For MCP systems, all information is transmitted by one or two running copies of the Operations Sentinel Interface for ClearPath MCP (also known as the MCP agent). This includes the following:
Console messages
Other configured Major,Minor-type messages from the system and standard applications sent in real time
Disk and disk family utilization messages
Messages from user provided agents running on the system that use the Operations Sentinel API
Levels 2.0 and later of the MCP agent lets you run two concurrent instances of the agent on an MCP system. The first instance is called the production MCP agent, and the second instance is called the test MCP agent. Unless noted otherwise, all descriptions in this section apply to both the production MCP agent and the test MCP agent.
These information sources are processed by SP-AMS, which can create event reports as well as send commands back to the system through the MCP agent. Each instance of the MCP agent treats the Operations Sentinel server that first connects to it as primary server and the server that connects to it next as secondary server. The MCP agent sends all output to both primary and secondary servers, as long as both are present. However, the production instance of the agent permits commands to reach the system only if the commands come from the primary server. The test instance of the agent does not permit commands from either server to reach the system. This allows automation testing without the possibility of submitting unwanted system commands.
Figure 16–3 shows the flow of information.