Guardium Installation Manager

You can use the Guardium® Installation manager (GIM) to install and maintain Guardium components on managed servers.

The GIM component includes a GIM server, which is installed as part of the Guardium system, and a GIM client, which must be installed on servers that host databases or file systems that you want to monitor. The GIM client is a set of Perl scripts that run on each managed server. After you install the GIM client, it works with the GIM server to perform these tasks:
  • Check for updates to installed software
  • Transfer and install new software
  • Uninstall software
  • Update software parameters
  • Monitor and stop processes that run on the database server
For example, you can use GIM to install your S-TAP modules and keep them up-to-date.

The GIM client uses port 8444 to communicate with the GIM server.

You can use the GIM server through the Guardium user interface or through the command-line interface (CLI).

The software modules that you can deploy by using GIM are packaged as GIM bundles. A bundle is a file of type gim that contains software that can be deployed by using GIM.

If your environment includes a Guardium system that is configured as a central manager, you must decide which Guardium systems you want to use as GIM servers. You can either manage all of your GIM clients, up to 4000, from a single Guardium system, such as the central manager, or you can manage them in groups from the different Guardium systems. If you manage all of your GIM clients from a single Guardium system, then you can view the status of all the GIM clients and perform related tasks from that one UI. If you choose to manage your GIM clients in groups from separate Guardium systems, then you can use each UI to work with the GIM clients that it manages; no overall view is available. You can view each GIM client only from the Guardium system that functions as its GIM server.

To manage large numbers of GIM installations, you can create groups of GIM clients. Then, you can use the groups to install, update, and manage software bundles.

The GIM client monitors the processes that you install by using GIM. It checks the heartbeat of each process once each minute, and passes status changes for the processes to the GIM server. The status of each process is displayed on the Process Monitoring panel. Changes are reflected within three minutes. Changes to the status of the GIM client itself are reflected according to the interval at which the client polls the server and delivers its alive message.

Note: When performing a system backup and restore from one server, which has GIM defined, to another server, then the user must configure a GIM failover to the restore server. This GIM configuration applies to a Backup Central Manager or a System backup and restore.