VM Connectivity Test

Sometimes, an LPAR could be in a powered-on state, but the failure of the LPAR operating system or any fatal error in LPAR operations could have rendered the LPAR inaccessible to users. In order to enable administrators to promptly detect such ‘hidden’ anomalies, the eG agent periodically runs a connectivity check on each VM using the VM Connectivity test, and reports whether the VM is accessible over the network or not.

Target of the test : An IBM pSeries server

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each LPAR configured on the pSeries server being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed

Host

The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.

Port

Indicate the port at which the specified Host listens. By default, this is NULL.

Real ServerName

Specify the name of the pSeries server in the Real ServerName text box. If the target pSeries server has been auto-discovered using HMC, the server name will be set automatically in the Real ServerName text box. However, while configuring this test for a pSeries server that has been manually added, you have to explicitly provide the server name in the Real ServerName text box.

Note:

To obtain the real server name, a user can login to the target pSeries server as a valid pSeries user, go to the shell prompt of the server, and execute the following command: lssyscfg - r sys -F name

Is Managed By

By selecting an option from the Is Managed By list, indicate whether the target pSeries server is managed using an HMC server or an IVM (Integrated Virtual Manager) server. If the target server has been auto-discovered via an HMC server, the HMC option will be automatically chosen from this list.

Management Server, Management User, Management Password

This test connects to an HMC/IVM server to perform LPAR discovery and to collect host-level and "outside view" metrics from the pSeries server. To enable this communication, first, provide the IP address/host name of the HMC/IVM server in the Management Server text box. If the eG manager had automatically discovered the target pSeries server by connecting to an HMC server in the environment, then, the IP address/host name and user credentials pertaining to that HMC server will be automatically displayed in the Management Server, Management User, and Management Password text boxes.

However, if the pSeries server being monitored was manually added to the eG Enterprise system (and not auto-discovered via the HMC server), then, you will have to explicitly indicate whether the target pSeries server is managed by an HMC server or an IVM server by selecting an option from the Is Managed By list. If the HMC option is chosen, then, you will have to provide the IP address of the HMC server that manages the target pSeries server in the Management Server text box. In such a case, in the Management User and Management Password text boxes, you will have to provide the credentials of an HMC user who is assigned the hmcviewer role.

On the other hand, if the IVM option is chosen from the Is Managed By list, it implies that the IP address/host name and user credentials pertaining to that IVM server has to be explicitly provided in the Management Server, Management User, and Management Password text boxes.

Confirm Password

Confirm the HMC Password by retyping it here

Domain

Set the Domain parameter to none.

Admin User, Admin Password, Confirm Password

The eG agent remotely communicates with each discovered LPAR on the pSeries server to obtain their "inside view". For this, the eG agent will have to be configured with the credentials of a valid user with access rights to each LPAR. If a single user is authorized to access all the LPARs on the pSeries server, provide the name and password of the user in the Admin User and Admin Password text boxes, and confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. On the other hand, if the test needs to communicate with different LPARs using different user accounts, then, multiple user names and passwords will have to be provided. To help administrators provide these multiple user details quickly and easily, the eG administrative interface embeds a special configuration page. To know how to use this page, refer to Configuring Users for LPAR Monitoring.

SSL

By default, the HMC/IVM server (as the case may be) is not SSL-enabled. This indicates that by default, the eG agent communicates with the HMC/IVM server using HTTP. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to No by default. If you configure the HMC/IVM server to use SSL, then make sure that the SSL flag is set to Yes, so that the eG agent communicates with the HMC/IVM server using HTTPS.

Ignore VMs Inside View

Administrators of some high security LPAR environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more LPARs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the 'inside view' of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the Ignore VMs Inside View parameter.  Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of LPAR names, or LPAR name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your Ignore VMs Inside View specification can be: *lp,aixlp*,lin*. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all LPARs on a pSeries server by default.

Note:

While performing LPAR discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the LPARs configured in the Ignore VMs Inside View text box.

Exclude VMs

Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical LPARs both from 'outside' and from 'inside'. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such LPARs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of LPARs to be excluded from monitoring in the Exclude VMs text box. Instead of LPARs, LPAR name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your Exclude VMs pecification can be: *lp,aixlp*,lin*. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all AIX LPARs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separated list of LPARs/LPAR name patterns in the Exclude VMs text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting 'inside' and 'outside' view metrics for a configured set of LPARs.

PacketSize

The size of packets used for the test (in bytes).

PacketCount

The number of packets to be transmitted during the test.

Timeout

How long after transmission should a packet be deemed lost (in seconds).

PacketInterval

Represents the interval (in milliseconds) between successive packet transmissions during the execution of the network test for a specific target.

ReportUnavailability

By default, this flag is set to No. This implies that, by default, the test will not report the unavailability of network connection to any LPAR. In other words, if the Network availability of VM measure of this test registers the value 0 for any LPAR, then, by default, this test will not report any measure for that LPAR; under such circumstances, the corresponding LPAR name will not appear as a descriptor of this test. You can set this flag to Yes, if you want the test to report and alert you to the unavailability of the network connection to an LPAR.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Avg network delay

Indicates the average delay between transmission of packet to a VM and receipt of the response to the packet at the source.

Secs

An increase in network latency could result from misconfiguration of the router(s) along the path, network congestion, retransmissions at the network, etc.

Min network delay

The minimum time between transmission of a packet and receipt of the response back.

Secs

A significant increase in the minimum round-trip time is often a sure sign of network congestion.

Packet loss

Indicates the percentage of packets lost during transmission from source to target and back.

Percent

Packet loss is often caused by network buffer overflows at a network router or by packet corruptions over the network. The detailed diagnosis for this measure provides a listing of routers that are on the path from the external agent to target server, and the delays on each hop. This information can be used to diagnose the hop(s) that could be causing excessive packet loss/delays.

Network availability of VM

Indicates whether the network connection is available or not.

Percent

A value of 100 indicates that the VM is connected. The value 0 indicates that the VM is not connected.

Typically, the value 100 corresponds to a Packet loss of 0.