Enterprise Edition - Admin Server

Enterprise Edition Admin Server is the master server through which you will be able to view consolidated data of all the Managed Servers.

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Installation

During installation, you need to:

  • Select the Edition option as 'Enterprise Edition'.
  • Select the installation type as 'Admin Server'.
  • Enter the HostName, WebServer port, SSL port of the Admin Server.
  • Kindly carry on with the rest of the installation process.

Managed Server Configuration

The Managed Server automatically gets registered with the Admin Server when it starts up. In case you want to edit the configuration, go to Settings tab. Click on Managed Servers link. This will take you to the Managed Server page from where you can configure the Managed Servers. Alternatively, this can be done by clicking on the Managed Servers link just below the main tabs.

Here is how you can configure a Managed Server:

  • Click on the Add New link, it opens up the Add New Managed Server form
  • Enter the Host Name of the Managed Server
  • Enter the Web Server Port number, the port at which the web client is to be connected
  • Enter the SSL port number, the port at which secure communication is to be made between the Admin and Managed Server.
  • Enter the Server ID, the ID present under Installation Information table under Settings tab -> Tools -> Support of the Managed Server
  • Enter the Admin Password for the Managed Server.(Note: This password should be same as that of Admin role password of that managed server. If user changes that password in the Managed server, then the user has to manually update the same in admin server)
  • Click on Add Managed Server and the Managed Server gets added. It is displayed under Managed Servers link along with the details of the number of monitors, status, load factor, etc.,

The following managed sever details are displayed in the table:

  • Server ID - The id of the managed server.
  • Display Name - The display name of the managed server.
  • Managed Server Group - The managed server group to which the server belongs.
  • Monitors Status - The health status of the monitor
  • Load Factor - The Load Factor of the server.
  • Last Polled at - The time last polled at.
  • Synching - The syncing status of the managed server (completed or in progress)
  • Download - The status of the Service pack download.
  • Upgrade - The upgrade status of the Service Pack.

You can select one or more Managed Servers and click the Download Now link at the bottom of the table to download the Service Pack and the Upgrade Now link to upgrade the Service Pack.

Note

In order to find if a particular Applications Manager installation is heavily loaded you can use the Load Factor, which is provided in the 'Support' tab under the 'Applications Manager Installation Information' category. The load factor follows the format x.y, where 'x' represents load on Applications Manager Server, while 'y' represents the load on the Database used by Applications Manager. A value of zero represents least loaded, while a value of nine represents most loaded. Hence Load Factor can take values from 0.0 to 9.9 (heavily loaded). The Load Factor of each of the Managed Servers is also displayed in the Admin server under the "Managed Servers" option and you can use the same to distribute load evenly among the Managed Servers.

The Load Factor can be denoted by x.y where x represents Managed server polling load factor and y represents Managed server data base load factor.
The Maximum value of x,y can be configured in AMServer.properties file of Admin server:
x - am.mas.polling.max.loadfactor - default value 5
y - am.mas.database.max.loadfactor - default value 5

Creating a New Monitor from an Admin Server

Applications Manager Enterprise Edition allows you to add monitors and group them from the Admin Server in a distributed setup. To add a new monitor in a host, refer these links.

However, while adding a new monitor from an Admin server, the managed server under which the monitor is to be added can be selected manually by the user or using load factor by Applications Manager. The value for Maximum monitors allowed per Managed server can be configured in AMServer.properties. The key is am.max.monitorcount.mas and default value is 500.

Selecting Managed Server Using Load Factor:

You can select one of the following options in the Add Monitor Page:

  • Least Loaded Managed Server from all Managed Servers
  • Least Loaded Managed Server from a Managed Server Group

Selecting Managed Server Specified by the User:

The user can select the managed server. This will add the monitor directly to the selected managed server irrespective of load factor and monitor count.

Managed Server Groups

Certain resources can be monitored from managed servers running in the same domain/ geographical location as the resource. Load factor calculation across all the distributed managed servers can result in the addition of a monitor in a server located in another domain (since the load factor condition matches). Grouping managed servers in the same area gives the user the option to use load balancing within the group of managed servers.

