Solstice Enterprise Manager 4.1 Customizing Guide

Chapter 7

Using Cooperative Consoles with Solstice EM

Cooperative Consoles provides the ability to forward information about critical network events from management stations running Site/SunNet/Domain Manager (SNM) to one or more Solstice Enterprise Manager (Solstice EM) managers.

This chapter describes the following topics:

• Section 7.1 Cooperative Console Forwarding
• Section 7.2 Filtering Criteria for Information Forwarding
• Section 7.3 Cooperative Consoles Configuration and Operation
• Section 7.4 Receiving SunNet Manager Alarms

7.1 Cooperative Console Forwarding

The supported configuration of Cooperative Consoles information forwarding between SNM and Solstice EM management stations is periphery-to-center. This is a distributed management scenario in which management of particular network segments is conducted by SNM Consoles at various sites and there is a one-way forwarding of selected information from the SNM stations to a central Solstice EM MIS. The Solstice EM MIS thus functions as a central office "manager of managers." A periphery-to-center configuration is illustrated in the following figure.

FIGURE 7-1   Forwarding of Information to Central Management Station

There are several types of information that Cooperative Consoles can forward from SNM Console stations to Solstice EM:

• SNM Events--These are generated by SNM agents or proxy agents when they detect that a specified threshold has been crossed while polling a target network resource. The polling activity is initiated by an SNM event request issued by the SNM Console. The SNM event request defines the threshold (such as network memory usage greater than 80%) that triggers the generation of the SNM event. The SNM agent or proxy agent uses Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol to communicate with the management station.
• Topology Traps--The SNM Console generates traps when changes are made to the SNM database, such as addition of a new element or loading of a background image for a view.
• Glyph State Traps--The SNM Console generates glyph traps when the user changes the glyph state--for example, if a user resets the glyph state after receipt of an alarm.
• SNMP Traps--Cooperative Consoles can forward SNMP traps received by SNM's SNMP trap daemon (na.snmp-trap). However, you may prefer to use Solstice EM's SNMP trap daemon (em_snmp-trap) for distributed SNMP trap forwarding and configurable event type conversion. The Solstice EM SNMP trap daemon can forward SNMP traps to SNM Consoles as well as Solstice EM.

7.2 Filtering Criteria for Information Forwarding

The flexible filtering capabilities of Cooperative Consoles allow you to select event and topology information to be forwarded on the basis of the following criteria:

• Type of the managed resource--you can choose to forward events by element type, such as routers.
• Hostname--you can select events by the name of the originating device.
• Priority--for example, you might choose to forward only SNM events with High priority.
• Viewname--for example, if certain key objects are in an SNM Console view called "CriticalElements", you could specify forwarding of events for the objects in that view.
• View type--you can select events on the basis of the type of view that the object is in. For example, events from objects in views of type building could be selected for forwarding.
• Event type--you can select the type of event or trap to be forwarded. For example, you might want to forward only SNM events. If you want to forward SNMP traps, you can choose to forward only standard SNMP traps, or traps can be selected on the basis of the enterprise MIB. For example, 3Com or Cisco traps could be selected for forwarding, and ranges of traps can be selected for the enterprise-specific traps.

7.3 Cooperative Consoles Configuration and Operation

The executable software modules required in setting up a Cooperative Consoles connection between an SNM Console and a Solstice EM MIS are as follows:

• Receiver Application--A Receiver is installed on the Solstice EM MIS machine. The Receiver initiates the forwarding of information from remote SNM Consoles to the local MIS. The Receiver maintains a Registration List of the remote SNM stations that it attempts to register with for receipt of event and topology information. Use the Cooperative Consoles Configuration Tool to set up the local Receiver's Registration List. When a connection to a remote SNM is running, the Receiver uses the SNM database API functionality in the Solstice EM MIS to update the Solstice EM MIS to reflect changes in the views on the remote SNM Consoles. Solstice EM's support for the SunNet Manager database API is described in Chapter 8. If Cooperative Consoles forwarding of information has been set up to create a "mirror" on the Solstice EM MIS of a particular SNM Console view, then moving or deleting an element in that view on the SNM Console is reflected in the "mirror" in the Solstice EM Network Views.
• Sender Daemon--A Sender daemon is installed on each SunNet Manager host that forwards event and topology information to the Solstice EM MIS. Cooperative Consoles' event and topology filters are used by the Sender daemon. The Cooperative Consoles Configuration Tool is used for sending SNM stations to configure these filters. The periphery-to-center configuration is the only configuration currently supported for Solstice EM. In this configuration, no Sender daemon is installed on the Solstice EM MIS machine.
• Configuration Tool--This is the user interface for configuring operation of the Sender and Receiver processes. Configuring the Receiver on the Solstice EM MIS machine also requires installation of the Cooperative Consoles Configuration Tool.

