Blog Entry
4509
Updated: Identity Manager Driver Health & Statistics
Updated: This iManager plug-in will be part of a milestone release after the release of Antelope (IDM 3.5.1).
Identity Manager users have requested UI that presents a driver's health. Access to specific driver cache statistics has been added to the 3.5.1 release of Identity Manager. The IDM administration team has developed new driver health and statistics UI in iManager that reads the driver and server and presents health information. The following describes the new UI.
Driver Health & Statistics
The driver set graphic view now includes a health semaphore on the driver icon. The semaphore represents the health of the driver as configured by the administrator. If the health thresholds are not configured for the driver, the semaphore does not display.
Clicking on the semaphore will display the health and statistics dialog.
The Driver Health and Statistics dialog shows the driver cache file and related details. The cache file size is dynamic, by default, therefore, the graph representing it's size will fluctuate depending on the percentage of space consumed by the unprocessed transactions. The dialog also includes the current semaphore light, similar to the driver icon.
The bottom section represents the detail of the driver cache file. This section includes the unprocessed transactions total and a bar graph for each transaction. These include: add, remove, modify, move, rename, resync entry, request resync, and custom.
Driver Health Configuration
The Green and Yellow states of the driver health semaphore can be configured. If the conditions of the Green light fail, the semaphore changes to the Yellow light. If the conditions of the Yellow light fail, it switches to the Red light. No conditions are set for the Red light. Therefore, an administrator can define what conditions determine when a Green or Yellow light will display. They are configured in the “Health Configuration” option in the contextual menu when clicking on the driver state icon.
Driver Health & Statistics Dashboard
Also included in the UI is a dashboard view of all the drivers in a driver set. For each driver, a Health & Statistics window is displayed. You can set the refresh to continually refresh all the windows on the page. A user can also change the display to 1, 2, 3, or 4 columns, depending upon the resolution of the user's monitor.
The idea behind this UI is to expose known driver functionality so that Identity Manager experts and administrators can start learning about how their drivers are working. Over time, this knowledge can help when troubleshooting a specific driver problem.
Any feedback or comments on this new UI is anticipated and greatly appreciated.
Related Articles
User Comments
This is great. Health has
Submitted by Eric (not verified) on 26 September 2007 - 3:09pm.
This is great. Health has always been an issue. But - in our environment, we expect to have several IDM servers with dozens of drivers. Will there be an API of some sort to retrieve these statistics programatically (i.e. SOAP call or similar)? We will want to incorporate this data into our enterprise monitoring solution, as well as our custom "10 foot" interface.
Also - when will the Antelope release be jumping into Beta? (sorry - couldn't resist)
thanks!
Eric
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
The UI looks good as far as
Submitted by Jesse Pretorius (not verified) on 26 September 2007 - 10:46pm.
The UI looks good as far as I can see. A few comments:
1) The drivers that many people typically import should include some default health settings so ensure that there's appropriate awareness of this feature and that people who aren't experts can have some confidence that their driver is working ok.
2) The semaphore status should be made available via SNMP so that external management tools can set alerts relating to the status.
3) The data provided by the UI should also be made available via SNMP so that external management tools can monitor usage trends for capacity management purposes.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Hello! That's really
Submitted by Reza Kalfane (not verified) on 26 September 2007 - 11:38pm.
Hello!
That's really excellent, well done! I know a lot of customers interested in seeing cache details. Here it's even very well presented!
Cheers,
Reza
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
This looks like it will be
Submitted by Eric (not verified) on 27 September 2007 - 5:55am.
This looks like it will be useful, thank you.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
This looks great and was
Submitted by Rob Rawson (not verified) on 27 September 2007 - 6:02am.
This looks great and was long overdue. Can this also be configured to send alerts via eMail and/or SNMP?
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Very impressive!
Submitted by Mike Jones (not verified) on 27 September 2007 - 1:00pm.
Very impressive!
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
When will it be released and
Submitted by Mike Jones (not verified) on 27 September 2007 - 1:12pm.
When will it be released and will it work on previous versions of IDM?
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Hey Mike, this is new
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 27 September 2007 - 2:12pm.
Hey Mike,
this is new functionality that has been added to the IDM engine for the 3.5.1 release. It will not work on previous versions of IDM.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
1) We had this same thought
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 27 September 2007 - 2:37pm.
1) We had this same thought and have been discussing it with the driver owners. You've confirmed the need for a default health setting for each driver.
2) The semaphore configuration and evaluation code is part of the iManager plug-in. This is meant to be a stake in the ground to start given users more information about their drivers. Any higher-end monitoring and auditing will possibly be part of a future Sentinel offering.
3) This functionality will be new in the 3.5.1 release. The API exists, but currently we do not have anything written for SNMP. You, of course, can write custom software using LDAP to get at the same information the iManager plug-in uses to generate this UI.
Thank you for your comments. They are very valuable.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
The iManager plug-in will be
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 27 September 2007 - 2:41pm.
The iManager plug-in will be in a milestone release after the release of Antelope (3.5.1).
This functionality will be new in 3.5.1. The API exists, but we currently do not have anything written for SNMP. You, of course, can write custom software using LDAP to get at the same information the iManager plug-in uses to generate this UI.
