This section discusses general planning options for configuring the Management Site Services and some of the Novell ZENworks Server Management agents (alarms, servers, and traffic) on your network. This section also discusses how to plan and implement role-based administration.
Before installing the Management and Monitoring Services software, you must decide what information you need to manage your network effectively. This section contains the following topics to help you decide the kind of information you would need to manage your network.
This section also explains how to configure the Management and Monitoring Services.
This guide also contains specific information on planning server management and segment monitoring in the following sections:
Novell ZENworks Server Management is flexible to suit the business needs of different network configurations. You need to understand what information is needed by the groups in your organization and suitably deploy the software to meet those needs.
Typically, the groups in your company may consist of front-line help desk people, back-end information system administrators, and management-level coordinators, who need specific information for planning, budgeting, troubleshooting, and other issues.
For instance, one group might have a set of critical servers that need to be monitored round the clock. You might want real-time monitoring of these servers and receive notification when serious faults occur on these servers. Another example could be a need to generate weekly reports on server trends for a group of defined servers.
In order for Novell ZENworks Server Management to monitor and manage devices on your network, it must actively poll your network segments and devices on your network. Novell ZENworks Server Management performs polling of these network objects using standard protocols (SNMP, TCP/IP, and IPX).
The design of the Novell ZENworks Server Management components minimizes the impact on network performance by storing trending information on the servers hosting the SNMP and Remote Monitor (RMON) agents. Polling is directly performed by the management server based on requests coming from connected Novell ConsoleOne.
The Novell ZENworks Server Management system administrator should configure the polling frequency to provide an appropriate level of monitoring for the network environment. A good rule for setting appropriate levels of monitoring is to identify systems that are critical for the operation.
You can then group systems and segments into three basic management categories:
Mission critical: Segments and devices that need to be actively monitored. Monitoring should be set at a high polling frequency.
Important: Segments and devices that require less monitoring. These might be systems that host certain services that require a balance between polling overhead and performance. You should set the polling frequency to every few minutes, hours, or days.
Less important: Segments and devices that require no active monitoring. Polling can be done on-demand to monitor segments and devices, or set to poll infrequently.
Devices that are either not polled or polled infrequently can be configured to send alarms (traps) to the management server to notify errors occurring on the system.
The Management and Monitoring Services components rely on standard network protocols to communicate with devices on your network. In order to discover and accurately monitor your network and its devices, you need to ensure that the communication channels are consistent and well-configured.
The following sections discuss important aspects of your network configuration:
If you want to discover devices communicating over IP, ensure that they are configured with a valid IP address to enable you to manage the devices. TCP/IP must be bound on the designated Novell ConsoleOne workstations and IP must be bound on the management server. You can use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) addressing on Novell ConsoleOne workstation, but a static address must be assigned to the management server.
All devices communicating over IPX that you want to discover and manage must be configured with an IPX/SPX - compatible transport network software stack. NetWare and Windows drivers are included with the operating system installation software. ZENworks Server Management is compatible with the Novell IP Compatibility Mode Driver.
Verify that your NetWare and Windows servers and network device names are in place before you begin discovering your network. Name resolution can be in the form of local host files, an Novell eDirectory name, or a bindery table. The server names or hostnames are displayed in maps and configuration views rather than in IP or IPX addresses.
The SNMP agents and RMON agents for NetWare and Windows servers and other SNMP-enabled network devices require a community string to be identified on the device. You need to configure each SNMP-enabled device with a community string and trap target destination that includes that Novell ZENworks Server Management server.
The community strings are used to ensure secure communication between the manager and the agents. In order for the Novell ZENworks Server Management system to communicate with an agent, the community string on the manager and agent must be similar and use the same port. In order to prevent all users from accessing information it is required to change the community string.
If the GET and SET community strings are changed from PUBLIC, you need to change settings at Novell ConsoleOne and on the management server (load NXPCON > SNMP > Add/Edit Community Name) to match the names on your network. For details on how to change the community string, after installing the Management Services, see Changing the SNMP Community String.
For information on configuring the NetWare and Windows server agents, see Understanding Traffic Analysis.