| Frequently Asked Questions |
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Why is it important to monitor the performance of an IT infrastructure? |
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If your IT infrastructure supports mission-critical services, a minute of downtime could result in several thousand dollars of lost revenue or lost productivity. Monitoring the performance of your infrastructure can help detect potential problems before they become service impacting. A performance monitoring solution can:
• Proactively alert you to imminent problems, so you can take action before your users notice;
• Pinpoint problem areas in the infrastructure so you can focus on the real problems;
• Provide information on trends that can help you plan your future rollouts efficiently. |
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Why do I need to monitor my infrastructure end-to-end? |
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User complaints often relate to the service they perceive. For example, a user might say "my service access is slow" or that "my access to the server failed many times". As an administrator, you need to determine what is causing this problem. Without monitoring every layer of every tier of the infrastructure, you will not be able to pinpoint what is causing the problem. |
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Can I use a combination of tools to get the end-to-end picture? |
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For every tier of the infrastructure, you can find a tool specific to that tier. For example, a network monitoring tool, a storage monitoring tool, a database monitoring tool, and a Java monitoring tool. You can use a combination of these tools to get visibility into the IT infrastructure. However, as the administrator you will have to manually analyze metrics from these tools and correlate them to determine what is causing a service performance issue. This is a time-consuming, elaborate, and inefficient process. |
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How does eG Enterprise-on-Tap help me get the end-to-end picture? |
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eG Enterprise-on-Tap is a subscription service that includes all the capabilities of the eG Enterprise suite. eG agents or agentless monitors can be used to monitor every tier of the infrastructure. The metrics are analyzed in real-time, compared with their baselines, and alerts triggered whenever a baseline violation is detected. Alerts from the different tiers are correlated based on application inter-dependency information and the result of the correlation is a prioritization of alerts into the root-cause alerts (which are critical and must be attended to immediately) and their effects (which are of lower priority). Using this information, administrators can focus on where the root-cause of a problem lies and not be distracted by its effects. For details on the value proposition and capabilities of the eG Enterprise suite, please see http://www.eginnovations.com/web/products.htm. |
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Is this a service or a product? |
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eG Enterprise-on-Tap is a service that eG Innovations is making available to enterprises who require enterprise-class monitoring but do not want to go through the hassle of bringing a solution in-house and maintaining it. You can get a 30 day free trial of this service. During this period, you will have free access to metrics, reports, alerts, and will also get up to 4 hours of free performance consulting service. An optional performance audit report can be provided at the end of this period for a nominal fee. |
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How complicated is this service to set up? |
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Set up is fairly simple. You will install eG monitors (lightweight agents) on your key servers and these monitors will be configured to report real-time metrics to an eG manager we have hosted in the cloud. By logging into the eG web-based management console, you will be able to view metrics almost instantly. Installing and configuring a monitor is a very simple and straightforward process. It takes just a few minutes per server. |
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Do I need to open any firewalls for this service to work? |
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No. All the monitoring traffic communicated between the monitors and the management console is over web protocols (HTTP/HTTPS). Therefore, as long as you can browse a web site from within your network, the eG monitors deployed in your network should be able to work. |
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What platforms are supported for monitoring by this service? |
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The complete list of supported platforms is available from http://www.eginnovations.com/web/platforms.htm. |
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Does this service provide monitoring for physical and virtual infrastructures? |
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Yes, monitoring support is available for both physical and virtual infrastructures. |
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What virtualization platforms are supported? |
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Monitoring capabilities for seven virtualization platforms are available. The platforms supported include VMware vSphere, Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, AIX Logical Partitions (LPARs), Solaris LDOMs and Solaris Containers. |
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Is there a limit on the number of servers or applications that can be monitored during the free trial? |
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Yes. Up to 20 applications or servers can be monitored during the free trial. |
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What if I want to continue this service after the free trial? |
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We will be happy to continue to offer this service on a subscription basis after the initial trial period. You can contact the eG Innovations team at egontap@eginnovations.com to get more information on this service offering. |
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What if I want to own the monitoring software after the free trial? |
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After the free trial, you can decide to have the software installed on-site and owned by you. You can contact the eG Innovations team at egontap@eginnovations.com to get more information on this product offering. |
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I represent a value-added reseller. Can I use your service for my deployments? |
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Yes - absolutely. The eG Enterprise-on-Tap service is available to VARs as well. You can use the metrics from the monitoring service to prepare deployment assessments, for benchmarking the infrastructure, or for real-time troubleshooting of problems. You can contact the eG Innovations team at egontap@eginnovations.com to get more information on this service offering. |
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Do I need performance monitoring right from the deployment stage, or can I look at performance monitoring after some time? |
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Often, the success of a new service deployment depends on the experience of users accessing the service. Many times, a problem in the rest of the infrastructure (e.g., a network issue or a storage issue) may end up slowing the service, and result in user complaints. Having end-to-end monitoring in place right from the deployment stage will enable you to quickly pinpoint where the problem area is that is causing a service slowdown. Deploy the monitoring as early in the deployment as possible so you can ensure the success of your service deployment, and also have the performance baselines to make educated decisions on the best way to scale your service deployment. |
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