Collections in HP Systems Insight Manager 5.1 or greater (441487-001, January 2009)

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Collections in HP Systems Insight Manager 5.1 or greater

Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 3

What is a collection? ........................................................................................................................... 3

History............................................................................................................................................ 3

HP SIM 5.1 ..................................................................................................................................... 4

Customizing collections ........................................................................................................................ 4

Types of collections .......................................................................................................................... 6

By member................................................................................................................................... 6

By attribute................................................................................................................................... 8

Combination collections................................................................................................................. 9

Other customization features ........................................................................................................... 10

Edit ........................................................................................................................................... 11

Copy......................................................................................................................................... 11

Move......................................................................................................................................... 13

Delete........................................................................................................................................ 13

Set Properties ............................................................................................................................. 13

Tabbed views.................................................................................................................................... 16

System(s) tab ................................................................................................................................. 16

Events tab ..................................................................................................................................... 16

Selections for running tasks ................................................................................................................. 18

Task wizard .................................................................................................................................. 18

Selecting systems ........................................................................................................................... 18

Selecting events ............................................................................................................................. 18

Selecting a collection itself .............................................................................................................. 19

Global selection of target systems .................................................................................................... 20

Tabs ............................................................................................................................................. 20

Filtering ........................................................................................................................................ 21

Automatic event handling ................................................................................................................... 22

Reports............................................................................................................................................. 23

Authorizations ................................................................................................................................... 26

Command line interface ..................................................................................................................... 26

Summary of content (29 pages)

