Monitoring Novell eDirectory

To capture and present these metrics in the monitoring console in a user-friendly format, eG Enterprise provides, not one, but two eDirectory monitoring models – the EDirectory (Netware) model to monitor eDirectory on the Netware operating system, and the EDirectory (Win/Unix) model for monitoring the eDirectory on Windows and Unix operating systems. Figure 1 depicts the Edirectory (Netware) monitoring model.

Figure 1 : The layer model of an eDirectory server

Though both the EDirectory (Netware) and EDirectory (Win/Unix) models share the same set of layers, the difference lies in the tests mapped to the operating system-specific layers – in other words, the bottom 4 layers of Figure 1. To know the details of tests mapped to these 4 layers on Windows/Unix environments, refer to the Monitoring Unix and Windows Servers document. Similarly, to know which tests are associated with these 4 layers on Netware, refer to Chapter 4 in the Monitoring Applications that Support the Host Resources MIB document. This document however, will discuss the details of tests mapped to and metrics reported by the topmost layer of Figure 1.

Once the SNMP agent (i.e., the operating system's SNMP service) and sub-agent (i.e., eDirectory's SNMP service) are up and running, the eG agent communicates with the agent and sub-agent to collect the required metrics from within eDirectory's SNMP MIB.