Hi everyone,
I have a requirement to monitor some 2 node Windows 2003 File Clusters . I would like to monitor them with BBWin but I have the following questions:
- Should I install the bbwin client on both nodes and activate only one of the nodes for monitoring? With this setup I miss monitoring the local C/D drives on each node.
- Is it possible to make bbwin a clustered application? (i.e. one that would failover using the MS clustering mechanism)
- The cluster.exe supplied with the bbwin package only shows the cluster groups, not the individual items within the groups. Has anyone written any extended cluster checks that they would possibly share with me? If not I can write my own. I'm sure I can get this information with WMI.
At the moment I setup the bbwin client on one of the nodes and then change the registry entry to use the cluster name (i.e I install on a node fileclus1n1 and change the registry key to fileclus1). Is this the correct way to setup the monitoring? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I realise the question should probably be on the BBWIN mailing list, but I thought I would have more chance of getting a reply on this list.
Thanks in advance
Padraig Lennon Senior Systems Engineer Production Services Pioneer Global Investments (Dublin) 5th Floor Georges Quay Plaza, Dublin 2 ext: 2081 Direct dial: 00353 1 480 2081
On Tuesday 03 June 2008 13:13:56 Lennon, Padraig wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have a requirement to monitor some 2 node Windows 2003 File Clusters . I would like to monitor them with BBWin but I have the following questions:
- Should I install the bbwin client on both nodes and activate only one of the nodes for monitoring? With this setup I miss monitoring the local C/D drives on each node.
- Is it possible to make bbwin a clustered application? (i.e. one that would failover using the MS clustering mechanism)
- The cluster.exe supplied with the bbwin package only shows the cluster groups, not the individual items within the groups. Has anyone written any extended cluster checks that they would possibly share with me? If not I can write my own. I'm sure I can get this information with WMI.
At the moment I setup the bbwin client on one of the nodes and then change the registry entry to use the cluster name (i.e I install on a node fileclus1n1 and change the registry key to fileclus1). Is this the correct way to setup the monitoring? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I realise the question should probably be on the BBWIN mailing list, but I thought I would have more chance of getting a reply on this list.
How you monitor clustered nodes does not depend on the monitoring software (or even the OS).
What we typically do is monitor the infrastructure aspects (disk, cpu, memory, cluster middleware) on all cluster nodes, and the clustered services (e.g. database, IP addresses, applications etc.) independently (e.g. with the cluster group name).
I am doing this with Windows, Solaris and Linux clusters.
Regards, Buchan
Hi Buchan,
Could you give me an example of how you would monitor cluster resources on the Windows side using the cluster group? What setup would you need? Do you use the cluster.exe that is bundled with bbwin?
Thanks for your help
Padraig Lennon Senior Systems Engineer Production Services Pioneer Global Investments (Dublin) 5th Floor Georges Quay Plaza, Dublin 2 ext: 2081 Direct dial: 00353 1 480 2081
-----Original Message----- From: Buchan Milne [mailto:bgmilne at staff.telkomsa.net] Sent: 03 June 2008 13:57 To: hobbit at hswn.dk Cc: Lennon, Padraig Subject: Re: [hobbit] Windows Cluster Monitoring Advice
On Tuesday 03 June 2008 13:13:56 Lennon, Padraig wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have a requirement to monitor some 2 node Windows 2003 File Clusters . I would like to monitor them with BBWin but I have the following questions:
- Should I install the bbwin client on both nodes and activate only one of the nodes for monitoring? With this setup I miss monitoring the local C/D drives on each node.
- Is it possible to make bbwin a clustered application? (i.e. one that would failover using the MS clustering mechanism)
- The cluster.exe supplied with the bbwin package only shows the cluster groups, not the individual items within the groups. Has anyone written any extended cluster checks that they would possibly share with me? If not I can write my own. I'm sure I can get this information with WMI.
At the moment I setup the bbwin client on one of the nodes and then change the registry entry to use the cluster name (i.e I install on a node fileclus1n1 and change the registry key to fileclus1). Is this the correct way to setup the monitoring? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I realise the question should probably be on the BBWIN mailing list, but I thought I would have more chance of getting a reply on this list.
How you monitor clustered nodes does not depend on the monitoring software (or even the OS).
What we typically do is monitor the infrastructure aspects (disk, cpu, memory, cluster middleware) on all cluster nodes, and the clustered services (e.g. database, IP addresses, applications etc.) independently (e.g. with the cluster group name).
I am doing this with Windows, Solaris and Linux clusters.
