliance and auditing requirements

Service Level Agreements related to the IBM ECM platform are delivered in a more reliable and efficient way. The end users get a better experience of ECM and embrace new opportunities for enterprise-wide usage. Operational costs are reduced; high costs due to productivity losses in the LOB are avoided.

IBM ECM System Monitor 5.1 White Paper 2

2. The Solution

Functionality

ECM System Monitor manages the various IBM ECM components and their underlying infrastructure as well as their overall interoperability to guarantee the availability of the IT service ECM from an end user perspective. So ECM System Monitor does not only monitor the various components, but also the entire document management process chain.

A typical example for a transactional monitoring of the ECM health is to check whether the user can logon to the appli-cation or not. This involves e.g. the components FileNet Application Engine and Content Engine, the middleware components like WebSphere Application Server as well as the authentication and authorization components (LDAP/ADS and FileNet P8 Global Configuration Database based on Oracle, DB2 or MSSQL). ECM System Monitor not only checks if the components are running, but also if they are interacting properly, so that the end user’s transaction can be completed. Moreover, the performance of the complete process and the single steps are monitored as well (required time in milliseconds).

In addition to monitoring specific parameters on managed systems ECM System Monitor provides a Service Level Monitor to correlate monitor events from one or multiple systems and determine a new severity from a Service Level perspec-tive. This new Service Level event cannot only be assigned to a specific system, but also to virtual systems, e.g. “CE Farm”. This is particular interesting to monitor the overall service level of clusters or farms.

ECM System Monitor does not only alert for current problems, but also allows identifying upcoming problems. Hence the ECM administrator is able to proactively intervene, before the LOB experience any outage or degradation of their mission-critical ECM applications. Event forwarding from ECM System Monitor to IT Service Management tools allows IT Operations and Service Desk personnel to monitor the ECM systems 24*7 using their standard management console, e.g. IBM Tivoli.



An ECM specific Knowledge Base supports in the analysis of problems and events, helping staff without deep know-ledge of ECM applications to better assess and fix problems. This knowledge base can be extended, so you can create your own individual knowledge base, e.g. with application specific or organization specific instructions how to handle events in your environment.

Predefined remote tasks allow starting / stopping of ECM systems or even entire environments without having the support personnel to know the proper sequence and syntax for starting / stopping and without giving them full administrative rights in ECM systems. After the restart ECM System Monitor automatically checks the health and alerts you, if the restart was not successful. Statistical information or ad-hoc health information can also be retrie-ved from the monitored systems. All tasks are secured by user privileges and can be scheduled on demand.


The reporting engine allows analyzing historical events as well as statistic and performance data collected by ECM System Monitor. The reports can be used to share information with LOB management, to identify quality improve-ments (Problem Management), to properly plan capacities (Capacity Management) and to meet IT compliance and auditing requirements. Numeric events can also be explored into the future, answering questions such as „How will my system behave in the next 24 hours?“ and identifying threats of degrading performance.


Platform Coverage

ECM System Monitor supports the following applications out-of-the-box:

■ IBM FileNet - IBM FileNet Image Manager: Image Services, ISRA, Web Services, HPII/MRII, Content Services - IBM FileNet Content Manager / IBM Content Foundation & FileNet Business Process Manager / IBM Case Foundation:

Content Platform Engine / Content Engine, Content Engine Bulk Import, Process Engine, Application Engine, Content Search Services / Content Search Engine, Workplace, Workplace XT, Component Manager, Rendition Engine, Process Analyzer / Case Analyzer

- BPM Add-ons: Business Process Framework, Business Activity Monitor - Storage: SDS Integral and NLS (CSAR, ISAR, MSAR, OSAR, SSAR)■ IBM Case Manager■ IBM Content Navigator■ IBM Content Manager 8■ IBM Content Manager OnDemand / ODWEK■ Information Lifecycle Governance - IBM Content Collector (ICC) - IBM eDiscovery Manager - IBM Enterprise Records (IER)■ IBM Datacap■ Integration - Content Federation Services (CFS) - Information Integrator Content Edition (IICE) - Information Integrator for Content (II4C)■ IBM ECM Logfiles■ IBM ECM Listeners - real-time monitoring of health parameters and statistical counters provided by the Listener API

IBM Content Manager 8 and IBM Content Manager OnDemand running on z/OS can also be monitored remotely from a distributed system:

■ Remote database monitoring for DB2 on z/OS using JDBC monitors■ Event collection from z/OS monitoring tools, e.g. Tivoli OMEGAMON or BMC MainView


Examples for an IBM ECM specific health monitoring are:


ECM System Monitor does not only monitor the various ECM components, but also their underlying infrastructure, so that the administrator gets the whole picture of his entire ECM platform in one Single Point of Control. This is important, as the failure of an infrastructure component may result in a failure of an ECM component.

So even if the responsibility for such an infrastructure component resides in a different administrator group in the IT organization the ECM administrator must have knowledge of such events, as they have a negative impact on the avai-lability of the ECM applications. Because it is the ECM administrator who will get blamed for the outage as the end users only see the ECM front-end application, but not the complex environment behind it (actually they don't have to care about IT complexity).

