Hey Klaus, I've had a great deal of success with Nagios on a couple of different Linux on z/VM systems. It is a simple monitoring tool that is really only limited by your creativity with scripting.
One of the benefits for z/VM is the fact that it uses a relatively small foot print and doesn't require any agents sucking up CPU cycles. However the management of Nagios can get a little tricky with 100s of servers that are coming and going rapidly. Without a doubt Nagios can check all of the items you have mentioned, but some will require a little scripting on your part. I've also seen the IBM Tivoli Monitoring framework in action and it is a very impressive tool that can also do what you need (and 10000000% more). It really depends on the level of complexity you are looking for and if you want to push the Linux tools on Linux approach or you are willing to go with proprietary solutions. Then again, freshmen students can run ping, df and free right? ;-) Good luck! -Chris Young On 8/15/07, Klaus Johansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi all, > > I'm writing my master's thesis about server consolidation using z/VM and > Linux on zSeries (learning VM as I go along). A part of my work concerns > monitoring. I'm supposed to find the best suited monitoring > product/program for the zPenguins where I am… > > We are running z9 EC, z/VM 5.2, SLES9 with Oracle 10 and a proprietary > software suite (a mix of C, C++, Java programs), which depends on ftp, > ssh, print services etc. > > Among the things we need to monitor are: > - CPU usage (I believe the Linux view will do for now) > - Memory consumption (unexpected swapping) > - Network availability > - Disk space > - Logs files sizes (not Linux logs) > - Service availability: ftp, ssh, oracle (listener) > > We need to send alerts/acknowledgments, when thresholds are exceeded and > shen values are normalized. The alert format has to be customizable > (alerts has to propagate into a larger monitoring setup using a specific > format). > > Until now I have stumbled on the following programs names: > - IBM Tivoli Monitoring > - IBM Tivoli Omegamon XE for Linux on zSeries > - Nagios > - Velocity Software ESALPS > - BMC Mainview > - CA VM:Monitor > > Some of these probably can't do what I'm looking for but I intent to > investigate into that… > > But if any of you could direct my attention to other products/programs, > or rule out any of the above before I start, maybe even give some advice > and recommendations, I would greatly appreciate it. > > Best, > Klaus Johansen > > Lyngby, Denmark > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or > visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