Regards, Buchan
Hello Padraig,
2008/6/3 Lennon, Padraig <Padraig.Lennon at pioneerinvestments.com>:
Hi everyone,
I have a requirement to monitor some 2 node Windows 2003 File Clusters . I would like to monitor them with BBWin but I have the following questions:
Should I install the bbwin client on both nodes and activate only one of the nodes for monitoring? With this setup I miss monitoring the local C/D drives on each node. Is it possible to make bbwin a clustered application? (i.e. one that would failover using the MS clustering mechanism) The cluster.exe supplied with the bbwin package only shows the cluster groups, not the individual items within the groups. Has anyone written any extended cluster checks that they would possibly share with me? If not I can write my own. I'm sure I can get this information with WMI.
At the moment I setup the bbwin client on one of the nodes and then change the registry entry to use the cluster name (i.e I install on a node fileclus1n1 and change the registry key to fileclus1). Is this the correct way to setup the monitoring? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I realise the question should probably be on the BBWIN mailing list, but I thought I would have more chance of getting a reply on this list.
This is how I monitor MSCS clusters. I install BBWin on both nodes. I also install the cluster.exe external to be run on both nodes.
The cluster.exe external will check that every resource of the MSCS cluster is online. If the node switch to the other node, you will get an alarm on it until you acknowledge the alarm by deleting a temporary file on each node.
I hope it will be enough for you.
Regards,
-- Etienne GRIGNON
Thanks Etienne,
I have implemented those changes.. All look good. How do you deal with event log errors? I was thinking a combo test would work..
A few other issues:
Say I wanted to monitor a shared disk F: on the cluster. The shared drive is 1TB in size. For the moment the disk is on node1 of the cluster. Now I want to alert only when the disk gets to 50gb left. This is easy to do in the bbwin.cfg file on node1.
Suppose now we have a failover of the resource to node2. It has no idea about the 50gb limit and back on node1 it is in an alert status because it can't find the F: drive.
How do I get around this?
Thanks for your help
Padraig Lennon Senior Systems Engineer Production Services Pioneer Global Investments (Dublin) 5th Floor Georges Quay Plaza, Dublin 2 ext: 2081 Direct dial: 00353 1 480 2081
-----Original Message----- From: Etienne Grignon [mailto:etienne.grignon at gmail.com] Sent: 03 June 2008 22:21 To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Windows Cluster Monitoring Advice
Hello Padraig,
2008/6/3 Lennon, Padraig <Padraig.Lennon at pioneerinvestments.com>:
Hi everyone,
I have a requirement to monitor some 2 node Windows 2003 File Clusters . I would like to monitor them with BBWin but I have the following questions:
Should I install the bbwin client on both nodes and activate only one of the nodes for monitoring? With this setup I miss monitoring the local C/D drives on each node. Is it possible to make bbwin a clustered application? (i.e. one that would failover using the MS clustering mechanism) The cluster.exe supplied with the bbwin package only shows the cluster groups, not the individual items within the groups. Has anyone written any extended cluster checks that they would possibly share with me? If not I can write my own. I'm sure I can get this information with WMI.
At the moment I setup the bbwin client on one of the nodes and then change the registry entry to use the cluster name (i.e I install on a node fileclus1n1 and change the registry key to fileclus1). Is this the correct way to setup the monitoring? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I realise the question should probably be on the BBWIN mailing list, but I thought I would have more chance of getting a reply on this list.
This is how I monitor MSCS clusters. I install BBWin on both nodes. I also install the cluster.exe external to be run on both nodes.
The cluster.exe external will check that every resource of the MSCS cluster is online. If the node switch to the other node, you will get an alarm on it until you acknowledge the alarm by deleting a temporary file on each node.
I hope it will be enough for you.
Regards,
-- Etienne GRIGNON
To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk
Hi Padraig,
2008/6/5 Lennon, Padraig <Padraig.Lennon at pioneerinvestments.com>:
Thanks Etienne,
I have implemented those changes.. All look good. How do you deal with event log errors? I was thinking a combo test would work..
A few other issues:
Say I wanted to monitor a shared disk F: on the cluster. The shared drive is 1TB in size. For the moment the disk is on node1 of the cluster. Now I want to alert only when the disk gets to 50gb left. This is easy to do in the bbwin.cfg file on node1.
Suppose now we have a failover of the resource to node2. It has no idea about the 50gb limit and back on node1 it is in an alert status because it can't find the F: drive.
How do I get around this?
You will have to comment the line in bbwin.cfg on node 2 until the second node becomes the active node. It is a manual action which is not a good idea I know but there are no other alternatives for that. However, you can try to remove the specific F rule and change the default rules in % to be sure you will always have 50g left on your F: drive so you won't get alerts on the second node because the F: drive is missing.
