Monitors

This section will help to set up monitoring system for performance (NS) and Production (NDE) environment. The document has detailed guidelines from installing CMON to configuring monitors and verifying them.

Benefits

There are following benefits of NetStorm monitoring system:

  • Check free memory, disk and other server health parameters.
  • Take process dump and store in file.
  • Trigger specific tasks such as initiate data refresh of application at start of phase of a scenario.

Features of Monitor

  • Monitoring of different server stats while test is running
  • Get Server signatures before test starts
  • Special checks while test is running
    • Check free memory, disk and other server health parameters
    • Take process dump and store in file
    • Trigger specific tasks such as initiate data refresh of application at start of phase of a scenario
  • Special tasks after test is over
    • Ftp logs to NetStorm machine for offline analysis
    • Very powerful monitoring system
  • Highly flexible
  • Support all platforms
    • Linux/Unix
    • Windows
  • Integrated with execution GUI for easy analysis and correlation with different metrics

Prerequisites

  • Architecture of SUT Environment
  • DNS Server IP
  • Firewall Configuration
  • Weblogic Server – Username and password
  • Access Log Format for Apache and Weblogic server

High Level Steps for Preparing Monitors

  1. DNS configuration for Cavisson Appliances (i.e. NS or NDE)
  2. Understand the SUT Architecture
  3. Review the SUT Architecture
  4. Prepare the List of Servers
  5. Install Cmon Agent
  6. Firewall changes for Cavisson Monitoring
  7. Configuring Monitors
  8. Verifying Monitors

DNS Configuration

There are two ways to configure the DNS server lookup for resolution of all servers to be monitored.

Using DNS Server (Preferred)

DNS configuration setting should be enabled for Cavisson Appliances. This is the preferred setting.

DNS configuration file path: /etc/resolv.conf

Steps to configure the DNS server:

  • Get list of DNS Server (one or more) for the environment.
  • Add these in file using root login or sudo.
  • Sample entry with DNS server in /etc/resolv.conf. nameserver 8.8.8.8
  • Need to check the connectivity either by using ping or telnet command.

Using /etc/hosts file

If DNS is not configured then need to add host entry in /etc/hosts file. This step needs be done after getting the list of all server and IP addresses.

 Steps to add host entry in /etc/hosts file:

  1. Login with root credential to the Cavisson Appliance.
  2. Open /etc/hosts file
  3. Add entry for all Servers.
  4. For Ex: 16.132.155 AppServer1

 Validation of Host entry

The entry can be validated using Ping command or nslookup command.

  • Ping <server>

Note: Ping may be blocked

  • nslookup <server>

For Ex: nslookup 11.11.11.11

Output:

Server:         8.8.8.8

Address:        8.8.8.8#53

SUT Architecture

This is the crucial and first step which lays the foundation for configuring SUT Environment for monitoring.

Architectural Diagram of the SUT monitoring environment

1

 Examine Architecture Diagram and Prepare list of servers

  • Once architecture details are clear, analyze all the components and prepare the server list.
  • Save this list in an excel sheet in the format as per attached excel sheet below.
  • Specify Tier, Server name and OS type. IP is optional if DNS server is not available.
  • OS Type: Solaris, AIX, HPUX, LINUX, Windows.
  • After preparing the list of servers, get their IP address using ping command from the VPN connected Box.

Syntax:  ping <hostname>

Ex: ping www.google.com

Output:

PING www.google.com (74.125.236.208) 56(84) bytes of data