Creating a Managed Server Group:

  • Go to the Managed Servers link in Applications Manager.
  • In the Managed Servers table, click on the edit icon near the managed server that you wish to add to a group.
  • In the Edit Managed Server window, choose a Managed Server Group from the drop-down menu after entering all the required details. You alternately have the option to Add New Managed Server Group to the list using the + icon.
  • While creating a new monitor from an Admin Server, after entering the required details, choose the Least Loaded Managed Server from a Managed Server Group load balancing option and select the Managed Server Group from the drop down menu that appears.
  • Click Add monitor.

Creating Monitor Groups in Admin Server

Various monitors in Managed Servers can be grouped and a consolidated view can be obtained in Admin Server. For eg., consider a set up that has three Managed Servers and one Admin Server. Each Managed Server has 200 monitors which includes 10 windows servers. If you want to monitor the windows servers in all the three managed servers as a group, then you can create a new Monitor Group in the admin server.

You can create Monitor Groups by following the steps in Create Monitor Group help document. Once you have created the Monitor Group, the next step would be to associate the required monitors from Managed Servers to the Monitor Group in the Admin Server. After the setup is done, you can configure the alarms for the Monitor Group. Currently, only EMail and SMS alarm actions are supported.

Managed Server Actions

Fetch Data: There is an option to fetch the data from the managed servers at the given instant, instead of waiting for the poll to happen.

Edit: You can edit the managed server details using this option.

Enable/Disable: You can enable/disable data collection in the Managed Server. Note that when you disable, data collection will still take place, you only stop syncing with the managed server.

Admin Email Settings: An EMail can be configured to be sent once a Managed Server goes down and also once every 24 hrs till the Managed Server is up again. The EMail setting is available in the Admin EMail Settings" option under the Settings tab. The option to enable/disable this EMail, is available in the "Edit" option of the respective Managed Server.

Proxy Managed Server request through Admin Server

When you login to the Admin console, Graphs and images displayed for a monitor are retrieved directly from the corresponding Managed Server itself and are displayed in the Admin console. These graphs/images cannot be retrieved, if the Admin Server is accessible from a particular machine/over the Internet and the Managed Server is not accessible.

In this case, select the "Proxy Managed Server request through Admin Server" request option. This will result in the images/graphs being fetched to the Admin Server from the Managed Server first and then the image from the Admin Server is viewable in the Web Browser.

E.g., Admin Server is running as part of IDC and accessible via the Internet (From a machine say "ClientMachine") but the Managed Servers are not accessible (from "ClientMachine") this option should be enabled.

Note: In case of a proxy server configured in the network, make sure to configure the proxy server for both Admin and Managed servers.

User Management In the Enterprise Editon

In the Enterprise setup, the User Management module functions independently in the Admin Server and Managed Server. Hence, a user-based view assigned in the Managed Server will not reflect in the Admin Server and vice-versa. Since, you will be viewing the data collectively from the Admin Server, you need to assign owners to the various Monitor Groups of the Managed Server in the Admin Server. Of course, if it is assigned in the Managed Server it will function independently. Also, in the Manager Console (SLA Management console), you can assign SLAs and associate actions to be invoked for SLA violation to the Monitor Groups in the Admin Server.

Managed Server Access

Click on the Jump To link in the Admin Server just above the toolbar, which brings down a list of the Managed Servers. Clicking on any of the Managed Server names in the list will take you to the web console of the respective Managed Server in a separate browser Window.

Note

ENTERPRISEADMIN role is used for logging into the Managed Server from Admin Server for data synchronising. The username for this role is systemadmin_enterprise and the password is the regular ADMIN role password. This role is not exposed in the UI, it will be used internally.

Visit our Enterprise Edition FAQ page for more details on when and how to set up the Enterprise Edition.

FAQ - How is the Managed server selected by APM using load factor?

The following two things are used to select the managed server automatically:

  • Load Factor (x.y) where,
      x represents Managed server polling load factor
      y represents Managed server data base load factor
      Max. value of x,y can be configured in AMServer.properties file of Admin server
      x - am.mas.polling.max.loadfactor - default value 5
      y - am.mas.database.max.loadfactor - default value 5
  • Maximum monitor allowed per Managed server
      The value can be configurable in AMServer.properties. The key is am.max.monitorcount.mas and default value is 500.
      The Condition for choosing managed server is,
      x < maxAllowedValueOfPollingLoad (and)
      y < maxAllowedValueOfDatabaseLoad (and)
      n < maxMonitorAllowed

If the condition is not matched then we show the "No Managed server is available" message to the user.