IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Installation Guides > Agent Installation Guides > Linux Agent Installation Guide > Overview of the agent
IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2
New in this release
For version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 of the monitoring agent, enhancements include:
- The Tivoli Common Reporting data model exposes the Managed System List. You can use the Managed System List in combination with, or as an alternative to, the Managed System Name. This capability is available for custom reporting only and the specified metrics are aggregated using the default aggregation function.
- The Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers (Server Dashboards) managed system dashboard has new tabs: Properties, CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network. Several tabs have a new time selector bar for changing from real time to showing historical data; and the situation event results dashboard Details tab has a new time selector bar for setting a time range of data samples before or after the event time.
- The monitoring agent complies with the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2. This computer security standard requires stronger checksum algorithms (for example, SHA-256 and SHA-512) when you define situations for checking file changes.
- For the Utilization Details for Single Resource report, you can specify the resources to display (CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, or Process).
- An internal caching mechanism improves agent performance, in terms of response time and CPU consumption while collecting process information. The agent updates process information in cache, related to process PID, command, and arguments, every 120 seconds by default. To change the cache refresh time from this default value, specify the cache refresh value for the environment variable KLZ_PROCESS_CMD_SAMPLE_SECS (minimum valid value is 30 seconds). If the environment variable is set to 0, the internal caching mechanism is disabled.
For version 6.3 of the monitoring agent, enhancements include:
- New attributes, Processes Waiting RunTime and Processes Blocked State, added to the VM Stats attribute group. The Virtual Memory Information view of the Virtual Memory Statistics workspace displays data for the new attributes, Processes Waiting RunTime and Processes Blocked State.
- New attributes, LPAR Name, Maximum Physical CPUs, Number of Physical CPUs, added to the LPAR attribute group.
- New attribute, Virtual Machine Identifier, added to the Machine Information attribute group.
For attribute values calculated as an average of the cumulative CPU ticks between two samples, note that the sample time differs depending on how the agent is invoked to return the values. If the agent is invoked to return the values on-demand (for example, after a workspace refresh), the sample time is 30 secs. If, however, the agent is invoked to return the values by a situation or an historical collection request, the sample time is the same as that of the situation or of the collection interval. The affected attributes include:
- CPU attribute group: User CPU (Percent), User Nice CPU (Percent), System CPU (Percent), Idle CPU (Percent), Busy CPU (Percent), I/O Wait (Percent), User to System CPU (Percent), and Steal CPU (Percent) attributes
- CPU Averages attribute group: Estimated Days Until CPU Upgrade, Total CPU Used Current Average (Percent), Total CPU Used Moving Average (Percent), User Nice CPU Current Average (Percent), User Nice CPU Moving Average (Percent), User CPU Current Average (Percent), User CPU Moving Average (Percent), System CPU Current Average (Percent), System CPU Moving Average (Percent), Idle CPU (Percent), Idle CPU Moving Average (Percent), Wait CPU (Percent), and Wait CPU Moving Average (Percent) attributes
- LPAR attribute group: Total Steal Time (Percent) attribute
- Process attribute group: Process Instant Busy CPU (Percent) attribute
You can customize the attribute values by specifying two variables in the lz.ini file: KLZ_CPUSTAT_SAMPLE_SECS for the total CPU metrics (default value: 30 seconds), and KLZ_PROCESS_SAMPLE_SECS for the CPU metrics per process (default value: 60 seconds). If these variables are set to 0, the sampling interval is variable: the samples are taken when the requests come to the agent (for example, at each workspace refresh), and the sampling interval is the difference in time between last two samples (with a minimum of at least 5 seconds).
- The Summarization and Pruning agent automatically creates and maintains the shared dimensions tables. For instructions to enable this feature, see "Configuring the Summarization and Pruning agent to maintain the dimension tables" in the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Administrator's Guide. To enhance this feature for the OS Agents Reports package, the installer now prompts you to provide JDBC connection details and credentials for the TDW database. This RegisterPackage script execution step inserts data into the WAREHOUSETCRCONTROL table. After this step, the MANAGEDSYSTEM table and the TIME_DIMENSION table are kept up to date automatically by the Summarization and Pruning agent. However, if you opt not to use this feature and prefer, instead, to manually maintain the dimensions tables, skip this step. for instructions to perform any required manual steps, see "Manually creating and maintaining the dimension tables" in the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Administrator's Guide.
- The agent provides ComputerSystem and IPAddress resources for the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration Performance Monitoring (OSLC-PM) service provider. The service provider registers monitoring resources with the Registry Services. Registry Services is a Jazz for Service Management integration service that provides a shared data repository for products in an integrated service management environment.
- The IBM Tivoli Monitoring Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers is a web-based application that runs in the Dashboard Application Services Hub. The server dashboards give the overall status of the service areas in your managed network. Use the server dashboards to assess the event and system status of your managed network that is filtered by your area of responsibility. The information ranges from a high-level overview of all managed system groups and the situation events associated with them, to more detailed dashboards with key performance information about the selected group, managed system, or situation event.
Parent topic:
Overview of the agent