Operations Sentinel

Product Overview

Operations Sentinel goes beyond server management to simplify the operations complexity of your enterprise-wide IT infrastructure. As a fully featured solution, it automates, consolidates access, monitors, and manages multiple heterogeneous systems. The result is a streamlined process that reduces your total cost of ownership for both Unisys and other vendor products.

Operations Sentinel provides superior service quality at a reduced cost with the following benefits:

  • High system stability and availability

  • Immediate system and application status

  • Greater operator productivity

  • Complete remote management

  • Lower operations and support costs

You can use Operations Sentinel to centrally operate multiple MCP-based servers, as well as Microsoft Windows, OS 2200, Solaris, UnixWare, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, SVR4, other UNIX systems, VMS, and other system types.

Operations Sentinel is a client-server application. The server component runs on Windows Server XP Professional, 2003, 2008 or 2008R. The Operations Sentinel Console and Operations Sentinel Status on a Windows-based workstation enables you to monitor the state of all connected systems, recognize and respond to exception conditions, and assume control of any system, either local or remote. Operations Sentinel reduces the human interaction required to run each system, focuses the operator’s attention on key events, and enables one operator to effectively control the network of systems.

Operations Sentinel Interface for MCP supports Operations Sentinel monitoring, automation, and management for an MCP system or partition through a TCP/IP connection. Resiliency is built in with the capability to simultaneously communicate with two Operations Sentinel servers. You can install a second copy of the interface software to provide a management test environment along with your production environment.

Operations Sentinel Department Edition includes licenses for 25 Windows and other non-MCP nodes, and Operations Sentinel Enterprise Edition includes unlimited licenses.

Equivalent Operations Sentinel Interface software is available for other system types to enable their connection to Operations Sentinel.

General Features

Environments Managed

The environments that Operations Sentinel can manage range from large, centralized data centers with multiple mainframe-class systems to fully distributed environments. The systems being managed can be of one type or many different types.

The following figure shows an installation with multiple ClearPath MCP servers, in multiple data centers that are centrally controlled from a single point. Using Operations Sentinel, you can also control other systems such as a Windows server shown in the following figure.

In this figure, Operations Sentinel represents a Windows server running the Operations Sentinel server software and one or more additional Windows workstations running the client software.

Data centers A and B can be several hundred miles apart and yet be run from one location. For example, data center B might be a disaster recovery center that can be run in emergencies from data center A (the production site). The cartridge library unit (CLU) in data center B is a robotic tape subsystem that complements the remote operations features of Operations Sentinel.

Key Features

Operations Sentinel offers the following key features:

  • Topological high-level graphic displays for a unified view of dissimilar systems with a single click, which enables you to drill down and access detailed information.

  • An audit trail of messages and events with search and filter capabilities for quick isolation of specific information, plus a consolidation function to correlate information involving multiple systems.

  • Resource monitoring for MCP, UNIX, and OS 2200 systems that tracks 30 to 40 different attributes for each system.

  • Alert notification through cell phone pages, e-mail, serial devices (such as an LED wall panel display or a PC running a voice messaging package) and so on.

  • Total or direct control of local and remote servers and systems:

    • Remote operator display sessions (ODT) to MCP systems

    • Replicated console windows (for UNIX and other systems)

    • Direct console access for OS 2200 partitions in the ClearPath Server Dorado Series

    • Remote desktops to control workstations and servers that run a Windows Operating System

    • Message and event communications with managed systems

    • Partition Desktop for UNIX and Windows partitions in ClearPath servers

    • Terminal emulation and Secure Shell (SSH) sessions

  • Automation facilities that extend self-healing with prescribed solutions, functional samples, and capabilities for tailoring as described in the following points:

    • Every operator message from each connected system passes through the Operations Sentinel Autoaction Message System (SP-AMS), where it is compared to a database of message patterns that you define. When a match occurs, SP-AMS carries out a corresponding set of actions.