To Set Up Cooperative Consoles on the Solstice EM MIS Machine

1. Install the Cooperative Consoles Configuration Tool and Receiver packages.

See the Installation Guide for detailed information.

2. Set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH to support the Receiver application.

Enter a command such as the following, to set the environment variable correctly:

host% setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /opt/SUNWconn/em/lib:/opt/SUNWconn/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}

Since the Cooperative Consoles Receiver is an SNM application, you should refer the general instructions for use of SNM applications, see Chapter 8.

3. Add the Cooperative Consoles Configuration Tool and the Cooperative Consoles Receiver to the Solstice EM Network Tools.

This is described in Managing Your Network. You will need to tell the Launcher the path to the Cooperative Consoles executables. The default path to the Cooperative Consoles Receiver is as follows:

/opt/SUNWconn/snm/bin/cc_receiver

4. Use the Cooperative Consoles Configuration Tool on the remote SNM Console machines to configure the appropriate Sender daemon filters for event and topology forwarding to the Solstice EM MIS.

5. Use the Cooperative Consoles Configuration Tool to set up the Receiver's Registration List on the Solstice EM MIS machine.

For information on configuring the Cooperative Consoles Sender daemon and the Cooperative Consoles Receiver application, refer to the Cooperative Consoles Administration Guide.

FIGURE 7-2   Information Forwarding From SNM Console to Solstice EM MIS

7.4 Receiving SunNet Manager Alarms

The Cooperative Consoles Sender daemon on a remote SNM Console can be configured to send SNM events and notification of user actions clearing these alarms (glyph reset), to the MIS machine. The Sender daemon reformats these SNM events (and glyph reset events) as SNM traps and sends them to the SNM Event Dispatcher (na.event) on the MIS host. The SNM Event Forwarder (em_snmfwd) on the MIS machine registers with the Event Dispatcher to receive all SNM events and traps. The Event Forwarder converts the SNM traps into snmAlarmTraps and sends these to the MIS. By default, these event notifications are logged to the AlarmLog.

SNM Console users can configure SNM event requests to indicate fault status of the target device in several ways:

• Dimming of a glyph
• Blinking of a glyph
• Color by priority

Priority is the attribute of an SNM event that represents the severity of an event on the managed resource. If the user has selected color by priority, the SNM Event Forwarder maps SNM priorities to perceivedSeverity values as indicated in the following table. The SNM Event Forwarder also translates dimming or blinking of glyphs into perceivedSeverity values, as indicated in the following table.

TABLE 7-1   Mapping of SNM Console Fault Indications to perceivedSeverity Values

SNM Event Priority	SNM Fault Status Indicator	snmAlarmTrap perceivedSeverity Value	Default Solstice EM Icon Color
Low	color by priority	Minor	Cyan
Medium	color by priority	Major	Orange
High	color by priority	Critical	Red
	blinking	Indeterminate	Blue
	dim	Warning	Yellow
	glyph reset	Indeterminate	Blue
	pending	Warning	Yellow

The Alarm Service, which controls the fault status color of icons in the Network Views, monitors the perceivedSeverity of alarms posted against a device, and sets fault status to reflect the highest severity of outstanding (uncleared) alarms against a device. Incoming snmAlarmTraps will thus affect fault status color of icons in the Network Views.

If a user resets a glyph to clear an alarm on the SNM Console, a glyph state reset trap is sent to em_snmfwd on the MIS machine which generates an snmAlarmTrap with a perceivedSeverity of "Indeterminate."

When glyph fault status indications are propagated to higher-level views in the SNM Console, a glyph reset is also propagated to those views. Glyph reset traps are thus forwarded for the views that contain the element. These are translated into separate "clear" snmAlarmTraps for the corresponding views in the Solstice EM MIS.

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Note – If SNM event requests are initiated by the MIS, incoming SNM events from the RPC proxy agents are received by the SNM Event Dispatcher on the MIS host as SNM events (not SNM traps). These are also forwarded to the SNM Event Forwarder (em_snmfwd); however, these event notifications are posted to the MIS as snmAlarmEvents. By default, snmAlarmEvents are not logged to the AlarmLog. For more information, see Chapter 17.

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