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Collections in HP Systems Insight Manager 5.1 or greater Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 3 What is a collection? ........................................................................................................................... 3 History............................................................................................................................................
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Copy ............................................................................................................................................ 26 Move............................................................................................................................................ 27 Combination collections.................................................................................................................. 27 Upgrading ................................................................
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Introduction A collection is simply a group of systems or events and can be viewed or used for a task. It can be temporary or saved to be used again. What is a collection? History Compaq Insight Manager 7, a predecessor of HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM), used the term query. This term reflected its internal implementation as a database query. Attributes were specified, and when a query was run, the results were shown on a Query Results page. The query results could also be used for running a task.
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SQL/MSDE Servers ServerXYZ ServerABC My Spare Servers … MyEvents Security Events Power Events Service Events SecurityEvents on MyFinancialServers HP SIM 5.1 In HP SIM 5.1, collections have more flexibility and improved ease of use, and you can combine system collections and event collections dynamically and easily. While in previous versions, event collections could be defined that pertained only to specific systems, the process of specifying the systems could be tedious.
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Figure 1. Customize Collections page Note: Both systems and event collections can be created. • Create a collection from the system view page. Click [Save As Collection] at the bottom of any system view page. This command enables you to save the currently selected the systems (or collections) as a new collection.
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Figure 2. Saving from the table view page • Run a system search and save the search criteria as the attributes defining a collection. Figure 3. Saving a collection from the Advanced Search page See the HP Systems Insight Manager 5.1 User Guide for more information on saving collections. Types of collections By member When you create a collection, you can select exactly which specific systems or collections you want to include. From the Customize Collections page, click [New].
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Figure 4.
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Note: When you create event collections, you cannot select individual events. However, you can select event collections, which enables you to create a convenient hierarchy. By attribute When you create 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.
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Figure 5. Creating a collection by attribute Combination collections Combination collections are new in HP SIM 5.1. This new form of collections enables you to bind together a system collection and an event collection. Combination collections enable you to reuse and recombine system and event collections that you have created.
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Figure 6. Creating a combination collection Note: There are two kinds of combination collections. If you are creating a system collection, then the combination collection returns a system list. If you are creating an event collection, then the combination collection returns an event list. For example, the two collections All Servers and All Login and Logout Events could be combined in two ways. One way yields all servers that have login and logout events.
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Figure 7. Customize Collections page On the Customize Collections page, some collections show their contents and others do not. For example, in Figure 7, All Systems, HP BladeSystems, and Storage Systems are not collections by member because the expansion icon ( ) is located beside the collection name, and when you click the icon, the contents of the collection are displayed.
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SystemA SystemB CollectionD CollectionE CollectionF If CollectionB is copied to CollectionF, the hierarchy would look like the following: CollectionA CollectionB CollectionC SystemA SystemB CollectionD CollectionE CollectionF Copy of CollectionB CollectionC SystemA SystemB CollectionD The new instance of CollectionB receives a new name, but its contents are copied directly. The contents, CollectionC and CollectionD, are copied by reference.
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SystemB SystemC CollectionD There are two instances of SystemC in the view of the hierarchy because CollectionC is the same throughout the application. Any place that CollectionC is referenced, it will always contain the same systems. However, SystemD appears only under CollectionB. CollectionB and Copy of CollectionB are distinct and independent collections. Move Move is another new feature in HP SIM 5.1. It enables you to easily move a collection exactly where you want it in the hierarchy.
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Figure 8. Selecting to show or not show a collection and its members in the user interface • Status Displayed property You can set the Status Displayed property to enable you to easily view the aggregate status of a particular collection. You can set this property only on individual systems or on collections by attribute, for example, the lowest level of the hierarchy (the leaves of the tree). Figure 9.
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However, you can choose to have the status displayed for collections within the highest-level collection, and after the status is set there, it will be visible at every level of the tree in the System and Event Collections panel, merging with other displayed statuses all the way to the Systems item at the top of the tree. Statuses are merged so that the most significant is always displayed. Note: Statuses at the top of the following list take priority over those at the bottom.
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can also be displayed as icons or a tree. Collections by members default to a tree view, but they can also be displayed as icons or a table. Special types of system collections default to picture views or special consoles. You can change the default view using this property. Tabbed views In HP SIM 5.1, the collection view pages contain two tabs. Figure 11.
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Figure 12. Viewing system collections that include events for the selected collection If the displayed collection is a combination collection, as described in “Combination collections,” the tabs are still available, but there is no dropdown control to select other event or system collections. In this case, a system collection and an event collection are already bound together permanently.
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Figure 13. Combination collection with no option to select other collections Selections for running tasks Task wizard When tools are run with one or more systems or events as the target, those groups are collections. You can select the targets either before or after selecting the tool. You can select the targets as single systems or any of the collection types. You can verify and modify the selection using the task wizard. After the targets are verified, they appear in the title area of the tool.
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Selecting a collection itself In addition to the checkboxes for each line item, there is also a special checkbox at the top of each view labeled Select collection name itself. Figure 14. Selecting a collection itself This checkbox is useful for tasks that are scheduled. Because collections are evaluated and their members determined only at the time of use, a target collection might have different content tomorrow than it does today.
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Figure 15. Example of table view with events older than 90 days Global selection of target systems Whenever you select systems or collections in the HP SIM workspace, either on the collection view page or with the task wizard, this affects the global selection. When a tool is selected, the task wizard displays what is in the global selection of the target systems for the tool and asks you to verify systems.
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Filtering When you select the targets for a task, you can combine system collections and event collections on a temporary basis by using filters. For example, if you want to run a tool on all the servers in a collection that have important events, select All Servers, and then click [Add Event Filter]. This process enables you to select an event collection, in this case All Important Events, to use as a filter. Only one event collection can be used as a filter at a time. Figure 16.
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Automatic event handling Before HP SIM 5.1, users of HP SIM had to recreate their event collections every time they wanted to monitor events on different systems, even if the events were the same. This was often a labor-intensive process. With HP SIM 5.1, the process has been streamlined so you can apply the same event collection to multiple system collections, without having to start over each time. Figure 18.
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Reports A new feature in HP SIM 5.1 is event reporting. You can view event information for your managed systems. For example, you could run a report to see the severity, event type, and system name of all your financial server events. Figure 20. Event Summary report If you want to refine this report to show only the Important events, you can add an event filter in the task wizard.
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Figure 21. Creating a new report to show Important events You can also create the report to show only the events that happened in, for example, the past week. Create an event collection first using Customize Collections in the System and Event Collections panel.
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Figure 22. Creating an event collection to use when you create a report After the event collection exists, you can select that specific event collection from the Verify Target Systems page when you generate reports.
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Figure 23. New report using new event collection See the HP Systems Insight Manager 5.1 User Guide for additional information on running reports. Authorizations Collections can be in the Private collection or in the Shared collection. Private collections are visible only to the user that created them. Shared collections are viewable by all users. However, only users with full configuration rights can create, edit, or delete shared collections.
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collection. These children are the original children, not copies.
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In this way, collections that you spent a long time customizing for your environment not only still work, but they are usable with the new mix-and-match functionality of HP SIM 5.1. Therefore, if the event part of the example collection is complex, you can apply it to different system collections without having to recreate it. If you do not need the extra collections, you can delete them. Any tasks that relied on collections created with previous versions of HP SIM continue to work.
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For more information HP SIM 5.1 overview and features: http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/hpsim/index.html HP SIM Quickspec documents: http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/hpsim/quickspecs.html © 2007-2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services.