Cooking with Systems Director
As a Systems Administrator you may have heard of IBM Systems Director 6, you may even have seen a presentation on it but have you wondered:
- What its like to actually use?
- What are the key features for POWER and AIX?
- How will it save me systems administration time and reduce weekend working?
- What do I need to run it and how do I get started?
Well .... it is best to let the product talk for itself via a series of live hand-on demonstration of Systems Director focused on AIX and POWER systems.
So we are running a series of such sessions:
- Session 1: 5th August 2010 - A quick look around Systems Director running on AIX and the main features
- Download the Replay Cooking1_part1.zip
Cooking1_part2.zip - only in two parts to get under the 20MB Wiki limit.
- On Windows: Unzip both parts in one new directory, drag and drop the top directory file "play.htm" into Internet Explorer 8.
- You may get the "JavaScript blocked message" - you will have to click the top of the page message and allow it to run for this replay.
- The sound quality is low (it sounds like I have a sore throat) but it keeps the file size down.
- Session 2: 19th August 2010 - Installing Systems Director on AIX
- Session 3: 2nd September 2010 - Active Energy Manager
- Session 4: 9th September 2010 - Health Checks, Performance, CEC monitoring
- Session 5: 23rd September 2010 - Drill Down and Up
- Session 6: 7th October 2010 - Automation plans
- Cooking6_Automation_Plans.pdf these are the slides used and a series of screen dumps of the demo.
- Replay http://public.dhe.ibm.com/systems/power/community/aix/Cooking_with_Systems_Director/Cooking6_utomation_Plans.zip
On Windows: Unzip, The drag and drop the top directory file "play.htm" into Internet Explorer 8.
- You may get the "JavaScript blocked message" - you will have to click the top of the page message and allow it to run for this replay.
- The below is from and Event Action with path "/usr/lbin/" and program "catcher &text". This variable &text is the same text message that you can find on the Systems Director - Problems List Panel and details column.
- Below is my generic filesystem script to growing any filesystem - chfs is only echoed here for testing.
- '''One logical bomb here: it /tmp is 100% full then first the events can't be logged and second the chfs AIX command will fail too (I have pointed this out to then AIX developers and they commented "good point lets fix this").'''
echo Parameters $* >>/tmp/events
filesystem=`echo $2 | awk '{print $8 }'`
echo Filesystem is $filesystem >>/tmp/events
echo Current Size ${18} MB>>/tmp/events
echo Could run chfs -asize=+8M $filesystem >>/tmp/events
date >>/tmp/events
echo "--------" >>/tmp/events
- Below is a sample of the log file:
Parameters Monitor Individual threshold for Available Space of Filesystem /tmp (Megabytes)
on system diamond8.aixncc.uk.ibm.com Low Warning: MetricValue has been below or equal to
64 for 0:00:29. Value reported is 25
Filesystem is /tmp
Current Size 25 MB
Could run chfs -asize=+8M /tmp
Wed Oct 6 13:52:21 BST 2010
--------
Parameters Monitor Individual threshold for Available Space of Filesystem /home (Megabytes)
on system diamond8.aixncc.uk.ibm.com Low Warning: MetricValue has been below or equal to
1000 for 0:00:30. Value reported is 596
Filesystem is /home
Current Size 596 MB
Could run chfs -asize=+8M /home
Thu Oct 7 10:06:38 BST 2010
--------
Parameters Monitor Individual threshold for Available Space of Filesystem /tmp (Megabytes) on
system diamond8.aixncc.uk.ibm.com Low Warning: MetricValue has been below or equal to
64 for 0:00:52. Value reported is 25
Filesystem is /tmp
Current Size 25 MB
Could run chfs -asize=+8M /tmp
Thu Oct 7 10:46:22 BST 2010
--------
- Note the second parameter is the &test details and contains lots of fields hence the awk picking out the 8th string = the file systems name for later use in the script.
- Example of parameter two is "Individual threshold for Available Space of Filesystem /home (Megabytes) on system diamond8.aixncc.uk.ibm.com"
- No more sessions
Possible future sessions:
Access:
- This will involve using the web based Genesys Conferencing Webinar conference system which includes Voice Over IP so this is zero cost to you.
- A small tools needs to be download for this VoIP service otherwise you can use a phone for audio while watching the web session on screen.
Who:
 |
Nigel Griffiths on the EMEA Power Systems Advanced Technology Support has been using
Systems Director 6 for a couple of years and uses it to manage our internal systems and save time too |
Longer term:
- These sessions are aimed at being techie to techie and in a dynamic cookbook style.
- You may want to install Systems Director after the second session and then follow along with the "master cook" to fully learn the recipes.
- As this format is a little experimental we look forward to your feedback and suggestions.
- If you are really keen you can download Systems Director 6 from http://www.ibm.com/systems/software/director/resources.html it is free but you need to get yourself a IBM Id but that takes only a minute or so.
To Sign Up send email:
- to nag at uk dot ibm dot com
- subject line: Cooking with Systems Director
and you will get an email invitation and instructions to follow - we recommend the use of a headset.
If you miss a session the don't panic we plan to save the live sessions and put the Replay Downloads.
!