Sun Management Center 3.6 agents should be installed on every managed node in your network to enable advanced management and monitoring functions. Sun Management Center agents are supported on any SPARC platform workstations and servers running Solaris version 2.6, Solaris version 7, Solaris version 8, Solaris version 9, or Solaris version 10. Sun Management Center agents are also available for Solaris operating system (x86 Platform Edition) systems running Solaris 9 and Solaris 10 and on Linux.
The same limitations apply for the Linux agent.
The x86 agents do not support any hardware-specific add-ons. The x86 agents have modules under the Operating System, Local Applications, and Remote Systems categories of the Module Browser tab in the Host Details window. Features such as Physical View, Logical View, Hardware Diagnostic module, and the Config-Reader module are not yet available on the Solaris x86 platform.
In the Java Console window, all x86 platforms have the same x86 icon. For example, two different x86 platform machines, such as the Sun Cobalt LX50 and the Sun Fire V60x, would both have the same icon.
You can filter by platform type when you use the Discovery feature, the Manage Jobs feature, or the PRM add-on. You can filter for the x86 platform by selecting x86 as the platform option.
For the Performance Reporting Manager (PRM) add-on, no system reports and hardware configuration reports are available.
Sun Management Center agents add a minimal computational load on the host system. The computational load is caused by normal management operations, including periodic data acquisition, alarm rule processing, alarm annunciation, alarm action execution, and the processing of client requests.
The amount of load introduced is proportional to the rate at which data is gathered, the amount of data gathered, the number of alarms detected, and the number of user requests. The percentage of CPU resources consumed therefore depends on the number and type of modules loaded on the system, the configuration of these modules, and the computational capacity of the host system.
Even on low-end machines with a comprehensive suite of modules loaded and high management activity, the agent should never consume more than a fraction of the CPU resources.
The following table gives estimates of the agent CPU and RAM usage by system type and includes information for the x86 agent.
Table C–1 Agent CPU and RAM Use Estimates by System Type
|
CPU Usage |
RAM Usage |
|
|
|
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Server Type |
Heavy or Light Configuration |
Maximum |
Minimum |
Average |
Average Size |
Average Resident Size |
Sun Blade 100 |
Light |
0.10% |
0.00% |
0.21% |
8.77 Mbytes |
7.02 Mbytes |
Sun Fire 280R |
Light |
0.10% |
0.00% |
0.10% |
10.47 Mbytes |
8.49 Mbytes |
Sun Blade 2000 |
Light |
0.20% |
0.00% |
0.05% |
8.89 Mbytes |
7.06 Mbytes |
Sun Fire 880 |
Light |
0.00% |
0.00% |
0.00% |
8.97 Mbytes |
7.31 Mbytes |
Sun Blade 100 |
Heavy |
1.20% |
0.50% |
0.79% |
14.83 Mbytes |
12.99 Mbytes |
Sun Fire 280R |
Heavy |
2.60% |
0.10% |
0.81% |
16.22 Mbytes |
13.92 Mbytes |
Sun Blade 2000 |
Heavy |
0.30% |
0.20% |
0.20% |
14.45 Mbytes |
12.76 Mbytes |
Sun Fire 880 |
Heavy |
4.40% |
0.10% |
0.88% |
16.15 Mbytes |
14.41 Mbytes |
Light configurations are based on an agent with the following modules loaded:
Kernel-Reader Simple
Agent Statistics
MIB-II Simple
The heavy configuration is based on an agent with the following modules loaded:
The heavy configuration is likely to be greater than needed. Larger machines typically have larger hardware configurations with more processors and disks. These configurations result in greater memory consumption by agents running on larger machines.
The virtual memory used by an agent depends on multiple factors. The primary considerations are the number of management modules loaded and the amount of information being monitored by these modules. Loading many modules on an agent increases its memory requirement. Similarly, agents managing hosts with large disk arrays or other highly scalable assets will probably require more virtual memory because the volume of management information passing through the agents will increase.
