HP SIM V5.1 User Guide (356920-009, January 2007)

9 Monitoring systems, clusters, and events
You can monitor systems , clusters , and events using the tools in the System and Event Collections panel.
It enables you to drill down to locate more information about systems and events and quickly select systems
before performing a task . From this panel, you can quickly access the System Overview page, the All
Systems page, and the All Events page. You can also save searches in private collections under Systems
or Events. See “Saving collections” for more information.
NOTE: If you upgraded from HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) 4.x to HP SIM 5.0 and you utilized
the My Favorites feature, the My Favorites subfolders and their contents are migrated under the Private
collections.
About collections
A collection groups systems and events into a collection based on information in the HP SIM database. After
a collection is defined, you can display the results or associate it with a task. You can save an edited or
unedited collection as a collection with another name.
Collections can be used to organize large numbers of systems into smaller, more meaningful groupings. For
example, your organization might have five system administrators who are responsible for 100 different
systems in six different buildings. You can create a collection for each administrator that includes only their
systems, or you can create a collection for each building that includes only the systems located in that
particular building.
Types of collections
There are three types of collections available in HP SIM:
• By member When creating a collection, you can select exactly which specific systems or collections
you want to include. From the Customize Collections page, click New. The New Collection section
appears. Select Choose members individually. When creating event collections, you cannot select
individual events. You can select other event collections only to create a convenient heirarchy.
When creating event collections, you cannot select individual events. You can select event collections
only to create a convenient hierarchy.
• By attribute When creating a collection, you can describe the contents of the collection by the
attributes of its members. Collections defined by attributes are dynamic because each time they are
invoked, the contents are determined again. There are many attributes that can be used: system name
(full or partial), operating system, system type, and so on. For event collections, attributes could be
cleared status, type, severity, time, and so on. See “Saving collections” for more information on search
criteria and attributes. Multiple attributes can be combined to create the exact group of systems or
events that you need. You create collections by attribute when you click Save As from the Advanced
Search page. See “Searching for systems and events” for more information on performing a system
or event search.
Complex collections that contain individual collections or a number or search criteria take more system
resources to run. Keep the collection as simple as possible to minimize the performance impacts of
individual tasks. This applies to collections by attributes only.
NOTE: Before HP SIM 5.1, you could specify system attributes when creating event collections. If
you upgrade to HP SIM 5.1 from any previous version of HP SIM, and you have event collections that
include system attributes, the collection is split into three different collections: one with the same contents
as the original collection, one that includes the system attributes only, and one that includes the event
attributes only. The original collection becomes a combination collection containing an event collection,
which contains only the original event information, and a system collection, which contains only the
original system information. For example, if you had a collection called MyServersEvents in previous
About collections 173