Regards,
-- Etienne GRIGNON
Thanks Etienne,
Padraig Lennon Senior Systems Engineer Production Services Pioneer Global Investments (Dublin) 5th Floor Georges Quay Plaza, Dublin 2 ext: 2081 Direct dial: 00353 1 480 2081
-----Original Message----- From: Etienne Grignon [mailto:etienne.grignon at gmail.com] Sent: 11 June 2008 10:09 To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Windows Cluster Monitoring Advice
Hi Padraig,
2008/6/5 Lennon, Padraig <Padraig.Lennon at pioneerinvestments.com>:
Thanks Etienne,
I have implemented those changes.. All look good. How do you deal with event log errors? I was thinking a combo test would work..
A few other issues:
Say I wanted to monitor a shared disk F: on the cluster. The shared drive is 1TB in size. For the moment the disk is on node1 of the cluster. Now I want to alert only when the disk gets to 50gb left. This is easy to do in the bbwin.cfg file on node1.
Suppose now we have a failover of the resource to node2. It has no idea about the 50gb limit and back on node1 it is in an alert status because it can't find the F: drive.
How do I get around this?
You will have to comment the line in bbwin.cfg on node 2 until the second node becomes the active node. It is a manual action which is not a good idea I know but there are no other alternatives for that. However, you can try to remove the specific F rule and change the default rules in % to be sure you will always have 50g left on your F: drive so you won't get alerts on the second node because the F: drive is missing.
Regards,
-- Etienne GRIGNON
To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk
Hello,
I too am using bbwin extensively to monitor our windows environment, and we have several clusters. In a windows cluster, monitoring some services per-client will work (especially for tcp monitors), but it is not an ideal solution for several reasons:
Active-passive clusters have services and ports that will be running on one node but not the other, making these impossible to monitor. Bbcombotest can sort of be used, but it does not work very well for this.
I have yet to get the file checks to work, but checking a file on a shared drive wouldn't work
externals.exe to monitor the cluster is nice but there are times when the cluster is "fine" according to cluster manager, but a shared disk is not accessible.
I had an idea to monitor clusters, and was wondering about the feasibility: Re-add the HOSTNAME configuration entry into the bbwin.cfg file, and run two instances of bbwin.exe on the client. One would be the default (reading the hostname from the machine), and the other would be manually configured in the .cfg to the cluster name. This is currently not possible because the hostname can only be overridden in the registry, where both bbwin instances reference.
I don't have a development environment set up to test this myself, but in theory it should work.
Aaron Zink Corporate IT Manager eHarmony.com 626.795.4814
- Aaron Zink
-----Original Message----- From: Lennon, Padraig [mailto:Padraig.Lennon at pioneerinvestments.com] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 03:50 To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: RE: [hobbit] Windows Cluster Monitoring Advice
Thanks Etienne,
Padraig Lennon Senior Systems Engineer Production Services Pioneer Global Investments (Dublin) 5th Floor Georges Quay Plaza, Dublin 2 ext: 2081 Direct dial: 00353 1 480 2081
-----Original Message----- From: Etienne Grignon [mailto:etienne.grignon at gmail.com] Sent: 11 June 2008 10:09 To: hobbit at hswn.dk Subject: Re: [hobbit] Windows Cluster Monitoring Advice
Hi Padraig,
2008/6/5 Lennon, Padraig <Padraig.Lennon at pioneerinvestments.com>:
Thanks Etienne,
I have implemented those changes.. All look good. How do you deal with event log errors? I was thinking a combo test would work..
A few other issues:
Say I wanted to monitor a shared disk F: on the cluster. The shared drive is 1TB in size. For the moment the disk is on node1 of the cluster. Now I want to alert only when the disk gets to 50gb left. This is easy to do in the bbwin.cfg file on node1.
Suppose now we have a failover of the resource to node2. It has no idea about the 50gb limit and back on node1 it is in an alert status because it can't find the F: drive.
How do I get around this?
You will have to comment the line in bbwin.cfg on node 2 until the second node becomes the active node. It is a manual action which is not a good idea I know but there are no other alternatives for that. However, you can try to remove the specific F rule and change the default rules in % to be sure you will always have 50g left on your F: drive so you won't get alerts on the second node because the F: drive is missing.
Regards,
-- Etienne GRIGNON
To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk
participants (4)
-
AaronZink＠eharmony.com
-
bgmilne＠staff.telkomsa.net
-
etienne.grignon＠gmail.com
-
Padraig.Lennon＠pioneerinvestments.com