Out-of-the-box ECM System Monitor can manage the following components:

■ Databases: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle database server are monitored. This covers not only the data-base health status (e.g. tablespace capacity) and performance, but checks the database also from the ECM perspective, i.e. can the IBM ECM application connect to the database. If the ECM administrator has the need for custom SQL queries against the database which are not covered with ECM System Monitor standard monitors, pre-defined custom SQL query monitors are available for all supported databases. ECM System Monitor database monitors can be configured for local or remote databases and can use either the corresponding database command line tools or a JDBC connection to monitor the databases.

■ J2EE Application Servers: IBM WebSphere Application Server, JBoss, Oracle WebLogic and Tomcat are monitored via JMX. This allows ECM System Monitor to collect all application server specific health information that this server is providing through JMX.

■ Web Servers: Monitoring of Apache, IBM HTTP Server and MS Internet Information Server■ LDAP Connection■ IBM Tivoli Storage Manager: Capacity and Performance metrics from TSM Accounting, TSM Storage Pools (TSM

Volume Log), TSM Error Log■ System Logfiles: UNIX Syslog, Linux Syslog, Windows Eventlog, AIX error log■ VMWares and VMWare ESX Hosts■ JMX: Monitoring of applications that support JMX or JSR 160■ WMI: Monitoring of counters provided by Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) ■ SNMP: Monitoring of SNMP Traps, e.g. provided by storage systems

Other applications can be added on demand. This includes custom built applications, which are using or which are con-nected to the ECM platform, as they are an integral part of the IT Service ECM.

Examples for an infrastructure specific health monitoring are:


Integration

ECM System Monitor can run independently. However ECM System Monitor can integrate into IT Service Management tools by forwarding events to and by receiving events from them. This enables IT Operations and Service Desk staff to get ECM related event information within their event consoles, whether it is IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus, HP Operations Manager or any other console.

In general ITSM tools can be fed with ECM System Monitor events as follows:

■ ECM System Monitor logfile, which would be analyzed by the ITSM tool‘s logfile adapter■ Via commands, e.g. BMC’s MSEND or CA’s cawto■ Via predefined SNMP MIB shipped with ECM System Monitor

Other applications can be added on demand. This includes custom built applications, which are using or which are con-nected to the ECM platform, as they are an integral part of the IT Service ECM.

Examples for an infrastructure specific health monitoring are:

■ IBM Tivoli: Collection of ECM System Monitor events via the JDBC / ODBC Connector of IBM Tivoli Monitoring‘s Universal Agent. Events can also be sent directly via EEIF to IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus.

■ HP Operations Manager: ECM System Monitor provides an event forwarding via HP‘s Java API.


Architecture

ECM System Monitor has a client / server architecture, which is designed to minimize the workload on the managed systems. Server and client both consist of two components – a monitoring component (client and server) and an infra-structure component (client and server).

The execution of predefined remote tasks is handled by the ECM System Monitor Infrastructure Agent, which is ins-talled on the managed system. The communication between ECM System Monitor Infrastructure Agent and ECM System Monitor Infrastructure Server is TCP/IP based and secured by certificates and SSL encryption. All remote tasks are initiated and authorized by the ECM System Monitor Infrastructure Server.

The collection of events is handled by the ECM System Monitor Monitoring Agent. The communication between Monitoring Server and Agent is also TCP/IP based and encrypted. The processing of events is handled by the ECM System Monitor Monitoring Server. Events are stored in the Event Database, where they can also be kept for historical analysis. The user authentication can be handled ECM System Monitor internally or ECM System Monitor can be connected to LDAP systems, like Microsoft Active Directory Services, Microsoft ADAM, Tivoli Directory Server, Sun Directory Server or Novell eDirectory.

For a detailed list of platforms supported by the ECM System Monitor Management Server and Management Agents please see the ECM System Monitor Hardware and Software Guide.

The ECM System Monitor Server can also be deployed in a virtualized environment, e.g. run on VMWare ESX Hosts, IBM AIX LPAR or SUN Solaris Zones. The Management Server can also be set up as High Availability solution, e.g. with a backup server in an ECM DR environment.

For the Event Database ECM System Monitor supports IBM DB2, MS SQL Server and Oracle.

3. Benefits

Monitoring IBM ECM environments with ECM System Monitor provides the following benefits:

■ Comprehensive monitoring of ECM business services■ Proactive monitoring of IBM ECM components and their underlying infrastructure in one Single Point of Control ■ IBM ECM specific Knowledge Base to support and expedite problem analysis■ Monitoring and knowledge base can be extended to manage 3rd party and custom-built applications connected

with the IBM ECM platform■ Stabilization of the IBM ECM platform■ Higher availability of IBM ECM based IT services due to error prevention and reduced problem resolution

efforts improves service quality for LOB


■ Better and cost efficient fulfillment of Service Level Agreements■ Reduction of trouble tickets in the Service Desk■ Integration of IT Operations and Service Desk due to event forwarding to IT Service Management

Tools allows central operation of IBM ECM 24*7■ Automation of non-value-adding routine work in the daily administration and monitoring improves

the productivity of IBM ECM administrators and reduces operational costs■ Integration of IBM ECM as managed application into an enterprise-wide IT Service Management allows

usage of established IT Service Management processes■ Better support of IT compliance and auditing requirements

Thanks to ECM System Monitor the ECM application specialists can focus their attention on the further development and optimization of the IBM ECM platform instead of wasting their time with non-value-adding routine work in the daily administration and monitoring. All the same they – and IT Operations and Service Desk – can be sure that they will be alerted immediately in case of a current or an upcoming error or event.

