IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3

Creating a historical collection

A historical data collection specifies the attribute group to collect data from, where to store the historical data, and other information such as the collection frequency and distribution. Create a historical collection definition for every attribute group that you want to collect historical data for. You can then retrieve the historical data into query-based views.

Before you begin

Your user ID must have Configure History permission to open the History Collection Configuration window. If you do not have this permission, you will not see the menu item or tool for historical configuration.

The CCC Logs apply to all managed systems: Agent Operations Log, ITM Audit, and Universal Messages. The Policy_Status and System_Status attributes do not record historical data. Typical environments do not use the EIB Change Log and Situation Status Log attribute groups.

About this task

Complete these steps for each attribute group that you want to collect historical data from on specified managed systems or managed system groups or on all the managed systems that connect to a Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server:

Procedure

  1. Click History Configuration to open the History Collection Configuration window.
  2. Click Create a new collection. If you first click a Monitored Application (or right-click and click New), Monitored Application will be selected for you.
  3. Enter a Name of up to 256 bytes. A short name is also given to the collection and is shown in the middle section of the status bar.
  4. Optional: Enter a Description for the collection, up to 64 bytes.
  5. Select a Monitored Application from the list.
  6. Select an Attribute Group from the list. Not all the product attribute groups necessarily display: only those that are appropriate for historical collection and reporting.
  7. Click OK to open the configuration tabs for the collection. The branch of the monitored applications expands to show the new collection. At this point, it has not been distributed to the managed systems.
  8. Complete the fields in the Basic tab:
    1. Collection Interval is the frequency of data transmission to the short-term history file on the computer where the data is saved (Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Agent or Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server). The options are every 1, 5, 15, or 30 minutes, every hour, or once per day. The default interval is 15 minutes.
      The shorter the interval, the faster and larger the history file grows. This can overload the database, warehouse proxy, and summarization and pruning agent. For example, if you set a 1-minute collection interval for Process data, expect the summarization and pruning for that attribute group to take a long time. Such a short interval should be enabled for an attribute group only if it is critical in your work.
    2. Collection Location is where the short-term historical data file resides: at the TEMA (Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Agent) or the TEMS (Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server). The default location is TEMA, which minimizes the performance impact on the monitoring server from historical data management.
      If you are filtering the historical collection (step 9), collection at the TEMA also gives you more space for composing the filter. The formula example at the end of this topic takes up 63% of the formula storage when collection is set to TEMS; and 31% when collection is set to TEMA..
      Note, however, that TEMS might be a better choice for certain environments. Also, the OMEGAMON XE on z/OS product requires that the data be stored at the monitoring server.
    3. Warehouse Interval determines whether the collected data is warehoused and how often. The options are 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, 1 day, or Off.
      A more frequent warehousing interval enables quicker availability of warehoused data for retrieval. Shorter intervals cause some additional processing to check for and transmit newly collected data; and there are more frequent elevated levels of transmission activity, but for shorter durations. Regardless of the warehouse interval, the most recent 24 hours are always available in the short-term history files. If you use Tivoli Common Reporting, note that queries are to the data warehouse only.
  9. If you want to restrict the collection of samples to only those that meet certain conditions, click the Filter tab and compose the formula:
    1. Click Add Attributes.
    2. Select the attribute to filter on and click OK. You can use Ctrl + click to select multiple attributes, Shift + click to select all entries between the attribute previously selected and this one, or Select All to select every attribute.
    3. For each attribute selected, click inside the cell under the column heading and compose an expression formula cell consisting of a function, a relational operator and a test value:
      To change the function, click Value (or Compare date and time for a time attribute) and select one from the list. See Formula functions for the syntax, description, and an example of each function.
      To change the relational operator, click Equal to equal and select another operator from the list.
      Click inside the text box and enter or select the value.
    4. Keep multiple expressions in the same row if they must all be met (Boolean AND logic) and on separate rows if any of them might be met (Boolean OR logic) for the sample to be saved in the short-term history file.
    5. Select the same attribute twice if you want to collect a range, such as > 1 AND < 90. Use Add Attributes to select the attribute again. (See the second example at the end of this topic.)
    6. Confirm that the Formula capacity counter is below 100%. Setting the Collection Location (step 8) to TEMA gives the most space.
  10. Click Apply to save the collection.

Results

The collection name appears in the monitored application branch of the tree with an icon to indicate that it is not distributed to managed systems: .

Example

This is a historical collection called "ProcessInformation". The settings in the Basic tab use the defaults: Collection Interval of 5 minutes; Collection Location at the TEMA; and Warehouse Interval of 15 minutes. The Filter tab has a formula written to collect the sample if one of these two conditions is met: the process name is VirusScan; OR the process name is java and is taking more than 50% of the processor time on the North012 Windows system, the South007 Windows system, or both.
  Process Name % Processor Time Server Name
1 ==VirusScan    
2 ==java >50 ('Primary:North012:NT', 'Primary:South007:NT')
The IN operator was selected for entering the server list, as you can see when viewing the formula in :
(Process Name==VirusScan) OR (Process Name==java AND %Processor Time >50
AND Server Name *IN ('Primary:North012:NT','Primary:South007:NT'))
The following example shows a filter formula with a repeating attribute:
  % Processor Time % Processor Time
1 >40 <60

What to do next

After creating a new collection definition, you must distribute it to the managed systems where you want to take data samples. You can assign the managed systems to distribute the collection to in the Distribution tab or assign the collection to a historical configuration group that has a distribution. If you are not ready to distribute the collection, you can do so at a later time.

If you added a filter to restrict the collection data samples to samples that meet the criteria, test the formula to make sure that the intended data is being collected. It is possible to enter an incorrect value, which might result in no data being collected. To test the filter formula, wait until enough historical data has been collected to show in a historical table view of the attributes. Then set a time span for the table view. If no rows are retrieved to the table view, review the filter formula for typographical or value errors.



Feedback