IBM Performance Management

Configuring the Microsoft Cluster Server agent

You must configure the Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Cluster Server so that the agent can collect the cluster server data. Use the silent response file to configure the agent.

Before you begin

Ensure that you complete the following tasks:

Create an empty resource group for the agent.
Create a generic service cluster resource in the resource group of the agent on Windows Server 2008 and 2012 systems.
Ensure that the user, who connects to the Microsoft Cluster Server environment or application, has administrator privileges. Use an existing user with administrator privileges, or create a new user. Assign administrator privileges to the new user by adding the new user to the Administrators group.
Remember: To configure the Microsoft Cluster Server agent, you can use a local or a domain user provided that the user has administrator privileges.

About this task

The Microsoft Cluster Server agent is a single instance agent. You must install and configure the agent manually in the same way on each node in the cluster. To configure the agent, see Configuring the agent by using the silent response file.

Creating a generic service cluster resource on Windows Server 2008 and 2012 systems

You must add the cluster agent service as a resource so that the agent can monitor the cluster server.

Before you begin

Ensure that the agent is stopped on each node in the cluster.

Procedure

To create a generic service cluster resource, complete the following steps:

Open the Failover Cluster Manager on any one of the cluster nodes.
Complete one of the following steps:
- For Windows Server 2008:
  In the navigation pane, right-click Services And Applications, and click More Actions > Create Empty Service or Application. The new service is displayed in the services and applications list.
- For Windows Server 2012:
  In the navigation pane, right-click Roles, and click More Actions > Create Roles. The new service is displayed in the roles list.
Rename the newly created service.
Right-click the new service and click Add resource > Generic Service.
In the New Resource Wizard window, select Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Cluster Server and click Next.
Click Next in the subsequent windows until you see the Finish button.
Click Finish. The agent service is added as a resource.
Right-click Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Cluster Server resource and click Bring Resource Online.

Results

The agent is started on the preferred node.

Configuring the agent by using the silent response file

The silent response file contains the agent configuration parameters with default values defined for some parameters. You can edit the silent response file to configure the agent with different values for the configuration parameters.

Procedure

Open the silent response file that is available at this path: install_dir\samples\microsoft_cluster_server_silent_config.txt
For the CTIRA_HOSTNAME environment variable, specify the cluster name as a value.
On each cluster node, run the following command: install_dir\BIN\microsoft_cluster_server-agent.bat config install_dir\samples\microsoft_cluster_server_silent_config.txt

What to do next

Change the user account from the local user to the domain user.

Changing the user account

By default, the agent runs under the local user account. The agent must be run under the domain user so that the agent can monitor all nodes in the cluster from a single node.

Procedure

To change the user account, complete the following steps:

Open the IBM Performance Management window.
Right-click the agent and click Change Startup.
Enter the domain login credentials.
Open the Failover Cluster Manager on one of the nodes, and start the cluster service.

Results

The agent is started on the node.

What to do next

Log in to the Performance Management console to view the data that is collected by the agent in the dashboards. For information about using the Performance Management console, see Starting the Performance Management console.