With that ECM System Monitor helps to deliver Service Level Agreements defined for the ECM platform in a more relia-ble and efficient way. The end users get a better experience of ECM and embrace new opportunities for an enterprise-wide usage. Operational costs are reduced; high costs due to productivity losses in the LOB are avoided.

As part of the IBM ECM portfolio ECM System Monitor provides unsurpassed integration and currency with the IBM ECM solutions.

4. Add-on solutions enhancing ECM System Monitor

CENIT provides a comprehensive portfolio to enhance the value of ECM System Monitor – based on IBM ECM applica-tion aware soft-ware solutions and many years of experience in operating IBM ECM platforms for our customers.

■ End-to-End Performance Monitoring: ServiceTracer to monitor response times of typical ECM use cases from an end user perspective – 24x7, cross locations and frontends, in daily operation as well as for application testing and fail-over testing, with integration into ECM System Monitor

■ End User Monitoring and Analytics: Nexthink to monitor and analyze end user infrastructure – better support of end users, identification of abnormal system behavior and security issues, better planning in transformation projects

■ Configuration & Change Management: CENIT ValuePack for ECM System Monitor for automated inventory of IBM ECM systems – automated documentation of system configuration and changes for simpler troubleshooting and better change management

■ Backup & Recovery (FileNet only): CYA SmartRecovery for granular Hot Backup & Recovery of documents and meta data in the FileNet Content Engine – without taking FileNet offline, improving recovery times and avoiding reproces-sing efforts for business users

These add-on solutions enrich ECM System Monitor. The administrators get a 360° view on their ECM applications – not only on the ECM backend in the data center, but also on their end users’ experience.

5. The Implementation Approach

CENIT offers a turnkey implementation, which is tailored to the customer's ECM environment and needs and can include other systems working with the ECM platform, e.g. input & output management systems or custom-built applications.

This CENIT implementation is designed to meet customer's specific requirements of monitoring the entire ECM based busi-ness services and covers the following activities:

■ Analysis and Conception - CENIT Best Practices - Customer specific requirements beyond Best Practices, e.g. monitoring of 3rd party applications or homegrown applications■ Installation of Management Servers and Management Agents in ECM production and non-production environments - Application Health Monitoring with ECM System Monitor - Automated inventory with CENIT ValuePack for ECM System Monitor - Performance Monitoring with ServiceTracer (optional) - Backup & Recovery with CYA SmartRecovery (optional)■ Configuration - ECM System Monitor • Monitoring & Logfile Management • Remote Tasks • Management Console • Knowledge Base • Reporting • Event forwarding to IT Service Management Tools - CENIT ValuePack for ECM System Monitor (optional) • Automated inventory of hardware and software configuration • Reporting - ServiceTracer (optional) • Response time monitoring for typical ECM use cases • Reporting • Event forwarding to ECM System Monitor - CYA SmartRecovery (optional) • Configuration of ObjectStores • Configuration of Capture and Catalog • Integration into IBM Tivoli Storage Manager or others (optional)■ Roll-Out into ECM production and non-production environments■ Administrator Training for ECM administrators■ Project Management and Documentation

After approx. 4 weeks of productive usage of ECM System Monitor we do a review of the events detected and adjust the thresholds and logfile filtering accordingly, so that you get as many events as necessary but as few as possible.


The efforts for the implementation mainly depend on the

■ Number of ECM environments and servers to be monitored ■ Customer requirements going beyond Best Practices, e.g. monitoring of custom applications ■ Training requirements, e.g. multiple sessions of the Administrator Training or extended Logfile Adapter training

With that CENIT provides a tailored solution and enables the customer's ECM administrators to run their application management efficiently and reliably. The end user experience is improved and the costs of running the ECM platform are contained.

6. Contact

For further information about ECM System Monitor please contact

CENIT AGRoland MerktSenior Vice President Systems ManagementPhone: +49 711 7825 3285Email: [email protected]

Videos of an ECM System Monitor presentation and live demo can be found in our YouTube channel at ■ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suEGr9X6J7c&feature=c4-overview&list=UUuy4t-TQYeUjHfij2DBSbAw■ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSkRtICbMDI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUuy4t-TQYeUjHfij2DBSbAw

Trademark notice: All brands and product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.

watch?v=suEGr9X6J7c&feature=c4-overview&list=UUuy4t-TQYeUjHfij2DBSbAw and http://www.youtube.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suEGr9X6J7c&feature=c4-overview&list=UUuy4t-TQYeUjHfij2DBSbAw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSkRtICbMDI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUuy4t-TQYeUjHfij2DBSbAw

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