26 / 88
26
7X24 MAGAZINE FALL 2015
applications. in some
implementations, the set of these
applications can be controlled
through a single platform that
provides analytics and correlations
between the different events received
from these applications.
the fragmented bsM solution allows
for greater flexibility for the solution
developer to expand monitoring by
making it technology specific. this
can enrich the monitoring capabilities
with significant details. on the other
hand, each of the applications of the
same solution could have its own
licensing model – even though they
are part of the same bsM solution.
for example, you might have an
application licensed per monitoring
point, and another licensed per
device. Moreover, fragmented
solutions impose significant amount
of administrative overhead that might
require a dedicated support staff. in
some cases, support staff might
spend more time performing routine
administrative tasks, such as patching,
upgrading, troubleshooting internal
issues or unusual application behavior,
than actually delivering business
value. in addition, without a tight,
reliable and dynamic integration
between these applications, the bsM
solution might not deliver the
intended business value. these
factors contribute to higher costs
associated with such solutions.
a unified bsM solution, however, joins
the major functionalities of
monitoring, analysis and reporting
into a single platform with embedded
software modules. that is, there is no
specific software installed for server
monitoring and another for network
device monitoring. strategic
partnerships with the oeMs are a key
enabler to provide a unified solution,
as bsM solution providers can focus
on the most important metrics to
monitor directly from the devices or
applications. hence, it leaves out all
unnecessary details for the oeMs to
cover through their technology
specific management solutions. this is
a widely adopted approach, since
most of the complex technologies are
equipped with their own management
software, intended for very specific
installation, advanced administration
and management, and diagnostic and
troubleshooting tasks. nevertheless,
unified bsM solutions can still benefit
from oeM software through api
integrations and other means, if
deemed necessary for certain
business requirements. in general,
however, this is very rarely needed for
hpC data centers.
furthermore, unified bsM solutions
eliminate much of the training and
support overhead imposed by
fragmented solutions, resulting in less
cost of ownership (tCo). in addition,
they allow for functionality expansion
through integration with third-party
applications, especially when
considering an open-source
approach.
H. SOLUTION INTEGRITY AND
INTEGRATIONS WITH THIRD-
PARTY SOFTWARE
another important factor that plays an
important role on the selection of a
bsM solution is its integrity and
integration offerings with third-party
software allowing for functionality and
capability expansion. the genuine
integrity between different
components of a fragmented bsM
solution is crucial to deliver optimal
business value. some solutions
require an additional integration
module for each of its applications,
adding more complexity to the
solution architecture. such
requirements, in turn, introduce even
more integrity and reliability concerns
to the whole platform. these
integration points within the same
platform might also require additional
licenses and, hence, additional
associated costs. unified bsM
solutions are not impacted by this
issue since essential components are
already integrated within the bsM
platform.
integration with third-party
monitoring, configuration
management and systems
management solutions expand the
functionality and capabilities of the
monitoring solution. thus, it is
important to understand the available
integration offerings of the bsM
solution and how they could be
utilized. in an hpC environment,
integration with the jobs scheduler
and resource management system,
such as pbs and univa Grid engine,
as well as an hpC configurations
management solution, such as
puppet, add important details about
what is happening in the hpC
environment and help the bsM to
create better correlation between
events – both from systems and
applications. it is worth noting that
such integration is beneficial in both
fragmented and unified bsM
solutions, even though some vendors
might promote the opposite and rely
solely on their product. also, it is
important to understand how these
vendors make such integration
offerings and whether they require
additional licenses or software
installations. the most practical
approach for such integrations is to
use out-of-the-box apis and perform
customizations as deemed necessary.
Most propriety solutions, which are
also fragmented, require special
licenses and software components for
integration with third-party
application.
I. CMDB CONSIDERATIONS
Configuration Management database
(CMdb) is a fundamental part of any
bsM solution. it serves as a data
warehouse about all of the data
center components, both physical and