IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Administrator's Guide > Manage historical data

IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2


About historical data collection

To make historical data available for reporting and analysis, set up historical data collections. One or more of these collections are configured for each attribute group that you want to collect historical data for, then distributed to the managed systems that you specify.

Historical data collection

Configuration programs allow you to specify the collection of historical data. The historical data is stored in short-term history files either at the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server or at the monitoring agent. You can choose to specify that historical data to be sent to the Tivoli Data Warehouse database for long-term storage. The data model is the same across the long-term and short-term historical data.

You can create another copy of a collection definition for an attribute group, then configure the copy for different values for any of these criteria: collection interval, warehouse interval, managed system distribution, or attribute filtering. What remains the same for every historical collection that is defined for an attribute group, however, is the Collection Location (TEMA or TEMS), and the settings for Summarization and Pruning.

Distribute to Managed System (Agent) or Managing System (TEMS)

Each historical data collection has a method of distribution:

Managed System (Agent) is the default method and requires that any managed system in the distribution connect to a Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server Version 6.2.2 or later. The distribution goes to a subset of managed systems: the managed systems of that agent type that are assigned individually or as part of a managed system group. Alternatively, you can choose to assign managed systems for distribution to a historical configuration group that the collection belongs to.

Manage System (TEMS) is the method that was used for distribution in IBM Tivoli Monitoring Version 6.2.1 and earlier; it is the required method for distribution if the managed system connects to a V6.2.1 or earlier monitoring server. The distribution is to managed systems of that agent type that are connected to the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server. If the Managing System (TEMS) method has been chosen for a collection definition, that collection becomes ineligible for membership in a historical configuration group.

If you have upgraded to Tivoli Management Services Version 6.2.2 or later from a release prior to Version 6.2.2, you get a historical collection definition for each attribute group that was configured and the distribution method is unchanged: Managing System (TEMS). If you would like to use the distribution techniques that are available when distribution is by managed system, change the distribution method for each collection definition to Managed System (Agent).

Historical configuration object groups

Part of a historical collection definition is the distribution list, where the managed systems are specified to save historical data samples for. You can add the distribution directly to the historical collection, indirectly through a historical configuration object group, or a combination of the two.

  • Direct distribution involves assigning individual managed systems or managed system groups or both to the historical collection. The advantage of this method is that the distribution applies only to this collection and you can add and remove managed systems as needed.
  • Indirect distribution involves assigning managed systems or managed system groups or both to the historical configuration group that the historical collection is a member of. The advantage of this method is that you can establish one distribution list and apply it to multiple historical collections simply by adding those collections to the historical group membership.

Use historical configuration groups as a way to assign the same distribution list to multiple historical collection definitions. You can then control collection for the group rather than having to select historical collection definitions individually. This feature is available when the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server and Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server are at Version 6.2.2 or later and the distribution method for the collection is set to Managed System (Agent).

Warehouse schema

The data warehouse has one or more tables for each product, with column names that relate to the data contents. This platform follows a simple data model that is based on the concept of attributes. An attribute is a characteristic of a managed object (node). For example, Disk Name is an attribute for a disk, which is a managed object.

Attributes can be single-row or multiple-row. Single-row attributes gather only one set of data, such as the local time attributes because there is only one set of values for local time at any one time. Multiple-row attributes can gather multiple sets of data, such as the Avg_Queue attribute that returns one set of data for each queue that exists on the system. Each attribute belongs to an attribute group, and each attribute item stores data for a particular property of the attribute group.

A table is generated for each attribute group and the table names are used for collection of historical data. The individual monitoring agent user guides contain complete descriptions of the attribute groups specific to that agent.

Warehouse proxy

Managed systems to which data collection configurations have been distributed send data to the Tivoli Data Warehouse through the warehouse proxy agent, a multi-threaded server process that can handle concurrent requests from multiple monitoring agents. If the warehouse proxy is not reachable, the agent tries the transmission at the next warehouse interval (next hour or next day, depending on the setting). If, at the next interval, the warehouse proxy does not send back its status during transmission, the transaction is restarted. Then the data is resent to the warehouse proxy after 15 minutes. If the warehouse proxy sends back a status indicating a failure, the transaction will be restarted at the next warehouse interval.

You can have multiple warehouse proxy agents in a monitored environment. Install multiple warehouse proxy agents in a large environment to spread the work of receiving historical data from the monitoring agents and inserting it into the warehouse database.

If you do not intend to save historical data to a data warehouse, you do not need to install and configure the warehouse proxy and the summarization and pruning agent. If the data warehouse is not used, then it is necessary to use additional programs to trim short-term history files.

Warehouse summarization and pruning

The warehouse summarization and pruning agent provides the ability to customize the length of time for which to save data (pruning), and how often to aggregate data (summarization) in the data warehouse. With summarized data, the performance of queries can be improved dramatically. And with data summarization and data pruning working together, the amount of disk space used can be better managed.

Warehouse summarization is controlled on a per-table (attribute group) basis. How the rows in each table are summarized is determined by a set of attributes in each table that are designated as primary keys. There is always one primary key, the ORIGINNODE (often called Server Name or System Name), which means that data is summarized by the managed resource. One or more additional primary keys are provided to further refine the level of summarization for that table. For example, in an OS agent disk table, a primary key might be the logical disk name, which allows historical information be reported for each logical disk in the computer.

There can be only one summarization and pruning agent in the managed environment; it connects directly to the Tivoli Data Warehouse.


Parent topic:

Manage historical data

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