In general, a base agent with the default set of management modules loaded is under 10 Mbytes in size. The base agent requires only 50% to 60% of the 10 Mbytes to be resident in physical memory.
The majority of Sun Management Center management modules are portable across all SPARC platform systems running Sun Management Center agents. Some advanced hardware-specific Sun Management Center modules, however, are not supported on all Sun hardware. Specifically, the platform Config-Reader and Dynamic Reconfiguration modules provide advanced management of the underlying hardware platform. The functions these modules provide are not necessarily applicable to all hardware systems in the Sun product family.
The following table summarizes the availability of the Sun Management Center management modules on the various hardware platforms.
Table C–2 Hardware-Specific Module Availability
Hardware |
Config-Reader Module |
Dynamic Reconfiguration Module |
All Other Sun Management Center Modules |
---|---|---|---|
SPARCStation 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 |
No |
No |
Yes |
Sun Ultra 1, 450 |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Sun Enterprise 5, 10, 150, Sun Fire 280R, Sun Fire V480 |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
SPARCserver 1000, 1000E |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
SPARCcenter 2000, 2000E |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Sun StorEdge A5x00, T3 |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Netra T1120-1125, T1400-T1405 |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Sun Blade 100, 1000, 1500, 2500 |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Sun Fire 3800, 4800, 4810, 6800, V210, V240, V250, V440, V880, E25K, E20K, E6900, E4900 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
The resource requirements of management modules depend on the following factors:
The number of managed properties in the module.
The volume of managed property data processed in the module. Tables with many rows of data incur increased resource usage.
The refresh intervals of managed properties.
The complexity of data collection and rule processing.
The following table summarizes the resource impact of the Sun Management Center management modules.
Table C–3 Sun Management Center Management Module System Impact Summary
Module |
Impact |
---|---|
Incurs low footprint increase and low CPU load increase. |
|
Uses CPU and memory relative to the complexity of the hardware configuration of the managed node. |
|
Incurs low footprint and CPU load increase that is proportional to the amount of data values being logged. |
|
Incurs a low footprint increase that is proportional to the number of directories monitored. Incurs low to moderate CPU load that depends on both the number of directories monitored and the activity within those directories. |
|
Dynamic Reconfiguration |
Has minimal footprint impact and utilizes CPU only when performing reconfiguration operations. |
Incurs low footprint increase proportional to the number of files that are monitored. Incurs low to moderate CPU load, depending on both the number of files that are monitored and the activity within those files. |
|
Incurs low footprint and CPU load increase. |
|
Has relatively low impact on resources. |
|
Incurs low footprint increase and low CPU load. |
|
Incurs low CPU load increase and low to medium footprint increase dependent on the number of network interfaces. |
|
Affects CPU and memory based on the number of file systems, CPUs, and other system resources under management, as well as the rate of refresh of this information. Consumes more resources than the Simple Kernel Reader. |
|
Kernel Reader, Simple |
Has minimal impact on CPU and memory. |
Incurs minimal CPU load and low to moderate footprint increase depending on the number of network interfaces, and the size of the routing tables, ARP tables, and related system tables. |
|
MIB-II Proxy Monitoring |
Incurs moderate footprint increase proportional to the size of the MIB of the proxy-monitored SNMP agent. Incurs low to moderate CPU load proportional to the number of managed objects in the proxy-monitored SNMP agent. |
Incurs virtually no CPU load and very little footprint increase, proportional to the size of the system interfaces, IP forwarding, and IP address table. |
|
Incurs low footprint increase that is proportional to the number of network file systems mounted on the host machine, and low CPU load. |
|
Incurs low footprint increase and low to moderate CPU load. |
|
Incurs low footprint and CPU load increase. |
|
Incurs low footprint increase that is proportional to the number of processes monitored. Incurs low to moderate CPU load, depending both on the number of processes monitored and how often the processes are started and stopped. |
|
Incurs moderate footprint and load increase that is proportional to the size of the storage device. |