This is meant to be a stake in the ground to start giving users more information about their drivers.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Sounds good. Any idea of
Submitted by Ferdie (not verified) on 27 September 2007 - 10:14pm.
Sounds good.
Any idea of the performance impact that these new features would have?
A TPS indication for the last 5 minutes - hour would also be a good metric to track and report.
Will we see a function that allows for drill down into unprocessed transactions - via this UI?
F
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Ferdie, thanks for your
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 28 September 2007 - 7:00am.
Ferdie,
thanks for your input. One of the engineers mentioned the performance hit will likely be unmeasurable. Regarding unprocessed transactions, you can view the unprocessed transactions in the cache in the Driver Health & Statistics dialog above.
Regards,
Lynn
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Some things that I would
Submitted by Eric (not verified) on 30 September 2007 - 4:04pm.
Some things that I would like to see on the main screen would be visual indicators that data is actually being processed. We've had a variety of situations where the driver was just fine, but no data was moving through. Perhaps some sort of moving indicator instead of a static "pipe" between the driver icon and the IDvault image. Or something that indicates how many minutes since the last processed transaction. Definitely would like a "10 foot" view.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Will I be able to tag
Submitted by David Hasselbach (not verified) on 1 October 2007 - 10:46am.
Will I be able to tag attributes to be monitored using this process as well?
Example: 50 surname changes, 10 jobcodes, etc.
Can I hook into this process to enable other workflows?
Example: 2000 delete requests. Action; stop driver, send email/page to admin asking for approval. Once approved, restart driver.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
The transactions in the
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 1 October 2007 - 3:26pm.
The transactions in the cache is a raw number and not assoicated with specific attributes. Therefore, you will not be able to specify attributes for monitoring from here. Specific monitoring like this is within the realm of our Sentinel product.
Concerning workflows, a 2000 remove threshold can be set on a driver, but the only action is to change the semaphore "light." Your workflow request is within our scope so I'll suggest the Actions (stop driver, email, etc.) to the development team for future functionality.
Thanks.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
While I appreciate that
Submitted by Jesse Pretorius (not verified) on 1 October 2007 - 8:48pm.
While I appreciate that integration with Sentinal will be your first port of call, please do not ignore SNMP access to the information. By ignoring SNMP access you effectively exclude IDM from every other management product on the markeplace - making it a less desirable player in some circles.
By all means, do the Sentinal integration first, but don't let SNMP reads fall off the list.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Thanks for you valued input.
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 2 October 2007 - 7:18am.
Thanks for you valued input. I'll add the SNMP feature to our feature request list.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
This is fantastic. Two
Submitted by Claude French (not verified) on 4 October 2007 - 10:59am.
This is fantastic. Two questions....
- Is this available?
- What version of IDM does this work with?
- Where can I get it?
Thanks,
Claude
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Claude, 1. This iManager
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 4 October 2007 - 1:49pm.
Claude,
1. This iManager plug-in will be available in the next few months in a milestone release that you can download and install into iManager 2.7. We are in the process of cleaning up and testing the UI.
2. It works only with IDM 3.5.1 that was just released.
3. It will be available out on our iManager modules download site
(http://www.novell.com/products/consoles/imanager/o...) Select Download > iManager Modules
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Yes, the API will be
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 18 October 2007 - 8:51am.
Yes, the API will be eventually documented.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
When i install IDM 3.5.1,
Submitted by Vijay (not verified) on 20 February 2008 - 5:22am.
When i install IDM 3.5.1, iManager 2.7 with the IDM3.5.1 plug-in i don't see the same look and feel what you've give here.
what should be the reason?
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Hi Vijay, here is the URL
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 20 February 2008 - 2:58pm.
Hi Vijay,
here is the URL were you can download the IDM 3.6 plug-ins for iManager 2.6 or 2.7 that include the Health and Statistics content.
http://cdn.novell.com/cached/designer/imanager_plu...
http://cdn.novell.com/cached/designer/imanager_plu...
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Hey Ferdie, looking into
Submitted by Lynn Christensen (not verified) on 20 February 2008 - 3:30pm.
Hey Ferdie,
looking into the idea that you mentioned about a TPS indication (transactions/sec), we are implementing a feature to show historic transactions. This will be a simple number of transactions over a selected period of time, but not specific trans/sec.
Thanks again,
Lynn
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Lynn, Thanks. I'm expecting
Submitted by Vijay (not verified) on 29 February 2008 - 6:10am.
Lynn,
Thanks. I'm expecting for few feature which Engineering agreed to fix and said its part of IDM 3.6 FC plugin. can i get that version of plugin?
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
You mention that the API
Submitted by Matt (not verified) on 9 April 2008 - 7:14am.
You mention that the API exists in 3.5.1 and that we can use LDAP calls to get the information that drives the GUI. However, I cannot find mention of either the API or LDAP attributes in the documentation for IDM 3.5.1.
Where are these features documented? How do I pull these metrics using LDAP calls?
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
Is there a schema extension
Submitted by Jonathan (not verified) on 4 June 2008 - 9:08am.
Is there a schema extension needed to see the Health check. I have IDM 3.5.1 running and the iMan plugin listed above. I can't access the Health Check config part because it says a schema extension is needed.
I have a development tree which I thought was setup the same and it has access.
- Be the first to comment! To leave a comment you need to Login or Register
28