    • Actions include raising an alert, updating data in Operations Sentinel Status, logging an audit trail message, or sending a message to the originating system or another managed system, which can initiate a powerful sequence involving multiple systems.

    • Correlation for events and messages includes easy-to-use conditional logic that does not require programming expertise.

    • An integrated toolset for change management and offline verification tests is provided.

  • Graphical application for customized monitoring of hardware objects (such as disk and tape drives) and software objects (such as processes) on managed systems.

  • Customizable to meet needs of various users: operators, managers, help desk attendants, support personnel, and other data center staff.

    • Display of text, icons, window backgrounds

    • Online help that is enhanced with your operations knowledge base

    • Contextual notepads that support shift communications

    • Launch of your external applications on behalf of a managed system

  • Built-in self-healing. For example, agents automatically redirect communications, integral Operations Sentinel services recover themselves, and the Dorado console recovers by itself to resume operations without intervention.

  • Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) trap service plus a predefined database of traps and corresponding Operations Sentinel events for immediate results.

  • Support to set log policy for log files that are to be transferred to Enterprise Output Manager.

  • Integration with a wide range of systems and network management products:

    • Server Sentinel

    • HP OpenView

    • NetIQ AppManager

    • Service-led integration with job schedulers, media management, problem management, and performance management products from Unisys and other vendors.

    • Event Server application programming interface (API) for tightly coupled integration and management customization

Operations Sentinel Interface for ClearPath MCP

The Operations Sentinel Interface software running on each MCP system or partition supports the following capabilities.

  • Configurable heartbeat between the MCP system and Operations Sentinel.

  • Resiliency support that minimizes manual intervention for failovers. The primary and secondary Operations Sentinel servers for each managed ClearPath MCP system or partition are identified and assist with command and alert automation employed through Operations Sentinel.

  • Reporting of real-time system event, usage, and performance data from the MCP system to update bar charts, tables, and Operations Sentinel Status displays. The data contains a variety of information, including file usage, communication activity, and error information, plus job and task activity.

  • Reporting of MCP system log entries for automation, based on a user-defined filter policy.

  • Response to commands sent from the Operations Sentinel server as a result of initiated automation actions. Commands submitted are processed on the MCP system as if operations personnel had entered them. Commands sent from other servers to the MCP system using Operations Sentinel cross-system automation capabilities are also processed this way.

  • Disk utilization monitoring for disk families and individual disk packs, based on the monitoring threshold levels you set. This software also raises or clears alerts in Operations Sentinel Console when utilization crosses user-defined thresholds.

  • Reporting of periodic information about disk utilization to maintain ongoing information about configured disk families and disk packs in Operations Sentinel Status displays.

  • API library support for MCP software programs, such as an application or database monitor, so that these programs can send additional system status information directly to Operations Sentinel.

Configuration Requirements

Refer to the Software Release Announcement for Operations Sentinel Level 17.0 (7862 6512) for information about the configuration requirements. The document is available from the Product Support Site. (www.support.unisys.com)

Ordering Information

An Operations Sentinel order comprises a number of hardware and software components. Details can vary depending on the number, type, and location of systems to be managed. Contact your Unisys representative for details. Source code is not available for this product.

You must order the Operations Sentinel Interface for ClearPath MCP separately.

Product Information

Refer to the following documents for more information:

  • Single Point Operations Interface for ClearPath MCP Installation and Configuration Guide (7844 8131)

  • Single Point Operations Interface for ClearPath MCP Software Release Announcement (7847 5449)

  • Operations Sentinel Administration and Configuration Guide (7862 2321)

  • Operations Sentinel Autoaction Message System Administration Guide (7862 6900)

  • Operations Sentinel Event Server Application Program Interface Programming Guide (7844 8107)

  • Operations Sentinel Event Server C# API Programming Guide (3850 6556)

  • Operations Sentinel Master Glossary (7847 4244)

  • Operations Sentinel Software Release Announcement (7862 6512)

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